The complete contempt of Tory councillors for residents in the north of Hammersmith & Fulham was exposed at a council meeting this evening - alongside the incompetence of the administration.
Having voted in secret at a Cabinet meeting to sell off a dozen community buildings and kick out the community and voluntary organisations housed there, the Tory council tonight tried to cover their tracks with a sham consultation.
Cllr Antony Lillis, the only cabinet member to attempt to defend the decision at the meeting, did not offer an apology to local residents packed in the public galleries. But he did admit his guilt by offering to extend the lease of the Wormholt Tenants and Residents Association for a further six months.
Residents from College Park, Wormholt, Askew and elsewhere are furious that the decision to sell their community centres was taken in secret - without any consultation. Councillors said residents had been told in advance but then withdrew this accusation when the truth was revealed.
Despite growing public protests, the Tories have so far refused to go back on their decision to close centres that have housed community activities for more than a century and to sell off public buildings which have special merit in conservation areas.
This act of vandalism and the failure to consult local residents, Cllr Colin Aherne told the meeting, mean that the council should change its slogan to 'putting profit before residents'.
2 comments:
If you (all?) require archived newspapers, please use :
http://infotrac.galegroup.com/itweb/hflib
(copy and paste please)
(password is "newspapers")
Bestest
ok, here is the article regards greg hands, with reference to the blog post "Believe it or not" on
http://www.hfconwatch.blogspot.com/
I wonder what Alexei was wearing. lol
Bestest and amuse yourselves fully .. (who wrote this, OPhibbs?
Full Text :COPYRIGHT 2007 Solo Syndication Limited
AS VLADIMIR Putin threatens to target Europe with nuclear missiles,Tory MP for Hammersmith and Fulham Greg Hands has told of an attempt to recruit him as a Russian spy.
Hands reveals how he met a shadowy figure called Alexei at a Christmas party held by Conservative donor club Fastrack at the Russian Embassy in Kensington in December 2004. Boris Johnson was the guest speaker.
An official from the Embassy introduced himself as being Alexei (whose name I have changed) from the embassys political section, and how he lived in Fulham, in the constituency I had been selected to fight at the coming general election, says Hands. My wife is half-Russian, so conversation came very easily.
A few days later, they met in the Seven Stars pub on Fulhams North End Road.
Alexei looked up from his beer, continues Hands on the Conservative Home website, and asked me if I could get him a document from the House of Commons library, a statement made by the then Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on UK relations with Iran.
It was then that it dawned on me that I was being approached by an intelligence officer to spy for Russia. I told him
correctly
that as a Parliamentary candidate I had no more access to the library than he did, and that Jack Straws statement was probably online anyway.Hands left the pub and never saw him again. Asking people to steal or copy documents especially those that one might be expected to have ready access to is the stuff of espionage folklore.
I went home and informed our own authorities about the incident, and I believe that Alexei is no longer in the United Kingdom.
Source Citation: "Hands off! Tory MP tells Russian spy; The Londoner's Diary." The Evening Standard (London, England) (June 4, 2007): NA. InfoTrac Custom Newspapers Database. Thomson Gale. Hammersmith & Fulham Libraries. 3 July 2007
Thomson Gale Document Number: CJ164474164
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