| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Do the Council really have a choice with Ealing's libraries? | |
| Posted by: | Simon Hayes | |
| Date/Time: | 17/07/19 10:47:00 |
| Well, if we're talking about 'marketing and heavy marketing' then I'd suggest you take Ealing Council as a case study. There is absolutely no deviation from the orthodoxy of the message in everything they put out. Every decision is the correct one for Ealing, regardless of impact. There is no debate, which is a very unhealthy way to run a society. We spent decades being told that Communist countries were 'bad' because they stifled all opposition - as indeed we are told about North Korea and China today. Opposition in Ealing is stifled by the ruling administration. Objections are ignored. Legal challenges resisted (though occasionally they lose, embarrassingly, as in the case with Southall Town Hall). A bi-monthly propaganda sheet is pushed through letterboxes promoting the bright shiny new Ealing. And yet the truth is very obvious to all but the most ardent Bell-ite. Areas are dying because of lack of investment. Communities are being hollowed out. The much vaunted house building scheme is purely benefiting the developers (and perhaps one or two councillors). The list goes on. A degree of cynicism is necessary because if we believed everything we were told we'd all believe Donald Trump. Personally, I don't believe anything any politician tells me, at any level, because they are often trying to defend the indefensible. I've met many of them over the years and can count on the fingers of one hand the ones I thought were genuinely ok. Here's a little vignette of the sort of 'education' some people think is appropriate nowadays. Rupa Huq MP was invited to my kids school last week to talk as part of a Women in Work event. And what did she tell those impressionable kids? That she loves being an MP, she loves being a female MP and she thinks that all MPs should be female! Not quite a balanced view of the world.... |