Advice from a banker

Published: 7 January, 2011

• MANY readers will have been angry to read that Westminster City Council is taking advice from a banker who is advising the council “to cut everything as I think we that we’ve been spoilt”. 

The banker, Derek Chow who lives Marylebone, says in the Christmas edition of the Westminster Reporter: “I think that the council needs to make cuts, we have to cut everything as I think that we’ve been spoilt. My advice would be tighten your belts and deal with it as I think the current system is unfair”.

The latest edition of the Pravda-style West­minster Reporter, which costs £150,000 a year to produce, purports to give a selection of “a few of the things residents have told the council”. However all the views included in the article are in support of cuts which does not reflect the full range of views of Westminster residents.

The council is really scraping the barrel if it has to enlist the support of bankers to justify the £38million of cuts that are being forced on local residents by the Conser­vatives and Liberal Dem­ocrats. If cuts are to be made then the Westmin­ster Reporter must be first in line. Residents can save £150,000 a year  by scrapping this magazine. Westminster Conservatives spend over £3m a year on its press and communica­tions department and is one of the biggest spenders in London. If the council is going to take Mr Chow’s advice then there is no better place to start.

CLLR PAUL DIMOLDENBERG
Leader of the Labour Group