Cuts and cold winds

In the end I didn't get to Drylaw Police Station since the Council meeting ran on till 8pm - not helped with 2 very long adjournments: I hear the council corridors are filled with chit chat about labour fillibustering which is the best displacement theory I've heard in a long time. Couldn't have been to do with the Coalition needing to make sure they had their numbers? Hhmm!

I'm told though, that it's a civilian officer who manages the desk at Drylaw and when s/he's not there the front office closes...doesn't seem that clever and certainly isn't putting the public first - have emailed Iain Whyte for his comments so I'll wait for his answer.

The Council meeting went well - I thought Andrew Burns made a great speech on the budget which demolished all the evidence of a budget crisis and pointedly demonstrated the Coalition's entirely disproportionate response to the problem. Also, I was puzzled by Gordon Mackenzie's summing up: he said, and I quote since I scribbled it down, 'any education savings by the these cuts will be ringfenced for education and reinvested in education...' if he really means that then there are no savings, only a decision to redistribute money differently round the service...which exposes as a joke, Marilyne's drama that she is being forced to make 'brutal school closures because of Labour's financial mismanagement.' Somebody's got it wrong... and it ain't me.

I wonder what Stevie's merry SNP band think now...I can't imagine many will be delighted at going back to their branches and saying, 'Oh aye...and I stood up and voted with the liberals and the tories for £10 million of cuts which are going to close community centres and schools as well as hurt the most vulnerable bairns in the city..' I'd like to be the fly on that particular wall, I really would.

Already got wind of the first anti-cuts campaign in North Edinburgh...the local community education team are to be moved out the Prentice Centre to save the department £4,500... only they rent their offices from the local management committee who don't get enough grant from C + F...so they rely on that £4,500 rent to run their programme...so it's a cut to the local people...plus we're speaking about the Pakeeza Asian Women's Group; the local parent's group and the local arts group (none of whom get any direct grant from C+F but whose groups are subsidised as part of the rent) - being turfed out too - I can feel a cold draught called reality check coming on ....