| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Proposed closure of Wandsworth Museum | |
| Posted by: | Malcolm Grimston | |
| Date/Time: | 13/03/07 08:16:00 |
| You're good Tony, I wasn't going to continue this but you've a real talent for getting me going! (I do actually mean that as a compliment, as it is the legitimate role of opposition to do that.) Read the council's cultural strategy! “Wandsworth is the only town centre in the borough without a library in its shopping area ... It is recognised that the Library Service could play a constructive role in the regeneration of the town centre by complementing the plans in the renewed Wandsworth Shopping Centre and by promoting social inclusion.” In any case, though, surely it is the result of a policy that matters, not the way it was constructed - I've been perfectly clear that we started with the need to deal with the £5.3 million of real-terms cuts in central grant (with much worse to come in the Comprehensive Spending Review 2007) and then found what my colleagues believe to be the most constructive way of delivering them, ending up with a better coverage of cultural involvement than previously. The people who will benefit from the new library and from refurbished Tooting, both of which you oppose, over the next decades will not, I suspect, spend many hours reflecting on how the details emerged from the democratic process. But I am confused about your stance on taxation over the last three years - your election promise in 2002 was 'the lowest council tax in the country' (not qualified, e.g. 'just for this this year and then we'll go back to our natural tax-and-waste instincts') so you would obviously have had to follow the same taxation path as we did. Were you simply trying to grub up a few votes with that promise - i.e. people should know in future to ignore Labour manifestoes as fiction - or did you mean it, in which case why are you criticising us for carrying out your manifesto promises? I've never managed to get an answer from you on that but perhaps this time? |