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#14
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Help for a friend
jbm wrote:
On 05/12/2017 09:02, Bob Henson wrote: jbm wrote: On 04/12/2017 23:07, Ed Cryer wrote: And tell your friend that many public libraries have computer rooms these days, where you can use one for free. Our one gives you a 1-hour slot. Ed You're lucky. Where I live in the UK they start charging you as soon as you sit down - £1 for every 20 minutes. Wow! That's steep. In Gloucestershire they're all free one hour slots. You even get free volunteer computer buddies to help if you're struggling. The only thing they charge for is printing. I knew I was living in the wrong part of the country. This is Northamptonshire, the county that has to make £10M savings/cuts by Christmas. To that end, they are proposing to cut all bus subsidies in the county, close 28 of the existing 38 libraries (so we won't need to pay for computer use after that) and slash the adult social services budget. They then have to find a further £28M savings/cuts by the end of the financial year - April 5th 2018. Oh! They are also forcing every single one of their staff to take an extra one day unpaid leave over the Xmas period!!! Gloucestershire too is Tory controlled, but we have had moderate Tax increases over the last couple of years. They have been trying to close libraries, but local opinion seems to have prevailed in most cases. We too are rural in nature - there's hardly anywhere more rural and (literally, in some cases - sheep used to be the main industry) dyed in the wool Tory. The problems here are badly decaying roads (they had a huge central grant - none of which has yet been visibly spent on the roads), an aging population, and the tourist industry being spoilt by ruining the AONB with almost unfettered house building which absolutely no-one wants (except perhaps those getting backhanders from developers). However, on balance, this is a great (if expensive) place to live. The ruling Tory County Council took the decision not to raise Council Tax levels for 10 of the last 14 years, so they were then able to boast that this county had the lowest level of Council Tax in the whole country, at the expense of not raising some extra £60M in revenue over that time. Whilst in principle laudable, they seem to be going about cutting costs the wrong way. And now they are bleating that do not have enough money to pay for the services they are supposed to provide. There is now serious talk that they are only going to be able to supply services that they are legally obliged/compelled to provide. This is a rural shire county, so it is virtually impossible that the ruling administration will change in the near (or for that matter distant) future. And just to rub real brine into the wounds, they have just spent over £50M on a new headquarters for themselves, saying they could close and sell off 12 otherwise redundant properties around the county. The move to the new building was carried out several weeks (months?) ago, but not one of those 12 old building are yet empty, nor are any of them on the market for sale. Where do we go? My native Derbyshire did that several decades back. The ruling Labour council (rumour has it they would vote for a donkey if it has a red ribbon round it's neck - indeed in Ilkeston they did - election after election) gave themselves a magnificent new HQ in rural Matlock away from the city of Derby when times were very hard for everyone else. They spent more on the gates for their new white elephant than on public services for years. Sadly it has ever been thus - in a way local politicians are even more corrupt than national ones. What they should all be doing is firing all the unnecessary "outreach coordinators" and busybody inspectors appointed by the local Thought Police to enforce Political Correctness and to support the idle and feckless; and instead spending their cash on the people who work hard and deserve the encouragement. I don't think we'll ever see it though - some things never change. My favourite philosopher, Billy Connolly, once said something about MPs which applies even more to local politicians - words to the effect that "The desire to become a Member of Parliament should automatically bar that individual from that office." Anyway - we're a very long way from Windows 10 - so I'll shut up. -- Bob Tetbury, Gloucestershire, England Don't remarry - just find a women you hate and give her a house. |
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