Taking all the credit

Published: 4th February, 2011

• I HAVE just received the latest issue of Islington Life. The lead article on the front page informs me that Islington Council has managed to save £36million “…over the past two financial years by becoming more efficient and cutting administration costs” – that is, since the start of the financial year beginning April 2009, which is 13 months almost to the day before the Liberal Democrats lost control of the council.  

It is axiomatic that organisational moves towards increased efficiency and cost-cutting cannot be achieved by executive fiat or by the proverbial stroke of a pen and must therefore have been both planned and begun by and under the Lib Dem administration.  

One suspects that even a disinterested observer would be surprised by the eagerness with which the new administration is taking credit for these savings and presenting them as totally its own work. 

Or would such an observer be dismissed scornfully as extremely naïve?
Paul M Smith
Avenell Road, N5