The former Labour government withdrew its offer of nearly £9million it had promised Haringey for new primary school buildings. Yes – it was Labour who renegged on the money – not the coalition. I am putting this out there – because locally Labour are trying to say this is down to the coalition. No – it’s not.
PS This is not the money already committed to Rhodes Avenue primary school expansion. But of course – now Labour want to whip that funding away as well.
Lynne Featherstone 
This is a weak argument. What about all the other cuts? Who should we blame for them?
From someone who used to agree with Nick (http://www.twitvid.com/ERX9W).
Is this how it’s going to go, just blame anything nasty on Labour, not take responsibility for your calous actions?
Grow up, please.
As a LibDem member up until recently, I really don’t think you have any credibility, Lynne…. it’s the LibDems who have torn up their manifesto in exchange for a few cabinet jobs.
You profess to be protecting the most vulnerable in society yet you stand by and watch Ian Duncan Smith target them. Why aren’t you protecting the terminally ill, the young, the old, the jobless and homeless?
It’s also Michael Gove who plans for pushy Battersea parents to run their own schools with our money simply because they don’t want their ‘special’ children going to the local school.
Do you possess any principles? Where’s your voice?
LibDem councillors pushed for the expansion at Rhodes Avenue.
Now we will be in the worst possible position of having to take extra children, but with no new facilities.
Meanwhile, only a mile away, Bounds Green school stands ready to take three forms, but there is no plan to accommodate the extra children there.
You cannot evade all blame on this, LibDems.
You are a pathetic whinger. No one takes anything you say seriously any more.
You are going to lose your seat.
Good riddance to bad rubbish.
PS where were you on Thursday? Were you spending the day composing this latest giant killing intellectual drubbing of the other side? They must be quaking. I realise that given your oft demonstrated mental capacity it probably did take you all day.
When my children were small i used to play them white noise on the radio or the washing machine on spin cycle to stop them crying.
For the sake of the many Haringey parents that you care so deeply about please can you make a tape of you droning on about the council and how it is all labour’s fault so that they can save the ‘leccy on the radio/washing machine?
Vote lib dem get Featherstone. G_d save us all.
I don’t agree with attacks on you, Lynne. You state what you feel is your opinion and relevant points to you and I believe YOU believe in what you are saying. I often wonder is any party better than the next?
What I do think about a lot lately, being in the category of ‘vulnerable’ society (and I hate having to categorise myself in this position) is what are words if there is no action? What will change if individuals in the government don’t actually instigate a fight? I can comment incessantly until I turn blue, but the point is, will anything change?
What the people want is addressing the issues that you strongly support and see that there is an effect. Right now, I see myself spouting my ‘militant’ words to various members of the government and not just for myself but for anyone in my position and yet have to laugh. Will it change.
Take the front, Lynne. Words are just words and easily deleted. It is the action that people need to see. Right now I think many people have lost hope and confidence.
Keep up the blogs. At least we can publish our thoughts and feelings.
I do hope you read these blogs, though probably often exhausting and disheartening, but hopefully also, inspiring.
Looks like Lynne got 0wned
In the background of all these comments I can hear the cackling laughter of the City of London bankers, rubbing their bony fingers together after pocketing nine £billion in bonuses for last year, [2009] and still playing the derivatives casino game, resting assured that they are `too big to fail,’
These personal attacks on Lynne are appalling. You should ALL be ashamed of yourselves. She has difficult decisions to make and is actually making some very good ones. Yes there is compromise. it’s a coalition. And there will be things Lynne doesn’t like too but you can’t have everything your way in a coalition. When will people get it!!?
And she is right to point out some of the misreporting re: cuts etc. You all have very short memories. It’s just over two months since Labour left office and you seem to have forgotten the lot…
That’s right Ashley.
Lynne should be allowed to make all sorts of attacks on who and what she fancies as her attack of the day when she isn’t trying to ignore what is being done in her name by judging basket weaving contests. And we her constituents should all fall adoringly into line.
We do get the coalition. We just didn’t vote for it and we don’t want it.
And no I am not now going to enter into some spurious debate about it with you on here.
@Ashley
Lynne hasn’t said anything about attacks on the terminally ill, disabled, elderly, poor, unemployed, school children by her fellow ministers. Do please try to stop being so naive – all Lynne has to do is represent her constituents by speaking up.
@Lynne
Yes, why are the banks receiving a £2bn tax that will be wiped out by business tax breaks your government have brought in?
This is shameful.
Lynne,
I’m beginning to find you a very tiresome MP, its nothing personal as I feel the same way about most of Lib Dem MPs since May2010. You’re constantly criticising the previous government in a childish and banal manner and treating us like imbeciles reminding us what the previous labour government did or didn’t do. You don’t need to do that because it wasn’t that long ago and we can remember.
