This meant defying the party whip, but she survived to continue fighting for her constituents. “Aileen and the rebels were right and I was wrong,” said Phil Turner, a member of the council’s leadership at the time. Both libraries survived.
In recent years, her belief in the vital importance of education led Aileen to initiate and run for ten years a very successful children’s competition to improve the environment on behalf of the Camden Civic Society.
At the Safer Neighbourhoods Board, she spoke against some of the more arbitrary aspects of policing in the borough and was an advocate of fairness in the application of stop and search policies.