Lollipop men and women U-turn
I'm not surprised that we are this afternoon reporting that Liverpool Council's Liberal Democrat administration has announced a U-turn on proposals to axe 25 lollipop men and women.
This was a tremendously unpopular proposal, and after all would only have saved ã200,000 (which will now come out of the Highways budget).
The Lib-Dem administration are basically blaming the city's officials for the proposals saying they were not fully aware of the detail of what had been suggested.
Council leader Warren Bradley met officials on Thursday to review the details of proposals around school crossing patrols.
"At the end of the meeting it was clear that the information provided did not deal with the fundamental issues of traffic density, numbers affected and most importantly the safety of the young people," he said.
The problem is that deputy council leader Flo Clucas has spent the last eight to nine months working on the budget.
So how did the option to axe 25 lollipop men and women end up in the proposals?
Labour will, of course, exploit what has happened.
But credit to the Lib-Dems - no one will be able to accuse them of not listening to the public.
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David Bartlett
City editor of the Post and Echo covering politics, regeneration, and urban affairs.
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Credit to the Lib Dems?
What for?
Flo Clueless spending eight months on a budget which was fundamentally flawed?
Or for causing unnecessary worry to parents and teachers?
Or for shirking their political responsibilities and blaming someone else - the officials?
Anyone with half a brain knew this was an insane budget cut. Which means the Lib Dems must have undergone a secret lobotomy a long time ago.
Pretty poor government of the city in my view.
Yes, Lulu...[or should I say Louise?]. All credit to the Lib Dems.
They actually produced a fully-costed budget for 2008-09. Did Labour? Erm, no. So, nothing new there then. The Lib Dems actually set a rate increase. Did Labour? Well, actually yes - the same as the Lib Dems at 4.45%. The Lib Dems had to deal with the real cut in Gov. support grant in the middle of the worst recession for thirty years. One of them was an option to reduce the number of crossing patrols at lunchtimes. They've now dropped it. It's called political pragmatism - something you have to do in politics sometimes. Of course, Labour never changes track, does it? Labour would never drop the 10p tax change, never scrap SATS tests, never try and keep MP's expenses secret, the list goes on and on. No, the truth is that the Lib dems actually made a wise decision to safeguard childrens lives rather than take the advice of the officers. It's what's called political leadership and Warren Bradley deserves every credit for this and many others for the benefit of the City.
In truth the credit, quite simply, goes first to the Green Councillors Sarah Jennings and John Coyne who proposed several budget amendments.
One of which, dealing with the School crossing, was approved. Full text on Peter Cranie's blog here:
http://petercranie.blogspot.com/2009/02/ethical-politics.html
or here
http://liverpool.greenparty.org.uk/
Raphael
Yes, Lulu...[or should I say Louise?] Whoever this person is, you're hardly in a position to criticise, sheltered behind your pseudonym - unless of course you've really been anointed St Reetwise
Lose the argument - resort to personal abusive attacks. Is David your real name, then? We got wise to this kind of pathetic stuff ages ago and it doesn't worry us any more. Does the phrase "Find one flaw and smear them all" or "Go negative until swamped by complaints. Then do it again." mean anything to you? Of course it does, though I'm surprised that Lulu Louise is going down the same path. I thought she had more integrity to stoop to this [Clueless, etc], but perhaps I was wrong. No, the fact is that everything I said before was right. You simply can't away from the fact that Labour are about as popular as the Euro and will be kicked out of office sooner than you think.
All should admit that Raphael is correct here, the Green councillors with their clever budget amendment opened the door for all the threatened school crossing patrols to be saved. Otherwise the Lib Dems with their 'efficient' budget making process would have blindly pushed the measure through.
I only leave responses and comments in my own name. I am not scared and I do not hide behind psuedonyms - as the current situation will show. I did not leave any messages in the name of Lulu
Can the Labour supporter (and he knows who he is) who used this alias, please choose one a bit more carefully next time. I can get into rows on my own account, thanks