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Our leaders go missing
• ISLINGTON Council’s website proudly claims that “Members of Islington Council’s executive provide political leadership and strategic direction for the council”... the executive are each democratically accountable to the public and are the public face of the council. As such they act as ambassadors for the council’s work in improving Islington.
Islington Conservatives are therefore baffled by the decision of the council executive to cancel its meeting for this month due to a “lack of business”. The next meeting is set for the end of January 2009, which will mean a gap of nearly three months since it last met.
At a time when the Labour government’s mismanagement of our economy has created anxiety for Islington residents, who are worrying about job losses and how to make ends meet, this astonishing lack of respect for residents shows that this council is unfit to be entrusted with local government.
The decision of the council executive not to meet seems even more astounding, given the disgraceful behaviour at last month’s council meeting.
Not only was the divisive infighting between Labour and the Lib Dems revealed in childish detail by their very public squabbling but councillors seemed unprepared to address the impact of national issues on local needs.
This is a time when political leadership and strategic direction are most needed. Residents need reassurance that the council’s management of its budget is safe in the face of threatened bank failures and that measures are in place to ensure our local finances are strengthened so that public services will be there to support them as they face the knock-on effects of an era of devastating economic management under Gordon Brown’s credit crunch.
As Conservatives, we believe strongly in local democracy. Too many decisions which affect communities are currently taken by officials in Whitehall. But this can only lead to effective local government if councils are properly accountable to local people. We want to give councils greater control over the spending of money than they receive from Whitehall and we want to allow residents to veto high council tax rises in order to keep council tax down.
However, for these measures to deliver results to the voting public we need responsibility in local government. The Conservatives believe that a council executive which considers it need not trouble itself to meet and a fractious Labour-Lib Dem council which not only doesn’t wish to address the issues of the day but cannot even observe the propriety of a public meeting are not fit for this purpose.
MELANIE JOHNSON
Islington Conservatives
• PATRICIA Napier is right, the Lib Dem council motion on Gordon Brown was a waste of time (Chamber of horrors, October 24).
Perhaps, when council meetings went on to the end of the agenda (even if they finished at two in the morning) it might have been tolerated but now meetings close at 10.30pm items have to be prioritised for debate. Labour only prioritises matters relevant to the people of Islington but the Lib Dems insisted on using time for this motion.
There was only one Labour speech, which ended with a call to move on to next business, but the Lib Dems used their artificial majority to insist on using as much time as they wanted to read out their pre-prepared speeches.
Once the Lib Dems had shown their determination to waste this time, Labour members got on with more important matters. I have recently started an evening class so I got out a textbook and got on with some homework until they had finished.
Cllr BARRY EDWARDS
Labour, Holloway ward
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