Puss Got It Right About Council Fat Cats
'Puss' got it right - the feral moggie who took up residence in the basement of Lambeth Town Hall over Christmas correctly spotted that the place was full of 'fat cats.' The spin doctors denied that 'Puss' was acquiring 'squatters rights' and shortly after 'Crisis at Christmas' shut up shop until December 20 2007, Puss mysteriously disappeared. The rumour is that 'Puss' accepted a redundancy package with a compromise agreement to prevent the tabby mog selling out to the tabloids with an exclusive on 'town hall nights.' Puss is now being advised by Unison officials and may will take the council to an employment tribunal for high rights abuses, bullying, and constructive dismissal.With tax bills rising above inflation, Labour Lambeth is paying huge wages to loads of its staff - eight of them earn over GB pounds 100,000 a year plus generous holidays and gilt-edged pensions. And Lambeth is the worst borough in London according to the Audit Commission. With half the borough's children living in poverty, and 85 per cent of those in poverty in single parent families, you need to draw a deep breath at this pay bonanza for a failing council.All this comes on top of budget proposals from the New Labour majority on the council, which will see services to poor, elderly, and disabled people cut. Labour has sparked widespread anger by considering charging for home care services and removing respite help for carers in an attempt to balance its budget, while increasing council tax bills by the maximum allowed by the government of 4.99 per cent.Labels: Fat cats, Puss
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.Labels: Council tax, Puss, Skiffington Close, Upper Norwood Library
Bah Humbug to the Labour Lambeth Xmas
Our diverse borough, with more churches than any other in London, is being treated to a display of Christmas humbug by the Labour Party not known since the civic service was abolished in Ted Knight's time. First the Comrades put up last year's 'Happy Christmas' banner over the entrance to the Town Hall, which was commissioned by the Tory-Lib Dem administration in 2005, and then Labour's spin doctors claimed they'd restored Xmas. Next a Labour Cabinet member went to a Xmas service at a Lambeth crematorium and in a joint welcome with a senior member of the clergy started off by emphasising her Labour Party credentials - many eyebrows were raised in shock. In death there are no political parties. In remembrance of loved ones, we are all 'one nation' from the Cenotaph to Lambeth Cemetery. What is all the more remarkable is that this is the Party that until recently, and with honourable individual exceptions in Lambeth, rarely went to church, and still has an ideological dislike of church schools and faith-based education from the relevant Children's and Young Persons Cabinet member downwards.As we look towards the New Year, our long-suffering citizens have little cheer to anticipate. We are living under a tax and spend administration that rarely listens to reasoned argument. Former Labour councillor in Lambeth Ken Livingstone is proposing an inflation busting 5.3 per cent tax rise from City Hall. Labour's highly paid officers also tell us that 'not enough people are dying because of the mild autumn and that funeral charges may rise'. Was that a day, perhaps, to bury bad news - tucked away on an inside page of the Tuesday South London Press which few people read? We have also discovered, via official reports, that the cost per head of accommodating our bureaucrats in the Town Hall is GB pounds 3,600 a year. The principal council buildings are collectively only 70 per cent occupied - wasting GB pounds 2 million a year of our money.In the meantime a tide of anger rises among our 33,000 tenants who are still being denied a ballot on whether or not the Labour Party should sell the roofs from over their heads. Even the Labour MP for Vauxhall, 60-year-old Kate Hoey, thinks they are making a mistake, but our New Labour leaders dismiss her as a fiery maverick. Perhaps that's why some Tories vote for her.Finally, as Xmas gets under way - a traditional time for caring for the homeless whether in a manger in the Holy Land or a shelter run by the Sally Army - let's spare a thought for 'Puss'. That's a feral tabby cat which has taken up residence in the underground car park of the Town Hall - it had heard that fat cats occupy office space in the Town Hall. Despite my finding it there overnight for the past week, Labour spin doctors deny it is resident. When I e-mail them about it there is a deafening silence. As for me - I'm going to call up the cat rescue service, if it hasn't gone by Boxing Day. The Labour spin doctors won't be around then having all disappeared to the ski slopes.Labels: ALMO, Christmas, Council tax, Puss
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posted by Cllr John Whelan on Sunday, March 11, 2007
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