Our Labour bosses who now meet as a Cabinet in the afternoons when most people are at work have pulled no punches in hitting the elderly and vulnerable hardest in their first budget. It also means they won't be bringing children to demonstrate as they did in 2005 because they're all at school until after 3 p.m.

If you live in an average home the Council Tax bills dropping through your letter box early next month will be a tad under 1,200 pounds. Last year the previous Conservative and Liberal administration managed a tax freeze in the Lambeth element of the Council Tax while Labour proposed a cut in council tax through a series of ranting speeches that had no properly constructed table attached with the specific details.

But, lo, history has been rewritten. In his speech at the afternoon Cabinet on February 8 the Leader of the Council criticised the previous administration for NOT raising council tax to allow for inflation when his proposals in 2006 would have CUT the council tax not freeze it. The Labour proposals last year were put together by a journalist - and we all know that the press exercises power without responsibility. Perhaps this is less important than the rising tide of anger about the proposed huge increases in social care charges for the elderly and the voluntary sector.

Despite some hand wringing, nothing has emerged from the Cabinet about how it plans to mitigate the effect of these cuts on elderly people and their carers. The proposals on February 8 were unchanged from the previous Cabinet meeting on January 8, (surely some mistake?).There are plenty of proposals in the alternative Conservative budget amendments that would help reduce waste and leave resources to spare that could restore the cuts. They could start with their own bank accounts and revisit some of the huge allowances that have paid to the administration's payroll vote. Looking at the council agenda for budget setting on February 28, which contains a proposed debate on Palestine and Israel and a jibe at Tony's mate George W Bush, they are clearly more interested in foreign policy than local residents.

Labels: Care charges, Council tax, Elderly, Foriegn policy in Lambeth, Labour Lambeth

Our socialist masters are once again reviewing the Lambeth Library Service. Famously, in 1999 when they were last in power the libraries were described by the then Chair of Environmental Services Councillor Torren Smith, in a moment of rare frankness, as "the worst library service in Britain." He's still on the council but these days operates in the relative backwater of town planning - a tautology if ever there was one.

Oddly, enough the planning service has a problem with libraries where they are supposed to lodge copies of new planning applications. The only problem is that at times when people are actually at home such as between Christmas and the New Year the highly paid administraton at Lambeth Town Hall "forgot" to send the plans out on the van before disappearing for turkey and mince pies at their non denominational Winterval celebrations.

Getting back to the serious issue, the radical 1999 "Frank Quigg Plan" named after a past director long gone away to become an artist was aimed at cutting the libraries to five and re-opening them as "super libraries" with round the clock opening hours. It has to be wondered how the gallant librarians would have kept the dossers and drug dealers out of the libraries in the wee small hours of the night. In the end, a couple of smaller libraries closed, but Labour lost office before it could implement the ground breaking 24/7 philosophy of libraries. Chance would have been a fine thing given the Stalinist attitudes of some of the service providers. Did you know that some libraries in London still close at lunchtime because as in Lambeth they are producer rather than consumer oriented.

This time the 'review' has distinguished outsiders included in the panel, but no opposition councillors are seated at the table. The service will have to explain to our residents why our libraries consume GB pounds 5.3 million of public money a year, of which GB pounds 1.1 million is spent on 'head office' costs. So I thought when given these figures by finance officers, only to be told yesterday by other officers that there were other figures that are different. It is no good holding your breath about figures from Lambeth Council because there is little transparency or accountability under New Labour. It's not as bad as Mayor Livingstone though whose share of your council tax is up 147 per cent since he won power. Londoners living in average family houses will be paying GB pounds 304 for his services in the next financial year.

Labels: Council tax, Ken Livingstone, Labour Lambeth, Libraries, Planning