Labour politicians are in deep financial trouble due to a £14 million hole opening up in the Council housing accounts after officers bungled the budget for temporary accommodation for the homeless and a failure to balance the rent account.

Cllr Irene Kimm, Conservative housing spokesperson, says:  “Lambeth Housing is as bankrupt as Northern Rock was before Brown’s bail out.  Every taxpayer will pay the price of Labour incompetence, but our hard pressed tenants who are not on benefits and pay the full rent will suffer most.”

The crisis is so bad that finance officers advised Labour that if they failed to act the finance director would freeze all expenditure using government powers.  One option was to introduce an immediate £5 a week rent rise from December just in time for Christmas.

Unofficial estimates say the total bill in Lambeth for Labour’s profligacy could be as much as £22 million.  As well as hiking rents, the Council is docking the money given to tenant management organisations by a whopping £3.6 million in the next 18 months.

“Not surprisingly, no senior jobs have been cut although up to 30 middle managers will go,” says Irene Kimm

“No doubt the fat cats in the town hall will go on drawing their salaries to preside over this shambles.”