Dogma driven

Tory councillors are showing through what they say and what they do that they are driven by a dogma not the best interests of families who need good affordable public services.

Tory Leader of Southampton Council Cllr Alec Samuels said:

“For ideological reasons we are going for outsourcing, externalisation, privatisation.”

To back this up, he’s putting £800,000 of taxpayers’ money into the pockets of consultants so that he can pursue his dogmatic sale of local swimming pools and leisure centres.

And he’s also said,

“We do not in principle favour ‘free this and free that’, such as swimming or transport, school meals or computers or whatever it is.”

Lord Hanningfield, the former Conservative Shadow Business Minister, who recently led Essex Council but has just been charged with false accounting, is also a firm believer. He’s invited any private company to run ‘all or any’ of its services – wholesale privatisation.

While the Leader of Tory Hammersmith and Fulham, Stephen Greenhalgh,  has said that public housing is an “asset” but which “delivers a risible return”, with the solution the end of social housing.

And the Leader of Tory-run Wandsworth said,

‘We will look to increase charges as far as possible beyond inflation so that consumers of the services are bearing the full cost without anyhidden subsidy from the taxpayer. It is worth taking a trial and error approach to see just what the market [ie residents] will bear.”

It shows the instincts of the Conservative Party are unchanged. They are
driven by Tory dogma which hits those on middle incomes hard.

52 Tory Councils have not signed up for free swimming

More contempt for council tenants in Kensington & Chelsea

Hiding the truth in Wandsworth

Contempt for council tenants in Hammersmith and Fulham

No to helping the homeless in Hammersmith and Fulham