If you oppose the cuts to the schools building programme then put forward a good case and speak about it in the House of Commons. If, however, you now support the cuts which is what you’ve been implying since the coalition agreement (the previous labour government was living beyond its means etc.. etc…..) then what’s the problem? A petty point scoring spar on who said they would slash the budget first. Pathetic.
I can’t work out what side of the fence you’re sitting on any more and you’re probably confused too.
ashley if Lynne doesn’t like it she can resign from parliament to spend more time with her inherited wealth
If the Coalition fails, another election in the near future would very likely produce a workable Conservative majority, followed by unrestrained `death by a thousand cuts’ on most working people`s finances, as well as the unemployed.
The Libdem vote would very likely plummet, because our `five minute’ Treasury Minister failed to disclose claiming expenses for his gay lover, our Climate Change Secretary ditched his wife for a Lesbian, and our leader doesn`t believe in God, but believes in David Cameron.
Not an auspicious start for us Liberal Democrats.
thankfully Clare Kober the leader of haringey council did find time to attend the meeting on thursday and she was very good at answering questions honestly and openly. We are very grateful that the council have said the expansion will go ahead because it was ‘the right thing to do’ You have been silent on this matter, despite the fact that you used the expansion of rhodes avenue as one of the reasons why people should vote for you. Your silence and that of the lib dem councillors for this ward speaks volumes. As for the lib dems attempt to spin this so that it is all Labour’s fault – it really is amateur stuff. 4 Tory MPs whose constituencies are affected by the cuts have had the guts to speak up and defend their constituents, but not you. You said nothing. I guess that ministerial car really is that comfortable eh?
“I guess that ministerial car really is that comfortable eh?”
You know full well that Labour’s ministerial car programme was one of the first things to be scrapped.
It’s painfully obvious that several of these commenters are just Labour activists spewing undirected hate. As opposition goes, it’s quite sad.
Can’t speak for the others Andrew but that ain’t me you are describing. Not a labour activist and my hate is very directed.
And several people have revealed that they have left the Lib Dems on here only today.
Now who is sad?
not sad andrew – angry, very angry. If any of what Lynne Featherstone says about withdrawal of funding is true, it would have been a good story for the coalition to put out to counter the cock ups Gove was making. I repeat, she said nothing. One can only assume it’s a crock. Lynn has not responded to the needs of the school and her constituents but to her own needs. Only commenting when people get critical.
That’s exactly what you’d say if you *were* a Labour activist, isn’t it? Funny that.
Slightly confused here. Are you saying: Labour bad because Labour cut school budgets? If so, then why are you supporting the Coalition budget cuts? Surely you should be praising the previous Labour government for its timely reduction in building budgets, if that’s what you are supporting in government now?
Lovin’ the New Politics still Lynne – no point-scoring and jeering on this blog eh?
@ Andrew
I am not a labour activist but I am sick and tired of the lies, hypocrisy and nodding head dog effect of the LibDems since May this year. I did not vote for a coalition, I do not want them and I do not like what they are doing !
@ Andrew
Shouldn’t even dignify your post with a response, but I’m not a “Labour activist” either. However I am one of Lynne’s constituents. I live in the constituency, I work in the constituency, I raise my children in the constituency. I think that gives me the right to comment, don’t you?
Nick Clegg’s Lack of basic Economics…………..
http://www.compassonline.org.uk/news/item.asp?n=9950
So what would you disgruntled LDs (or now ex LDs) have preferred? A minority Labour govt, then another expensive election? Or a minority Tory govt with worse capitalist policies, then another expensive election?
Simon Hughes was excellent on the BBC1 Politics Show this morning. He faced down the exceedingly rude Jon Sopel, and he did a great job in trying to heal the wounds created by the totally inept Michael Gove. Leaving aside the problem that Gove was fed wrong facts by the schools regeneration apes, it needed Simon to point out that the govt will be entering into discussions with those areas whose projects have been stopped, and capital investment in education will not stop – but, in the area on the public/private sector boundary where I work, we have seen funding stop, and slowly, bit by bit, areas of activity that were suspended are being examined, some going ahead, others still pending decisions – and its galling and financially damaging for public and business alike to have a project or programme put on hold. There are only so many hours in the day and lots and lots of public sector programmes, many ineptly run, to be reviewed. Not that the ineptness was entirely the construct of the 13 Lab years – quite a lot of it has been building up for a lot longer than that (I can track a good deal of it back to taking wrong turns, by civil servants and elected govt, as early as 1968).
