Lib Dems and Tories threaten libraries

Just as some dogs have an irrational hatred of cyclists and joggers, there must be something about opposition parties and libraries. The Liberals want to bulldoze Streatham Library and now the Tories want to starve Upper Norwood Library of resources.

Upper Norwood Library is run jointly by Croydon and Lambeth councillors. The decision-making committee is made up of 2 Labour (Lambeth) and 6 Tories (Lambeth and Croydon).

The Croydon Tories don't want to fork out £60k, as Labour Lambeth has done, to balance the budget. Consequently staff will have to be made redundant. Recently Lambeth's Tories voted with their Croydon cronies for the redundancies.

My Labour colleague, Cllr David Malone, abstained, arguing rightly that Lambeth's Tories should be putting pressure on their Tory friends in Croydon to fork out for this vital community resource.

But did they? No. They voted for cuts. For all their talk about standing up for amenities in Norwood, when push comes to shove, they voted to cut an amenity. Not that push comes to shove much between Tories – think back-scratching, back-slapping and a bit of back-sliding.

Shame on them. And most shame on the Chair of the Norwood Area Committee, who bangs on about the neglect of Norwood and democratic deficits and a whole load of other haughty hogwash. He sat with his Croydon friends and voted against the interests of Norwood.

Now that they have protests on their hands (one took place today I gather), it will be interesting to see how long the Lambeth Tories can hold the Croydon line before they flip-flop and try to blame Labour for what is a purely Tory cut.