Interview with Anthony Molloy, Labour candidate in Kilburn, Brent

 Interview with Anthony Molloy, Labour candidate in Kilburn, Brent

• Why a Labour candidate in Kilburn?

I’ve always been a member of the Labour Party, I’m a socialist through and through, and the reason I’m standing now is because I recently retired and I have the time to do the job of councillor properly.

• What are the main issues you want to prioritise in the campaign?

I have an expertise in a couple of areas, I work with an organisation called the Labour Land Campaign, which tackles land issues, mostly about land value taxation and wealth taxation. My experience with that organisation has given me some some expertise on land-related issues, and one of the main land-related issues in Britain and elsewhere consists in the construction of social housing and the funding of big regeneration and infrastructure projects: that relationship between developers and public authorities is completely asymmetrical, you have a skyscraper of lawyers and accountants on one side (for the developer); and basically local authorities aren’t using the powers they actually have to the full extent, notably in the use of public land. I can bring some expertise in that field and Kilburn is a site of major regeneration plans: there’s one project down in the south of the ward.

The other area of expertise that I have in this outsource times is that I know how to read contracts (a skill that most representatives lack), specially in an unprivileged ward like this one within an average borough, where we see the basic services like rubbish collection not being fulfilled. What you have to do is find out the contraventions, go to the contract, see if there’s a contravention and then if it is, pursue it so they have to pay. Outsourcers have to pay, and they don’t like to do that, and hopefully that will improve services. The point is that the services in my part of the borough are obviously being underprovided compared with other richer parts of the borough. Kilburn is definitely underprivileged compared with close wards like Queen’s Park.

• Why is Labour the best alternative to the other parties in the area?

Because, certainly in my ward, the rents are high; so a Labour councillor is the only one that’s going to construct social housing to solve the housing crisis.