Tonight Lewisham council were discussing and voting on a sixty million pound cuts package in public services. One eye witness took this rather exciting footage of the crowd (estimates of around 400?) as they tried to get into the meeting.
Second video here. Third video here. Thanks 'Hangbitch'!
One report talks of police dogs and horses (here) and the Lewisham twitter feed is going mental. (here). There were a whole host of Goldsmith's students there as well as campaigners for local libraries, against education cuts and to save the nurseries.
The cuts package was approved 36 for, 3 against and 11 abstentions. That's Labour for, Lib Dems all abstained and Greens and Tories voted against.
Darren Johnson explained why he was going to vote against the budget here and I had some some other thoughts about councillors in a time of cuts here. Pic of protesters on council balcony as councillors look up in awe (good shot of the back of Darren's head there) here. BBC report here and pic of loads of horsies and cop cars here more arty one here.
More here;
Blackheath Bugle. Lewisham Right to Work. Dave Hill in the Guardian. Transpontine. Brockley Central. AVPS. Guardian.
Showing posts with label Public Services. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public Services. Show all posts
Monday, 29 November 2010
Thursday, 15 July 2010
Steve Bullock disrespects local campaigners
First posted at The Daily (Maybe)
To think I voted for Sir Steve Bullock second preference at this year's Lewisham Mayoral election. Anyway, he's repaid my act of charity by branding protesters against the cuts "fucking idiots" and demanded that they "get real" - all while he was chairing a cabinet meeting. That's multi-tasking for you.
So much for Labour being the anti-cuts party. In Lewisham we're blessed with the fact that those fighting the cuts find themselves opposed to both the Liberal-Tory national coalition and the Labour council who were announcing closures before we even knew who the national government was.
Last night around one hundred protesters lobbied the council over their plans to, among other things, close five local libraries, shut down nurseries and reduce council staff. For an area where unemployment is on the rise the loss of local services and laying off workers seems completely the wrong way to go.
Hangbitch who attended the protest says that "we all know that these immediate economies are false economies. Bullock’s huge list targets people we (literally) can’t afford to target."
Meanwhile what does Sir Steve have to say about his disrespect for those who want decent public services and had hoped that this Labour council would fight to keep every job? “I think I may have left the mic on while I was making an aside.”
I'm assuming "aside" is a euphemism that we'll all be taking up soon in Lewisham. I'm pretty sure they'll be plenty of "asides" made about Sir Steve's attitude in the coming months as the council prepares the redundancy notices.
To think I voted for Sir Steve Bullock second preference at this year's Lewisham Mayoral election. Anyway, he's repaid my act of charity by branding protesters against the cuts "fucking idiots" and demanded that they "get real" - all while he was chairing a cabinet meeting. That's multi-tasking for you.
So much for Labour being the anti-cuts party. In Lewisham we're blessed with the fact that those fighting the cuts find themselves opposed to both the Liberal-Tory national coalition and the Labour council who were announcing closures before we even knew who the national government was.Last night around one hundred protesters lobbied the council over their plans to, among other things, close five local libraries, shut down nurseries and reduce council staff. For an area where unemployment is on the rise the loss of local services and laying off workers seems completely the wrong way to go.
Hangbitch who attended the protest says that "we all know that these immediate economies are false economies. Bullock’s huge list targets people we (literally) can’t afford to target."
Meanwhile what does Sir Steve have to say about his disrespect for those who want decent public services and had hoped that this Labour council would fight to keep every job? “I think I may have left the mic on while I was making an aside.”
I'm assuming "aside" is a euphemism that we'll all be taking up soon in Lewisham. I'm pretty sure they'll be plenty of "asides" made about Sir Steve's attitude in the coming months as the council prepares the redundancy notices.
Friday, 12 February 2010
The market in public services: expensive, inefficient and unaccountable
Many public services in Lewisham are now being run by private companies. Whether that’s through outsourcing schemes like PFI, straight sell offs or the piece meal farming out of cleaning contracts, catering and maintenance.
This obsession with getting the market to run our public services has resulted in a worse service at a higher price. More than that because the services are now at arm’s length from elected officials they are all too often unaccountable.
Time after time on the doorstep in Crofton Park we hear horror stories about badly run services doing a shoddy job of housing repairs, paying their staff poverty wages or simply not delivering at all. But because these are private companies it is far harder to hold them to account than council run services.
Housing, schools, the health service and not to mention public transport all suffer when they are sold off to private companies. Far from improving these services free market dogma has gutted them so we end up paying more for less.
The Greens want to safeguard public services to provide quality and value for money under democratic control. That means resisting the drive to privatisation, and outsourcing. We believe in publicly owned public services where the focus is on the needs of the community not the bank balances of share holders.
This obsession with getting the market to run our public services has resulted in a worse service at a higher price. More than that because the services are now at arm’s length from elected officials they are all too often unaccountable.
Time after time on the doorstep in Crofton Park we hear horror stories about badly run services doing a shoddy job of housing repairs, paying their staff poverty wages or simply not delivering at all. But because these are private companies it is far harder to hold them to account than council run services.
Housing, schools, the health service and not to mention public transport all suffer when they are sold off to private companies. Far from improving these services free market dogma has gutted them so we end up paying more for less.
The Greens want to safeguard public services to provide quality and value for money under democratic control. That means resisting the drive to privatisation, and outsourcing. We believe in publicly owned public services where the focus is on the needs of the community not the bank balances of share holders.
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