DON’T BLAME GOVERNMENT

YOUR article of July 21 on proposed library closures in our area (‘£60,000 could save a library under threat’) highlighted the great value that all our libraries represent and the relatively insignificant amounts of money needed to keep them all going.

While it is true that the lack of funding from central government – a process that has been taking place year on year ever since the Conservatives came into government in 2010, despite their disingenuous claims to be in favour of increased ‘localism’ – is fundamentally to blame for the savage cuts in council services, we cannot allow the Labour leader of Lancashire County Council, Jennifer Mein, and her Labour colleagues to completely absolve themselves from any responsibility for the cuts they are imposing on the people of the county.

We voted for Labour councillors to oppose the government’s austerity ideology, not to implement it, however reluctantly. So I was encouraged to see our Labour county councillor quoted as saying: “What is proposed for Whitworth and Bacup is just not acceptable to me.”

What, unfortunately, he omits to mention is that he and his colleagues once again voted for a cuts budget only a few months ago. Had they refused to do the Tories’ bidding and led a campaign for the return of all the money stolen by central government from local government (tax payers’ money) since 2010, he would have found a groundswell of support from local communities which have shown their willingness and ability to fight to save their most cherished services.

As it is, people find it hard to differentiate between the parties at a local level. Until Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity stance is taken up in deed as well as word by Labour councillors, they are doomed to be treated with scepticism, at best, by the public, who will find their own ways to oppose the cuts. Danny Josephs Grange Road Whitworth