Leader – Hackney Council’s gesture politics over betting shops

Something must be done!

With great fanfare Hackney’s Labour leadership has thrown up its hands and uttered these immortal – and vague – words in relation to what it calls the ‘blight’ of betting shops.

To be fair, it has done a bit more than this – Hackney Council, along with numerous other local authorities, is writing to local government secretary Eric Pickles asking for Town Halls to be handed more powers to restrict where bookies can set up shop.

Licensing laws place bookies in the same bracket as financial institutions, meaning councils cannot normally refuse them permission to open simply because of the type of businesses they are.

But if Hackney’s Labour leadership is really serious about helping gambling addicts to kick their habit, it could do more than merely rail against what Mayor Jules Pipe has called “financial vampires”.

The Town Hall could resolve to plough money into services for those suffering from this disease rather engaging in mere gesture politics.

The Association of British Bookmakers (ABB) does of course have its own agenda, but it is not wrong when it describes the Town Hall’s stance as “political posturing”.

Betting shops per se are not the problem. When politicians talk about problem gambling they are presumably referring to high speed, high stakes betting terminals rather than a flutter on the gee-gees.  Betting machines rake in money for betting shops as punters can lose thousands of pounds on them in minutes.

And not all betting happens on the high street. Much of it now takes place online.

The ABB has recently agreed on new restrictions to allow customers to place their own limits on the amount of money they can spend on betting machines after coming under pressure from Labour figures including Ed Miliband.

But which party deregulated gambling and encouraged ‘supercasinos’ when in power nationally? None other than Labour, whose hand-wringing seems like frantically trying to slam shut the stable door after the horse has bolted.

Labour’s error in allowing betting shops to flourish was at least acknowledged by Mayor Pipe at last month’s full council meeting.

Perhaps he has a longer memory than some.