I haven’t been invited. But, at 7.00pm on 26th September, Cllr. Stephen Greenhalgh (Con) plans to deliver his annual “State of the Borough Address” to an invited audience of what he believes will be key opinion formers in Hammersmith and Fulham.
Mimicking the US Presidents’ State of the Union Address, but er… not quite on the same scale; Cllr. Greenhalgh will hope to sell his Administration’s deeds to the addressees - all arranged at local tax payers’ expense and in a location that is currently being kept secret.
Free from any Opposition alternative point of view, Cllr. Greenhalgh will use the occasion to put a positive spin on:
- three schools closures
- cuts in the meals-on-wheels service
- reduction in police numbers in the wards with the highest crime
- reducing street cleaning and refuse/recycling collection by £1.5m
- closing down community centres in the poorest areas
- Tories 18% pay rise
- cutting funds to key voluntary sector organisations
- stopping home help to the elderly and sick
- slashing the numbers of affordable homes being built to rent or buy
- cutting legal support to the underprivileged by 60%
- hiking parking fines up by 50%
- making residential streets more dangerous by removing traffic calming
- planning to knock down Hammersmith’s cinema to replace it with luxury offices for Town Hall bureaucrats.
Actually, I don’t mind Cllr. Greenhalgh selling the Conservatives’ point of view. It’s his democratic right but I strongly object to it being paid for from tax payers’ funds. Why do they need to raid H&F Council's finances to pay for what is an unashamed propaganda exercise? They used to pay for exactly the same event out of Tory party funds before they won power in 2006. Now, they obviously think it’s good value for you, me and everyone else in the borough to fund their event out of our pockets.
Click on the attached letter (I've removed the name and address of the person it was sent to) to see the invite in full.
2 comments:
I agree with you, the Tories should be allowed to give their point of view, but H&F tax payers should not have to pick up the tab!
HAve invites gone to all the community groups, parents and pensioners that the cuts have effected?
i think not
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