North Oxfordshire Green Party Blog

Original letters in the Banbury Guardian I feel compelled to respond to the two letters last week from Kieron Mallon and John Christie replying to my criticisms of them in a letter the week before. Firstly Mr Mallon's characterisation of the agreed budget as a compromise was somewhat disingenuous. Most of the original cuts remained in the agreed budget with only some of them moved to a category called 'unspecified cuts'. Of course it remains to be seen if any of these 'parked' cuts are eventually re-instated throughout the year, but that is a distinct possibility. Moreover the majority of the cuts to children's centre s remain. These were highlighted this week when the Prime M inister's own mother lost her job after the children's centre where she worked closed. Mr Mallon's refusal to see any of this as something he and his Conservative cohorts owe the people of Oxfordshire an apology for is of course between him and his conscienc...

I read with interest reports in the local press that members of the Banbur y and Bicester Labour group have criticised the final County Council budget that agreed to massive and damaging cuts in local spending, many of which will directly impact the vulnerable in the co unty, particularly children, the old and the vulnerable . I was at the very long meeting where these cuts were agreed and I have to say that in my opinion the spirit of opposition was very much a bsent from the Labour members in the chamber. Their leader Liz Brighouse gave a long and somewhat nebulous spee ch prior to the vote where she expressed concern with keeping council tax at current levels for people on low incomes, whilst simultaneously ignoring the fact that many of the cuts her group had agreed to would directly impact them. The Green Party were alone in presenting budget amendments which would have removed the need for virtually all the cuts to services by, amongst other measures, reducing councillo...