Leading Lib Dem Terry Stacy calls for Eric Pickles sacking

Published: 18th February, 2011
by TERRY MESSENGER

ISLINGTON’S Lib Dem group leader Terry Stacy has called for the coalition’s local government minister Eric Pickles to be sacked.

Councillor Stacy, who leads the opposition at the Town Hall, told the Tribune he had no faith in Mr Pickles, his party’s Tory partner in government. He attacked the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government for imposing spending cuts too harshly in the early years of a phased four-year budget reduction programme.

Cllr Stacy said:  “I have no confidence in Eric Pickles,  how he’s handling the settlement with local authorities and how he continually slags off local government, which I don’t think is warranted or necessary... I would like to see him replaced, full stop.”

He has distanced himself from the Lib Dem-Conservative government, insisting: “I never signed the coalition agreement.”    

But he argued that the coalition was the best option “to clear up Labour’s mess” after last May’s general election.

Islington Council’s Labour deputy leader Councillor Paul Smith accused the Lib Dems of “absolute hypocrisy”, pointing out that they had put Mr Pickles in power.

He said: “The Lib Dems are the cockroaches of local politics. They scuttle around and they will do anything to survive. To pretend that they are not supportive of the coalition is about them protecting their own futures.”  

Cllr Stacy was one of 88 Liberal Democrat council group leaders to sign a letter to The Times newspaper calling for a slowdown in spending reductions.

The letter declared: “Rather than assist the country’s recovery by making public-sector savings in a way that can protect local economies and the frontline, the cuts are so structured that they will do the opposite. 

“This front-loading means councils do not have the lead-in time necessary to re-engineer services on a lower-cost base and to ease staff cuts without forced, expensive redundancies.”

Under compulsion by the government, Islington is planning to slice £52million from its annual budget in the next financial year and a further £50million phased over the following three years.

About 350 Town Hall jobs are due to be axed in 2011-12, with another 300 or so over the following four years.

Cllr Stacy stressed: “We’ve been left in this mess by the Labour government and I’m quite conscious that local government has to play a role in reducing the deficit. Labour in Islington should not be let off. They’re the ones making decisions about what savings are being made, not those in national government.”

But Cllr Smith replied: “The Lib Dems support the coalition and are responsible for the cuts to Islington, which are the largest in London.

“The problem is not Eric Pickles, but that the Liberal Democrats have a cynical approach to politics in which they seek to avoid the blame for the misery they are responsible for in Islington and across the country.”