The axe fell on 10 libraries, weekly bin services for the majority of homes, and a number of services for the vulnerable in Liverpool.Oh noes!
Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson said: “This is my third budget and it is getting harder and more painful each year. “Let me say at the outset that there is worst (sic)to come. “We are now at the stage where those options have gone, and we are having to prioritise one front line service over another.”Oh, gawd! What vital services are for the axe? Will roads start to crumble (more)? Will waste pile up in the streets (and who'd notice?)? Will dead bodies litter the streets (more than usual)?
Will the Liverpudlians have to resort to guerrilla Zumba sessions and flashmobs?
The city currently has 19 libraries, but the council thinks it can save around £938,000 (from April next year) by closing around 10. It is examining plans to keep a seven-day service at Central Library and at two community libraries (one in the North and another in the South).Well, libraries aren't exactly vital front line support, are they?
Withdrawing funding, over three years, to providers of accommodation for “socially excluded” people who are at risk of homelessness will save another £2.6m.Let the charities pick up the slack, instead of squandering the donations they get on huge CEO salaries.
Next!
The youth and play service will be reviewed with the possibility of transferring services to the voluntary and community sector, saving £2.1m over three years.Something parents and voluntary organisations can sort out instead. It's their responsibility anyway. Anything else?
Cutting school uniform grants was also due to be approved, saving an annual £700,000.Again., shouldn't be the responsibility of the council. Is that it?
The authority has also said it will close its two municipal golf courses – at Allerton and Kirkby – if a private operator cannot be found or a £300,000 annual loss cannot be stemmed by increasing charges.Oh. OK. I guess we have a different view of what constitutes 'vital frontline services'...
Close two municipal golf courses!!! this is serious
ReplyDeleteWhere will all the job-seekers go on a sunny day?
Protesters & Riot Police clashed outside the Town Hall eh?
Ah well ...
"dey do do dat doe don't dey?"
"Well, libraries aren't exactly vital front line support, are they?"
ReplyDeleteWell, no, but they have often provided the means for self-advancement and education for the poor: surely a better use of taxpayers' money than fostering welfare dependency. I admit that this is a little tenuous at present, but wait until the energy crisis hits and schoolkids can't google for their essays and mum and dad can't watch Jeremy Kyle. It's also instructive to look at who wants libraries to go:- nouveau bourgeois slebs like Frank Skinner, tripping over themselves to distance themselves from their original social class; and penny-pinching writers who think that they'll earn more in royalties if the plebs can't borrow their semi-literate tat for free. I'm probably a lone voice, but if we get rid of free libraries, we are one step closer to a new dark age where literacy and learning is only available to the wealthy.
They lose money on their golf courses? Are you shitting me? No one, and I mean NO ONE, loses money on a golf course. Jeez, the good lefty city of Seattle holds onto their three muni courses with a death grip. Why? Because they make so much money they help fund a huge number of other parks department activities.
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like the Liverpool city government would lose money running a brothel.
Dave,
ReplyDeleteBe careful, they might take-up your idea :o)
Here's a thought, how about losing a few diversity co-ordinating/community liaison/smoking enforcement officers and the plethora of other completely pointless high paying wanker jobs for party apparatchiks?
ReplyDeleteKnocking a few "Fact finding" jaunts to the Maldives and Barbados on the head wouldn't go a miss either.
Ease up on council grants to street artists (I believe we called them vandals or graffitists in my day) and other "Pet" projects and within 2 years, the council will be running a surplus without having to sack any binmen or teachers. But no, that'd be too much like common sense...
Bunny
ReplyDeleteI am with Bobo and Budvar on this one, I live (when I am not at work in Eastern Europe) in a Liverpool Suburb which is run by Sefton Council. The areas run by Sefton have a good reputation unlike our nearby neighbours. The people in charge will only cut things that give them publicity to whinge about how bad the cuts are.
Go to Liverpool's website and behold their Benefits Calculator:
ReplyDeletePeople across the UK are missing out on benefits and tax credits worth more than £10 billion a year. We can help make sure you get what is yours
A minute or two to see what a 25 year old mother of six can get:
Final Tax Credit award for period: £19,640.65
It's another plank in the politicians' raft of "keep 'em dumb, on the dole, or in the nick."
