Tuesday 14 September 2010

Birmingham Tories outdo Barnet's in awfulness (by a long chalk)

We thought we had problems in Barnet. Birmingham City Council has "gone for the nuclear option", as someone has said, and put all of its 26,000 staff on notice of redundancy. They can keep their jobs if they accept worse pay and conditions of service.

I'll share any inside info I get on this. In the meantime, please come along to the lobby of Barnet council tonight, 6-7pm at Hendon Town Hall, The Burroughs, NW4 4BG. Our theme is "Don't cut our services! Don't privatise our services! No to Barnet easyCouncil!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately, the Government is busy right now:

Flags representing the historic counties of England are to be hoisted above the offices of the Department for Communities and Local Government to celebrate their important place in the nation's cultural heritage.

Secretary of State Eric Pickles has asked that English county standards be flown alongside the Union Flag outside the Department's Eland House headquarters in Victoria. Each flag - including the Red Rose of Lancashire, the Three Lions of Dorset and the White Horse of Kent - will fly for a week at a time throughout the year, with the exception of a week when the European Union flag is required to be flown.

Mr Pickles was today invited to raise the first of these flags - his adopted home county of Essex - in a ceremony also attended by celebrity astrologer and long-time English county campaigner Russell Grant.

Following Essex, county flags will be flown in alphabetical order or - in cases such as Cornwall and Yorkshire - to coincide with particular county days.

Eric Pickles said:

"The Union Flag rightly has pride of place outside the Department but I'm delighted it will now be flown alongside our traditional and ceremonial county flags.

"English counties continue to form an important part of our cultural and local identity in this country and many people remain deeply attached to their home county - both the traditional 'cricket' counties and in some cases their more modern administrative successors. This sense of pride and shared identity is one of the things that binds communities together and it's right that the Government department responsible for communities and local government should be actively recognising the important role they play."

Citizen Barnet said...

Thanks, Anon.

Well, that's going to make people feel a whole lot better about their services being cut and jobs threatened!

We're still not all in this together.