This is Barnet Council in 2016. Tardy Tories and lazy Labour councillors, all getting a minimum of ten grand a year but doing b@gg@r all to actually deserve it.
I believe the people of Barnet deserve far better. The men responsible for this mess are disgraced former Tory Councillor Brian Coleman and Finchley MP Mike Freer. These two organised a coup after the 2006 council election that saw Freer installed as leader and Coleman as puppet master. They brought in an army of highly paid consultants. These sold provision of council services to Capita. As this has failed to deliver the promised savings,they now have to dig ever deeper for savings.
Capita have got Barnet tied up on long term contracts. These even guarantee Capita a share of council savings under a scheme called gain share. This means that Capita shareholders benefit from library cuts that penalise children, teenagers and OAP's.
Of course they don't put this on the glossy leaflets that they put through your door at elections. Sadly this isn't in the Labour Party literature either.
This is Barnet in 2016. If you want to change how the council is run,don't picket the Town Hall. Picket The CapitaAGM as they run the council. I would however urge you to do one thing to register your disgust. Vote anyone but Conservative in the Forthcoming Mayoral and GLA elections. The Tory candidate in the GLA is a big supporter of library cuts. Send theConservatives a message they can't ignore.
Roger, check your facts before you criticize the missing Labour councillors as lazy: Amy Trevethan had resigned, Phil Cohen and REbecca Challice were in hospital, and Andreas Ioannidis was in Greece to help with the refugee crisis. The lazy ones are the councillors who voted for the libraries cuts without reading the documents or asking any questions.
ReplyDeleteKind regards
Barbara Jacobson
Barbara,
ReplyDeleteDo you think that the majority of Labour Councillors deserve the £10K minimum they get. You have completely missed the point. I said that Tory councillors are tweeting about the Labour turnout. How did I get my facts wrong? Check their twitter links.
You may think our Labour councillors are hard working. I don't. Ive been on dozens of protests where only a small minority turn up. They were complicit with the Torys in ruling out the return of Your Choice Barnet to an in house solution, when they had the chance to make a clear statement.
They have done nothing to publicise the issues with Gainshare, despite the work done by Barnet bloggers to try and expose this. This is lazy in my opinion. Barnet Labour has failed the people of Barnet and is continuing to do so. If they don't want to be seen as lazy and they have a genuine excuse, they should make sure that the likes of Hugh Rayner are properly responded to when he tweets as follows
"Hugh Rayner @50barnet Apr 5
4/4/16 Full Council. With so many important issues 2 consider (inc libraries) why did Labour group not get full turn out? (Rebbecca except) "
"Hugh Rayner @50barnet Apr 5
@BarnetLabour No force. Some of your members (Rebbecca excepted) didn't even bother to turn up to oppose! "