Messages of fear

Published: 3 December, 2010

• I WAS slightly bemused by an article concerning households losing on average £4,000 (Coalition spending axe ‘means £4,000 cuts for every home’, November 19). The alarmist manner in which the current Town Hall administration is operating, scaring residents with their messages of fear, is neither helpful nor responsible.

The local Labour Party is suffering from a bout of collective amnesia, forgetting why Gordon Brown was thrown out in May and why we have a Liberal-Conservative Coalition government.

Labour brought our country to the brink of bankruptcy. We have the biggest budget deficit in the G20, and spend more than £120million every day in interest. I’d rather have a situation where my taxes are spent on schools and hospitals in this country rather than in debt interest which goes abroad.

Quite rightly, the Coalition is pushing power and decision-making down to our Town Hall. That means the buck stops with the Labour council administration.

But what do we have? Threats to cut frontline essential services but protect those at the town hall on high salaries. Complaints about the lack of money while still spending hundreds of thousands on council freebie newspapers. 

The real question is: do we have councillors who can take decisions on behalf of our borough in a fair way, and, most importantly, take responsibility for their actions?

RICHARD BUNTING
Chair, Islington Conservatives