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F29: Why lobby the cop-out council

O

One_Stop_Shop

Well-Known Member
Lobby of Lambeth Council – 29 February 6pm at Lambeth Town Hall

Lambeth’s Labour led council has been spending thousands of pounds of taxpayers money selling us their vision of the Co-Operative council. But, what exactly does this mean?

You will have heard a lot of phrases like:

“shared responsibility for delivering services”.


This just means our communities will have the responsibility to deliver the services for free or they will close.

“Involving the people who use services in their planning and delivery”.


This just means that the Council will tell you what they are going to do after the decisions have already been made and then ignore what you think anyway.
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More on the link below:

http://lambethsaveourservices.org/2012/01/31/f29-why-lobby-the-cop-out-councils/#comments
 
The adverts on your webpage; are they intentional?!

Today I've had one for Groupon, with the strap line "Love More, Spend Less", and one for Weight Watchers. I assume the ad agency trawls for keywords?
 
Of course adverts aren't intentional! I guess whoever set up SOS website had to put up with that to lower costs.

Personally I don't know exactly how much has been spent on cooperative council propaganda but they have employed consultancy firms and plastered council buildings with glossy inane posters and got officers to spends god knows how many hours producing lengthy and frequent documents full of gumpf and meaningless soundbites. It was obviously an idea thought up on the hoof and one that Cameron seems all on favour of as in reality it puts a nice sounding gloss on severe cuts and privatisation, as Lambeth shows. So far it's seen huge cuts to adventure playground opening hours and the call centre being moved to Southampton, to name a couple of examples. On the first case the cabinet member said the staff who lost their jobs might want to volunteer for no pay and in the second the deputy leader gave a Norman Tebbit type get on your bike intervention aimed at staff protesting at the scrutiny committee. The labour councillors, cllr Abrams aside, don't seem to have a principle between them.
 
It's far far more than 7k now. They advertised for three or four people on 50-60k posts to come up with ideas about what the co-operative council is (they were advertised as zero hour contracts so hard to tell how many hours they will do). When you take in to account all the officer time spent on it it must be well over 100k if not more.

The fact that the politicians need to employ a team of people to tell them what their idea means shows what a farce it all is.
 
So are people coming along to this and building for it? We now have support for the demo from Lambeth UNISON, GMB, PCS, UCU, NUT, RMT (Bakerloo Branch and London Region), Lambeth Pensioners Action Group, Disabled People Against the Cuts, Lambeth Defend Council Housing, UKUnCut, Occupy and many others.
 
One_Stop_Shop said:
So are people coming along to this and building for it?...
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well I think if people want to put their money where their mouth is in terms of the cancellation of the country show, the cutting of freedom travel passes for mentally ill people, the 7.2% rise in council rents, the cheap flogging off of public land/buildings by the council etc then they should turn up!

See you there
 
Bump! As it's today - put some pressure on the councillors by coming to the lobby! Don't forget to ask your local public servants what's going to happen to services under their shiny co-op scheme in year 4 when the funding stops.
 
A glimpse of what will be done is the Adventure Playgrounds, which the co-op council has cut to a skeleton service and is now hiving off to the charity sector.

Be there tonight if you can :)
 
I was at the demo. I would have liked to see a bit more people. The usual organisations were out but where for example are the unaffiliated angry mob of Brixton residents? I feel they need to be mobilised.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to hearing what happened inside the chamber.
 
Rather like the start of the NHS protests last year, I am sometimes bemused about what it will take to get masses of people out and angry - but I'd also say someone like yourself as a clearly passionate person needs to get involved in the campaigns as much as they can - kids, work, life permitting. The more people get involved the broader the base.
 
I am involved a bit as I belong to a local union and am busy fighting the battle against cuts to our maternity package. But it isn't really clear how else to get involved.

I work four days so I don't go into these places so much any more but talks in childrens' centers and one 'o clock clubs, particularly just before some action might get some mums there. I know people don't like to use too much paper but dropping cards into doors might work too as I doubt many people on my street even knew. I don't mean to belittle what's being done, I'm really grateful to the people at the forefront but damn, I want some pitchforks. And I'm trying to be optimistic that people do actually care enough.
 
After a lot of speeches about how unfair and damaging the budget is that very budget was passed 38-13. There was a lot of talk about the "creative solution" of the Co-op Council - a solution which expects many services to become unviable in four years after funding is stopped. It is really vital that we keep fighting.
 
lagtbd said:
After a lot of speeches about how unfair and damaging the budget is that very budget was passed 38-13. There was a lot of talk about the "creative solution" of the Co-op Council - a solution which expects many services to become unviable in four years after funding is stopped. It is really vital that we keep fighting.
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:( I feel ANOTHER letter to Chukka coming on. If only they were worth anything.

What are the next big cuts?
 
lagtbd said:
After a lot of speeches about how unfair and damaging the budget is that very budget was passed 38-13. There was a lot of talk about the "creative solution" of the Co-op Council - a solution which expects many services to become unviable in four years after funding is stopped. It is really vital that we keep fighting.
Click to expand...

By my reckoning that means that 11 Councillors were absent (I'm presuming the chair doesnt vote) - were there lots of apologies? I would have thought that voting on the budget was one of the most important council meetings of the year?
 
se5 said:
By my reckoning that means that 11 Councillors were absent (I'm presuming the chair doesnt vote) - were there lots of apologies? I would have thought that voting on the budget was one of the most important council meetings of the year?
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It does, but unfortunately I wasn't in the meeting myself and I've found that information impossible to come by on the Lambeth website so far.
 
Chilavert said:
Federation Coffee, Starbucks or Costa?
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I had my coffee and then went to the demo.

I think there is a lot of apathy. But I also think the communication could be better. How about a human chain around the town hall for a demonstration, a post budget demonstration.
 
I wouldn't expect so, especially as he's PPS to Miliband. Too 'important' and might be seen on undue national inference on local government.
 
Oh dear, I always email Chuka but really I should be emailing any of these other deadbeats: Ruth Ling, Adedamola Aminu and Marcia Cameron. Any of them worth the time?

And just to offset the fact that I sound like an absolute idiot, I am a foreigner so how things are run is not always crystal clear to me.
 
Surprising that Vassall councillor Kingsley Abrams wasnt there given the high profile anti-cuts stance hes taken or has he been silenced / prevented from attending by the Labour whips?
 
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