It was billed as a Cabinet meeting. It played out like a tragicomedy written by ChatGPT, directed by a corporate wellness coach, and performed by councillors so self-consciously aware of their own image, they forgot to govern.
Welcome to Wandsworth, where the politics is as hollow as a leftover party balloon and the stakes — though high — are smothered in soft-focus platitudes and performative nods.
The set is a sterile webcast of Wandsworth’s Labour Cabinet, chairs neatly arranged in a circle like an awkward team-building session. The plot: a £9 million spending spree, a school closure, and the systematic dismantling of democratic oversight — delivered with all the emotional resonance of a soggy digestive.
“I’m really pleased… I’m really pleased…”
These were the opening words of a Cabinet Member introducing a discussion on refugee grants. That set the tone of the evening — which was not so much Cabinet government as corporate away-day recap. One by one, councillors queued up to say how delighted they were to spend millions in public money — not with scrutiny, not with analysis, but with a kind of Instagram Live energy, as though the real audience was somewhere behind a ring light.
There were no hard questions. No challenge. No public present. This wasn’t democracy — it was theatre for the leader’s approval. Because while the viewers at home were virtually nonexistent, every Cabinet member knew who was watching: Simon Hogg, whose leadership survived an attempted coup late last month, instigated by none other than his own ward-mate, Kate Stock. Her absence from the room said more than any speech could.
Stock’s old job as Cabinet Member for Children has been hastily reassigned – a fact that the former Environment Cabinet Member Judi Gasser sheepishly relayed to a room full of school heads earlier that day at the Wandsworth Schools Forum. A nervous supply teacher in someone else’s chair.
£9 million spent, and not a single disagreement. Not even an awkward cough.
This is what happens when you kill scrutiny. Wandsworth Labour disbanded the key checks and balances that once forced a flicker of accountability into their decisions. In its place, we now get a scripted showreel of self-congratulation, complete with fake questions lobbed across the room like warm bread rolls at a team lunch.
Take Councillor Ireland’s question:
“I was just wondering, if residents or any community groups come forward with suggestions about gaps in provision, how easy would it be to expand on this list?”
The answer, of course, was very easy. “Please come forward!” the leader chirped, as though this entire £12.5 million allocation was just a Kickstarter campaign waiting for a few more Likes.
There was talk of “playgrounds not replaced like-for-like”, with the kind of reverence usually reserved for urban renewal manifestos, but here it sounded like someone describing a gym revamp on Nextdoor.
And then — the school closure.
St Anne’s Catholic Primary School, set to close due to declining numbers. You might expect gravity. Sincerity. Instead, we got a masterclass in language so euphemistic it bordered on fan fiction. The deputy chief executive, wheeled out to introduce the report, offered this surreal lament:
“The willingness and desire to work in partnership… has made this process a decision, one which has arrived at with kindness… embrace the loving and inclusive spirit of St Anne’s in your hearts…”
Was this a council meeting or a TED Talk about breaking up kindly?
Leader Simon Hogg described the decision to close the school that has served Wandsworth for 100 years “very sad,” with the conviction of a man asked to cry at the funeral of a neighbour’s pet he never met. Councillor Gasser followed up with a grim reading of numbers — 58 pupils left, 26 of whom are Year 6 and leaving anyway — as if announcing a disappointing change to train timetables.
Except, of course, for the small matter of why this happened — why Wandsworth’s school rolls have collapsed, why the Council had no rescue plan, why Wandsworth is shutting schools at a higher rate than any other part of London, why parents had called the consultation process “a whitewash”. But no one asked that. They were too busy thanking each other. Amazingly, it was the same last month.
This is governance by second-rate influencers.
The Cabinet has become a live-streamed pep rally. In place of accountability, we have “reflections”, “updates”, and “conversations”. Councillors read from scripts. Officers deliver speeches like they’re practising for a podcast. Cabinet is no longer a decision-making body — it’s a branded content platform.
Wandsworth deserves better than this. Better than soft-focus spending announcements. Better than the “Are there any comments?” silence after each paper. Better than a Cabinet so paranoid about keeping their jobs they daren’t ask a difficult question.
There is still power here. Still real decisions being made. Still millions being spent. Still schools being closed. But you wouldn’t know it from watching. Because the plot is lost, the characters are flat, and the script is just bad TV.
And worst of all — it’s not even trending.
