Government pulling all the strings in city
NOTTINGHAM recently celebrated all things puppetry related, with marionette events taking place right across the city, including shows, talks, film screenings, and workshops.
However, one event went completely under the radar, which involved three hierarchical layers of puppetry.
At the top of the pyramid, pulling all of the strings we see PM Sunak, Chancellor Hunt and Secretary of State (for Levelling to the Ground) Gove. Then, the next three are the Governmentinstalled commissioners, headed up by Tony Mcardle, supported by Margaret Lee (finance) and Sharon Kemp (transformation, don’t laugh). Unfortunately this triumvirate are pulling all of the strings of the ruling Labour group, which forms the final layer.
Mind you, the Labour group has two other sets of controllers also getting in on the act, monitoring every move elected councillors make, as the national and regional Labour Party exerts an even tighter form of control, including over who will be the next council leader.
But lo, standing outside this puppet show is our local heroine, Councillor Shuguftah Quddoos, the Sheriff of Nottingham. Shuguftah’s lone vote in the Council Chamber against the cuts on March 4, which everyone agrees will wreck the fabric of our city, from care homes to libraries, shows that the spirit of rebellion in our city is alive, just!
At the recent standing-roomonly event in the Meadows, Shuguftah put her vote in the context of previous local government revolts, notably the Poplar Rates Rebellion in 1921, protesting about the then inequitable local government financial arrangements.
Fast forward a century, and the same inequitable financial arrangements are in place between central and local government today, in which councils are literally treated as poor relations.
The main think tank across the sector, the Local Government
Information Unit (LGIU) recently published a manifesto which called for a complete financial recalibration between the two tiers, and also claimed that central government continually undermines the democratic status of local authorities.
And remember, Michael Gove has serious questions to answer in relation to VIP Lane PPE contracts, which Carole Vorderman has recently exposed.
I don’t think we should take any lessons from this shower based in Whitehall.
I also think we have a duty to challenge the whole Levelling Up agenda, which in my view is a complete joke and just another series of soundbites from this Government, along with other misnomers, such as the Northern Powerhouse and The Midlands Engine.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot, an international authority on health inequalities and life-expectancy at the UCL Institute of Health Equity, stated in August 2021 that if the Government was serious about levelling up it needed to restore all the local authority cuts across England, including those affecting libraries, transport and leisure centres, as well as early intervention services since 2010.
Instead, Michael Gove and his colleagues, have issued a wrecking ball to local authorities across England in that period, including over £97 million cut back annually from Nottingham City Council’s budget, which amounts to more than £1 billion in lost revenue.
The money wasted during the Covid crisis, and the revenue funds lost due to the local government finance settlement, have resulted in the current crisis.
We need those funds, not just for providing essential statutory services, but also those services in which citizens get enjoyment out of life, such as museums, leisure centres, galleries and, dare I say, libraries.
Meanwhile, I would urge readers to attend the next city centre event at which the Sheriff will be centre stage, and that’s the Nottingham
Trades Council (Rise Like Lions) May Day march and rally.
This annual labour movement event this year assembles outside the new Central Library in Broadmarsh, from 11am on Saturday 04 May. May The Fourth Be With You!
Des Conway
Sherwood