We Waited Until After Xmas for the Bad News
It's a New Year for our citizens here in the south east Lambeth, but the same old rotten service from Labour Lambeth Council. You're not surprised? Well the sting in the tail is that it's going to cost you more. The Lambeth chunk of the Council Tax is set to rise by 4.99% in April, while the Mayor of London is taking another 5.3% off Lambeth to pay for his bloated bureaucracy at City Hall and plans to celebrate Fidel Castro's golden anniversary.
Needless to say, the builders have been at work over the Christmas holidays at Lambeth Town Hall creating luxury office suites for a total spend of GB pounds 52,000 with furniture worth GB pounds 28,000 thrown in. As if to make it sound better, officers say the Chief Executive is going to have a smaller office. Perhaps this is because on the face of it he spends less time in the Town Hall than most of his predecessors since Heather Rabbatts. I feel sure that's because he is working wonders in Whitehall on behalf of the Labour administration.
Either way, Lambeth is a soft touch for building contractors judging by the amount of time I observed their operatives actually spend on the job while not smoking outside the building. However, at least one of them must have a big heart because the Town Hall cat resident in the basement is receiving regular cat food. The press office deny that 'Puss' is resident there - my digital photos prove otherwise. Labour Lambeth has the kind of spin doctors who would have denied that the holy family was in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
What does make me angry though is that while holidaying senior officers get better office equipment and furniture, the elderly residents of Skiffington Close in Tulse Hill have recently been told that there are no plans to decorate or refurbish their bungalows, which have not been painted for 25 years.
The only antidote is to get out there and do something about it. This afternoon, I delivered among hundreds of others two leaflets to the spruce and well decorated home on Gipsy Hill of one 'Edward Knight' former left wing firebrand leader of the Council in the 1980s and intimate of the current Mayor of London.
One of the uncelebrated events of 2006 was the 20th anniversary of 'Red Ted's' resignation on the instructions of the District Auditor for failing to set a rate. Judging by the smart and well lettered 'Edward Knight' on his nameplate, he can't have done badly from his disastrous tenure of office.
The leaflet was all about saving the Upper Norwood Library. I wonder what Ted'll make of our criticism directed at Labour's Councillor on the library committee for 'failing to vote to set a budget?' Leopards don't change their spots do they.
Needless to say, the builders have been at work over the Christmas holidays at Lambeth Town Hall creating luxury office suites for a total spend of GB pounds 52,000 with furniture worth GB pounds 28,000 thrown in. As if to make it sound better, officers say the Chief Executive is going to have a smaller office. Perhaps this is because on the face of it he spends less time in the Town Hall than most of his predecessors since Heather Rabbatts. I feel sure that's because he is working wonders in Whitehall on behalf of the Labour administration.
Either way, Lambeth is a soft touch for building contractors judging by the amount of time I observed their operatives actually spend on the job while not smoking outside the building. However, at least one of them must have a big heart because the Town Hall cat resident in the basement is receiving regular cat food. The press office deny that 'Puss' is resident there - my digital photos prove otherwise. Labour Lambeth has the kind of spin doctors who would have denied that the holy family was in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago.
What does make me angry though is that while holidaying senior officers get better office equipment and furniture, the elderly residents of Skiffington Close in Tulse Hill have recently been told that there are no plans to decorate or refurbish their bungalows, which have not been painted for 25 years.
The only antidote is to get out there and do something about it. This afternoon, I delivered among hundreds of others two leaflets to the spruce and well decorated home on Gipsy Hill of one 'Edward Knight' former left wing firebrand leader of the Council in the 1980s and intimate of the current Mayor of London.
One of the uncelebrated events of 2006 was the 20th anniversary of 'Red Ted's' resignation on the instructions of the District Auditor for failing to set a rate. Judging by the smart and well lettered 'Edward Knight' on his nameplate, he can't have done badly from his disastrous tenure of office.
The leaflet was all about saving the Upper Norwood Library. I wonder what Ted'll make of our criticism directed at Labour's Councillor on the library committee for 'failing to vote to set a budget?' Leopards don't change their spots do they.
Labels: Council tax, Puss, Skiffington Close, Upper Norwood Library
posted by Cllr John Whelan on Monday, January 01, 2007
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