The Blue Badge shame of Wandsworth Tories

On Saturday I brought a Southfields constituent, Christine Walker, to meet with Sadiq Khan MP, Minister for Transport and MP for next-door Tooting.

Mrs Walker's mum suffers from some serious disabilities, including Meniere's Disease which affects balance meaning that sufferers often cannot walk without falling over. More than a year ago, after being assessed for Attendance Allowance, the Department of Work & Pensions assessor set the ball rolling to get her a disabled person's blue badge so that she can be driven around more easily by her husband.

As is usual and right, Wandsworth Council invited Mrs Walker's mum in for an assessment, to make sure she wasn't attempting to fraudulently obtain a badge. Having failed to adequately test her - at no time, for example, was she asked to walk unaided (which she can't) to demonstrate the severity of her Meniere's problems - and then subjected her to a rigorous interview, the council denied her claim for a badge on the grounds that she wasn't sufficiently disabled. So badly treated was she that she had an angina attack in the foyer of the town hall.

That's when Mrs Walker asked for my help - and as a result of repeated interventions the council eventually consented to review the decision, but only if her mother was willing to undergo another medical test and interview. Understandably, the family was unwilling to put their mum through this ordeal again - and have made the fair point that either the council believes it was right, and should therefore stick to its guns, or that it thinks it's wrong and is trying to save face by agreeing to a retest when instead they should just accept their mistake and issue the badge.

This nonsense has been grinding on for over a year now. The council still has not backed down, and that's despite representations from her GP and consultants, from the Department of Work & Pensions which recognises the severity of her disability; from the Local Government Ombudsman and from local legal advice organisations.

When people like me talk about the carelessness and callousness of the Tory regime in Wandsworth we do so because we've seen at first hand the sharp end of Wandsworth Conservatism - a far cry from the soft-centred Conservatism David Cameron would like you to believe characterises his party. And it's examples like this that go to the heart of our criticism of how the Tories treat anyone who actually needs help from the council.

I'm in politics because I believe we have a duty to those who need help - we should never walk on by when we see people whose lives could be immeasurably transformed with just a little support and intervention. This outlook isn't shared by Putney Conservatives. They clearly couldn't care less about Mrs Walker's mother.