ReplyDeleteThere's a book called "The Intellectual Life of the Working Class". Can't remember the author's name: he's British, but the book's published in the US. I bet he couldn't get a UK publisher to touch it with a barge pole. Read it, it'll show you how far we've come in a few decades.
Smacks of political button-pushing.
ReplyDeleteAnd what of their gold-plated pensions ? When are they going to cut those ?
ReplyDeleteNo need to answer.
Strangely, Hammersmith and Fulham keep cutting their council tax bills while maintaining front line services, despite the savagetorycutz.
ReplyDeletehttp://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2013/01/10/running-the-public-sector-well/
You are a miserable sod wanting to deprive grandma of her reading.
ReplyDeleteWhat else cn you do when it is cold and you can't go out because your arthritis is so painful.
"Ah well ...
ReplyDelete"dey do do dat doe don't dey?""
:D
"Well, no, but they have often provided the means for self-advancement and education for the poor.."
This was true in the past, but modern libraries aren't quite the things I remember from my youth.
And there's other options for advancement now, with the Internet.
The proposed energy crisis is a problem with that, though...
"They lose money on their golf courses? Are you shitting me? No one, and I mean NO ONE, loses money on a golf course. "
That's English local council (mal)administration for you!
"Here's a thought, how about losing a few diversity co-ordinating/community liaison/smoking enforcement officers and the plethora of other completely pointless high paying wanker jobs for party apparatchiks?"
Indeed! It should have been every council's first hitlist, shouldn't it?
"Smacks of political button-pushing."
ReplyDeleteOf course! As Bunny points out, they want to cut the things they can whine about, not the ones no-one'll miss...
"You are a miserable sod wanting to deprive grandma of her reading.
What else cn you do when it is cold and you can't go out because your arthritis is so painful."
Get a Kindle?
Now hold hard there. I learned to play golf at Allerton Municipal in my teens. It's sacred ground. The only course in the country where you are allowed to play wearing bicycle clips.
ReplyDelete"Here's a thought, how about losing a few diversity co-ordinating/community liaison/smoking enforcement officers and the plethora of other completely pointless high paying wanker jobs for party apparatchiks?"
ReplyDeleteThis is where Labour f*cked us over good and proper. All these posts are protected by law. Climate Change Act, Equality Act etc. If any council sensibly said 'We wish to protect our voters from cuts to real services, we'll cut the non-jobs instead' then they would find themselves facing a court case from some quango/charity for being in breach of their statutory duties. Which they would lose.
One day all Labour MPs from 1997 to 2010 will face the wrath of the people of this country, and they had better hope their necks are good and strong.
libraries aren't exactly vital front line support, are they?"
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what they are.
'Liverpool city government?'
Oh, you're American.
By the way, Julia, issues related to Liverpool seem to push a few buttons for you.
ReplyDeleteAny reason?
Just curious.
"Oh, you're American."
ReplyDeleteNope! Londoner born & bred.
"By the way, Julia, issues related to Liverpool seem to push a few buttons for you."
Issues where a city has been failed not just by its political leadership but by its very ingrained culture of self-pity press my buttons, yes.
The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes
ReplyDeleteWritten By Jonathan Rose, 2nd Ed.,
available from Amazon UK.
XX The youth and play service XX
ReplyDeleteMy fucking arse!
My "Youth and play service" was my Granny, who took me mole hunting at 5 years old WITH my own (shortened) shot gun, and my Grandfathers (Yes, PLURAL), who took me out with a hunting bow, and so many arrows, that you would need to be a millionaire these days, to afford. Hunting wild boar and deer (In season)
Of course, nowdays, they have trouble identifying their MOTHERS, let alone the Grandfathers....how wide the choice must be after a generation!
Na so, maybe these choices are NOT open for every one.... But what about my Granny that took me out to the park two or three times a week, and showed me which plants could be used to heal whatever illness? Or took me to the beach, to find crabs in the rock pools?
NOW "Grandmothers" are so stoned they can not explain Jeremy Kyle!
And "Mothers" are too busy earning a living around the local bars.
Cynical? Me??? NO fucking chance, it's called "EXPERIENCE".