Budget night in Hackney

Hackney Council budget protest

Protestors gathered outside the Town Hall to condemn council budget cuts. Photo: Alex Hocking


Powered by Guardian.co.ukThis article titled “Budget night in Hackney” was written by Dave Hill, for guardian.co.uk on Thursday 3rd March 2011 16.59 UTC

A highlight of last night’s budget meeting in Hackney was a critique of the Labour administration’s traffic calming policy priorities by Conservative Simche Steinberger. I quote:

Humps is just rubbish, but lollipop ladies is where it counts.

I admire Hackney Tories. They’re valiant. They have to be. Labour’s edifice of power has been broken in recent years only by the group itself breaking apart in the mid-1990s. The chaos of that period included a giant mess in the borough’s finances, which the current leader Mayor Jules Pipe continues to trade on having tidied up. He argued last night that the damage he must pass on to Hackney residents thanks to the government cuts would have been much worse had it not been for several years of precision financial stewardship.

This, no surprise, did not impress the hecklers in the public gallery who chanted, "Shame on you, for turning blue," and generally made it impossible to hear what anyone was saying. The meeting was adjourned for 20 minutes, with Councillors and hacks alike retreating to the inner chamber, together with five non-shrieking members of the public who would have made the meeting legal had it been reconvened in this place of refuge. The impasse was marked by world-weary eye-rolling and the occasional quip, including one in response to news that the hecklers had taken a vote about what they would do next: "Can we take a vote on whether we go back?"

It caught the mood. Barracking by the various splinters of the Outer Left on occasions like this is so traditional in Hackney that its absence would feel extremely weird. Its presence has two interesting results. One is the sense that much of the scornful commentary aimed at the Labour Councillors below – the Tories, of course, are let alone – is really part of an internal dialogue, some of it competitive – who can come up with the best line? – and some of it a form of ritual, group self-congratulation arising from an invincible sanctimony that has never been tested by the dilemmas power brings. The second result is that, in the absence of much constitutional opposition, Labour’s establishment has no way to fill the vacuum other than by addressing its taunters. If it didn’t, it would almost be talking only to itself.

Councillor and blogger Luke Akehurst – "firmly on the moderate wing of the party" – took the first swing, accusing them of having nothing to offer other than slogans. Pipe followed up by spelling out – so far as I could tell – what would happen if he decided to set an illegal budget or none at all. He explained that, unlike in George Lansbury’s day, there wasn’t much mileage in law-defying martyrdom. No one would get banged up or even surcharged. Instead, government commissioners would do the chopping job instead (Camden Councillor Theo Blackwell tweeted that Council officers too might be involved). Also, the Council would no longer be able to collect Council Tax or borrow, which would enlarge a £44 million cut to £114 million. There would be, he said, "immediate service collapse" and he’d be "using the most vulnerable people in this borough as a political weapon." This was not his idea of a good time.

Actually, I thought the Hackney protests as a whole quite muted by the standards of my historically stroppy borough. Arriving just after six, I found a demo of maybe two hundred outside the Town Hall, with a strong union element. Security ensured there was no storming of the chamber or corridors. Luke Akehurst’s view is that by directing their bile at Labour authorities this wing of the anti-cuts movement is doing Slasher Eric’s work for him. My view is that very few people will take much notice of them at all, but that when the effects of all the government cuts – not only those to Town Hall budgets – start to hit and ripple out a genuine public anger will grow. The government will give a damn only when that reaches the mainstream. Labour’s job is to encourage and articulate the dismay and make it work for them at the ballot box at the earliest opportunity. Sounds like a job for Mr Livingstone.

Further reading: A brief report on last night from the Hackney Gazette, a more detailed one from the Hackney Citizen plus a sketch from the gallery. Also, see 853’s piece on Greenwich’s budget night. Seems like it was fairly low key there too. Plus I’m among today’s Guardian Focus podcast panel, talking about how Labour councils are coping.

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