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Why Labour are Scum

Mr.Bishie said:
News from last night's budget in Brighton - Warren Morgan leader of the Labour council did a deal with the Tories to cut union rep facility time! You really couldn't make that shit up! :mad:
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Sadly, we are not really surprised though are we!
 
redsquirrel said:
So are any of the new joined Labour members willing to go up against Labour councils enforcing cuts?

Anger as Derby plans to hand over most of city's libraries to volunteers
Lancashire council to close more than 20 libraries
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In fairness there's bog-all Labour councils can do about central funding cuts, their ability to set up alternative funding streams was stripped away years ago and they can't refuse to set a "balanced budget" because the regulator just gets sent in to do it for them. It makes council elections something of a sham but no-one's made a fuss about that for a very long time.
 
The councils themselves could make more of the fact they are being shafted though, in sheffield, you wouldn't know they have made huge cuts in social care, they even have a motion to council this week, where they praise themselves for not cutting too much.
 
treelover said:
The councils themselves could make more of the fact they are being shafted though, in sheffield, you wouldn't know they have made huge cuts in social care, they even have a motion to council this week, where they praise themselves for not cutting too much.
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Gotta maintain the vanishing pretense that council elections mean something - turnout's barely 30% as it is. Especially Labour, who lose out from low voter numbers (though they do generally blame the Tories for shortfalls before saying "look we found a solution, aren't we clever").
 
Rob Ray said:
In fairness there's bog-all Labour councils can do about central funding cuts, their ability to set up alternative funding streams was stripped away years ago and they can't refuse to set a "balanced budget" because the regulator just gets sent in to do it for them. It makes council elections something of a sham but no-one's made a fuss about that for a very long time.
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There's an argument to be made - an argument I've unsuccessfully made with local councillors - that councils should set "unbalanced" budgets in order to force recognition that central government austerity measures are destroying public services. Unfortunately, many Labour councillors don't have the courage of their convictions or, as in the case of one Lambeth councillor who was rather too candid with me, they don't want to damage their political careers by being linked to "rebellious" behaviour.
 
Aren't they financially liable for the difference if they set an unbalanced budget? I may have been imagining it but I thought Thatcher did something like that so they'd end up in debtors' prison or something.
 
Surcharging was done away with fifteen years ago. Now they're just disbarred and any unbalanced budget is simply thrown out by officials and a government appointed team comes in instead.

Local democracy, making North Korea look tempting since 1996
 
Has any council ever done it? I wonder how politically possible it would be to disbar an elected council in reality (for this at least)?
 
belboid said:
Surcharging was done away with fifteen years ago. Now they're just disbarred and any unbalanced budget is simply thrown out by officials and a government appointed team comes in instead.

Local democracy, making North Korea look tempting since 1996
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So it's worse than pointless then, since they have no control over what a government appointed team will do which presumably means the new team will cut services more than they would have done.

The Greens in Brighton came in for a lot of stick - was that true for them too?
 
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