Three hundred brave volunteers stood in opposition to the Tory rulers at Hammersmith Town Hall tonight. Together they fought the Tories' venomous attacks on community and voluntary organisations working for black people, Irish people, older people, disabled people and those without any rights.
The Tories denied they were making cuts to the voluntary sector until Cllr Lillis let slip that some organisations are indeed being cut. They weren't being targeted or 'blacklisted', just 'reprioritised'. Without any consultation or published reason.
Speaker after speaker from the Law Centre, Caring for Carers, Community Transport, Irish Support and Advice Service, Third Age Foundation all put their points. Others weren't allowed to have their say.
As the opposition mounted, Tory leader Cllr Greenhalgh retreated, withdrawing his cabinet to the safety of a private room to vote through the cuts in secret. Another battle over but a long war ahead.
3 comments:
Have picked it up - can you circulate this?
News Statesman linking to Hammersmith & Fulham Tory stories.
Actually, as I said, I have the cabinet minutes.
The Council is very open about its information disclosure and will respond positively to any request.
The only question is :
do you want it - yes for yes, and no for no.
A simple word would suffice.
Or, email me, by all means : r96harris@yahoo.com
Hello. In response to your post, I was randomly browsing the cabinet meetings and agenda.
Refering to the following URL (copy and paste please)
http://www.lbhf.gov.uk/Images/CabinetAgenda19022007_tcm21-76423.pdf
The documents for 19th Feb 2007 on Pg21 (paper version) and Pg26 on the electronic version detail the large number of efficiencies (ie cuts). It would not be safe to assume all these "efficiencies" are what they say they are - some of these are definitely cuts.
As for the money trail I was talking about, you would see the money trail showing the largest amount of money going to the Lyric Theatre (you will understand the significance of this).
Having looked at the figures, this is the one receiptant that in addition to receiving the largest sum of money, doesn't seem to have a cut budget.
If you don't understand the significance of the above, please have a look for member's declarations of interest, or post and let me know. Emailing me on r96harris@yahoo.com is a good idea too.
I understand you are on a protest tomorrow; best for you to understand this point before you go.
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