Budget too important to be decided behind locked door

Published: 25 February, 2011

• REPRESENTATIVES from Islington Green Party, together with residents, attended the council meeting last Thursday night to ask questions (Protesters clash with cops, February 18).  

The gallery was filled with members of the public who were clearly angry about proposed cuts. The mayor seemed to struggle to keep order. Once the time for public questions had been exhausted (with only three out of 28 questions from the public answered), the mayor called a 10-minute adjournment, at which point the councillors disappeared, never to return, and the gallery filled with police, who started to physically evict people.  

This seemed heavy-handed as a response to heckling, particularly as no warning was given that the protesters’ behaviour was unacceptable. Those of us who were present in the chamber heard that the meeting was continuing in committee room 1, so made our way along the corridor, expecting to be able to continue to sit in on the meeting for the budget. 

We were met by a locked door, and told by security that they were instructed not to let anyone into the meeting. Islington Green Party believes the council acted unlawfully in setting a budget in private.

There is, quite simply, no power under the council constitution to hold a private session of this nature. That this council chose to do so in relation to the budget meeting, the most important of the year, is especially concerning. 

This is yet another example of making decisions that affect residents in secret and without proper debate. We call on the council to hold a fresh budget meeting as a matter of urgency. The council must set the budget properly and lawfully, after a free and open debate – and in public.



EMMA DIXON
Islington Green Party

• I WAS appalled at the behaviour of certain people at last week’s budget meeting.

A delegation of anti-cuts protesters were given time to speak and put forward their case, but when councillors tried to give a response they were heckled and not allowed to continue. Now the protesters may not have liked the answer but we live in a democracy where everyone at least has a right to be heard.

I also read a quote online from a resident calling himself “John from Upper Street”. Seriously? Half of the 30 “concerned residents” were clearly the same rent-a-mob that turn up at all council meetings in London. 

The real enemy are corporations like Barclays, which pay less than 1 per cent tax on £13billion in profits, or Vodafone, which avoided £6billion in corporation tax, not councillors, most of whom get paid less than £10,000 a year.

Most people my age who are involved in politics are protesting against tax-dodging corporations and George Osborne, the Tory Chancellor who lets them get away with it and then makes these unfair cuts. Whose side are these people really on?

MATT CREAMER
N5

• LAST week we witnessed extraordinary scenes not seen since the bad old days when Labour ran the council. Never did I think we would see the day when Labour councillors allowed the police to evict from a Town Hall meeting residents protesting about the Labour council’s £52million cuts package.

Residents were urging councillors not to make cuts to council services, cuts that were ill thought out and hitting the elderly, young and poor. But when the council leader was drowned out by chanting, police officers entered the public gallery, with the endorsement of the council leader, and began to remove members of the public. When residents refused to leave, police used force to evict them. I and my colleagues made it clear the council was overreacting, and we didn’t agree with this course of action.

The meeting descended into chaos, and Labour councillors took fright and decided not to continue it in public. The decision to cut £52million of council services was then made in secret with no members of the public allowed to watch proceedings. 

As if this wasn’t bad enough, other residents were waiting for answers to a record 24 public questions about the council’s new parking policy. But Labour councillors also refused to answer these questions in public and refused to extend the public question time to give them answers. 

Last Thursday was a sad day for democracy in Islington. Whatever happened to free speech? Labour councillors clearly couldn’t take the heat when residents were aiming their fire at them. But that goes with the territory when you’re in charge.  

Labour councillors’ reaction was over the top. To allow police to use force to remove protesters, who were just making their point in a non-violent way as is their right, and denying residents a chance to ask questions speak volumes about how Labour wants to run the council.

CLLR TERRY STACY 
Leader, Liberal Democrats