Cuts: Pressure builds on politicians to make a stand by breaking the law
MP warns of dilemma councillors face if they defy the government over Town Hall budget
Published: 13th January, 2011
by RICHARD OSLEY
LABOUR MP Frank Dobson and the party’s councillors felt the heat on Monday night as potential allies warned they were not doing enough to resist cuts to public spending.
In a tough night for the ruling party in Camden, left-leaning campaigners made it clear patience was wearing thin with plans to agree a council budget laden with deep cuts to services.
While there were cross words for the coalition government, Mr Dobson and Labour finance chief Councillor Theo Blackwell were asked outright in the council chamber to defy orders from Whitehall and take radical action to save threatened play centres, libraries and luncheon clubs.
They were quizzed in public at the launch of protest group Camden United Against Cuts at a King’s Cross meeting attended by nearly 200.
Amid calls for councillors to be willing to break the law – possibly by setting a deficit budget not matching the demands from Whitehall but covering the cost of services they say they want to protect – both men stopped short of endorsing radical strategies.
Mr Dobson said attacks on housing benefit and education grants were the worst aspect of the cuts programme, warning that the government had “declared war on Camden”.
But he added: “It is a very difficult thing to do to decide to break the law if you are a councillor because you can be surcharged and you can lose your right to be on the council and you and your family and everyone else can be very upset by this.
“It’s not just something that can be shouted out at a meeting and assume that the councillors can do what you want. It will be a dilemma that each of them has to resolve. Nobody else can resolve it for them.”
Cllr Blackwell said that, if Labour did not set the budget in Camden, then opposition politicians or council officials would seize the job.
“Camden is in a terrible, terrible situation. Our room for manoeuvre is very limited,” he said. “We are doing everything humanly possible but my name is not George Osborne. What we are doing is trying to get the best out of an extremely bad lot by preserving the social mix in Camden and protecting the most deprived areas of the borough.”
Camden has to save £100million in three years to meet the government’s spending plans, a figure Cllr Blackwell said could be covered only by council tax rises of an unrealistic 25 per cent.
There was a mood of sympathy for the “rock and a hard place” position but there were loud calls for urgency,
John Lipetz, a former councillor, suggested the politicians resign and trigger an election where Labour candidates could campaign against cuts.
If every Labour council took similar action, it was argued, then Chancellor George Osborne and local government minister Eric Pickles would have an unmanageable headache, but that strategy is dismissed by most members in Camden as a romantic and far-fetched idea.
“There are not many councils that would go over the wall with us,” said one party source.
That said, as the New Journal reported last week, there are members of the Labour group who do not agree that the council should accept the deal it has received.
Discussions are continuing within the group.
At Monday’s meeting of residents, politicians and trade unions, chaired by George Binette, there was a repeated call for more “backbone”.
Candy Udwin, a campaigner from Somers Town, said: “It’s hard to break the law for councillors but it’s hard for the students to be kettled. Between us we have to come up with a strategy not just to make these cuts but to fight them.”
She called for a “people’s assembly” next month where Camden could discuss a joint strategy to “make sure these cuts don’t happen”.
Matthew Hall, a student who was part of the recent occupation at UCL, said: “It’s hard to break the law, it’s hard to be homeless.
“We have to seriously start thinking about taking over office buildings, occupying, stopping these budgets.
“We have to refuse to take this. Now is not the time to be led, it’s the time to lead.”
Libraries-or-playgroups choice attacked by actor
ACTOR Roger Lloyd Pack warned that it is unfair to ask people to choose which council services deserve to be spared the axe.
He told Monday’s launch meeting of Camden United Against Cuts that he was campaigning to keep Highgate Library open.
“I would like Frank [Dobson] to lead a fight among the councillors in Camden not to implement any of these cuts” said Mr Lloyd Pack, who starred in Only Fools and Horses, The Vicar of Dibley and The Old Guys.
“It is invidious for anyone to be asked to say that libraries are more important than playgroups or other services.
“If people are concerned about the cuts this government wants to put in place, then I think they should stand up and say so.”
Mr Lloyd Pack, president of the Friends of Highgate Library, will chair a meeting about the future of the library service at the Highgate Newton branch in Chester Road at 7.30pm on January 27.