I don’t think that many of the people posting here *are* Labour activists, Andrew. At least not yet. But if your attitude is typical of the Lib Dems’ approach to people who voted for a left-leaning manifesto and are shocked by people like Lynne joining a right-wing government, I wouldn’t be surprised if some of them start actively campaigning for a Labour MP to kick out Lynne at the next possible opportunity.
it’s a bit rainy today isn’t it? I blame labour.
It had to rain. There was absolutely no alternative. The rain situation was much worse than we had ever thought possible. I know we said there would be no rain but this is a coalition and you cannot get everything that you want. Look on the bright side. If you get a cold caused by this terrible rain Haringey council has been a major contributor to- and I do know Haringey council did it- at least you will be looked after by the NHS. Oh.
It is inevitable that “blame Labour” will be the mantra of the ConDems and used to justify all the so-called necessary and unavoidable and ensuing unemployment too. But I wonder what Lynne thinks about the policies where it is impossible to blame Labour?
Last week Lynne’s political ally Andrew Lansley gave us his (presumably the coalitions?) verdict on school meals (not just attack Labour but let’s attack Jamie too!) and if I understand him correctly he said that it is not the resposibility of Government and obesity amongst schoolchildren, for eaxmple, is a “social responsibility”. And who does he say will give the advice on healthy eating? – the producers of junk food. Can you explain this one for me Lynne? And when all the safeguards for the poor and vulnerable have been dismantled by the coalition, and when the pieces have to be re-assembled, what share of the blame will be thanks to the LibDems?
Blame the Sick,Jobless,Disabled its all there fault.How dare they not find a job.With millions unemployed and millions going to join them how dare they be out of work.We will show them,sign on for 12 months and we will cut 10% of your housing benefit.If you cant pay and get thrown on the street, good show.With a bit of look you might top yourself and save us all some cash.
Sick and Disabled.What sick and disabled.Since we brought in ATOS with Lima are computer records show that Atos and Lima is a miracle cure.We put you in front of our computer and it says your fit.That’s great,save a fortune paying these idol waste of space’s.In fact ATOS and Lima are so good at curing people we are going to install them at every hospital.Then we can cut admissions by 75%.What a saving.Jolly gosh that’s great.
Laughable maybe,true yes,hang your heads in shame.
I used to walk around Haringey and Islington feeling really proud of the work being done to rebuild the ageing secondary schools in the area. Now the building proposals have been slashed. The coalition continue to bad mouth everything Labour achieved. My heart is sinking, where is the future hope for our kids. There is nothing but a stream of negative spin coming out of the coalition and it is eating into the very soul of our communities. I voted LibDem in Haringey for the first time in this election – never again! What price for your integrity, Ms. Featherstone? A job as a Minister……?
@MalW
I agree, I’m terminally ill and ever since the ‘Coalition’ became government, I feel that I’ve just got to hurry-up and die because I’m too expensive.
They don’t take into account that I’m not going to be receiving my state pension (I’m 36) Ian Duncan-Smith just launches attack after attack ably abetted by the rest of the smirking cabinet.
The LibDem Party that I’ve always supported are no help – you can’t even get a reply from your local MP as they’re too busy with their new right wing friends.
This is just a terrible state of affairs and certainly NOT what I voted for.
I’m sorry to hear this Bob. Lynne may not appear to care but lots of people do. Decent people would want you to only have the best possible care. I’m sorry for the extra stress you must be under.
I think we can all agree that it is a bit less rainy today.
In fact although we were warning yesterday that there was a 40% chance of rain I am able to say that, through sound weather management and coalition principles (or principals- that’s me tee hee), there is now a mere 25% chance of rain falling on our beloved const, constit- sorry – area – and on my beloved voters and fans without number out there.
I have just had a great thought. Why do we need to waste public funds on meteorologists? From now on the coalition will take the temperature and we will adjust it accordance with the direction that the wind is blowing. So when we say emphatically that we will not be rebuilding any weather vanes we could come back only the next day having heard the public outcry on weather vanes’ rebuilding and say it’s all been misunderstood and having listened to the rustling of the giant Redwood trees we will be organising sticky tape for some weather vanes in the home counties.
Finally we will be asking doctors to manage our weather assessments in an entirely neutral way because we take the view that they are as good with money as bankers.
@Julie P
“If this is the case, then I must be an activist!
Where do I sign up for this role, can you point me in the right direction?”
Since you ask, it’s
28 Middle Lane,
Crouch End,
London
N8 8PL
020 8340 7362
Ok I know its corny but I do like the way the weather theme has been ably kept up by the entrance of one B.Lizard.
@Adam
Nothing to do with the weather. I am a minor character in Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.
@ B.Lizard
Some of the best jokes are unintentional. See N. Clegg.
Actions Speak Louder than Words…………..
Irena Sendler
There recently was a death of a 98 year-old lady named Irena.
During WWII, Irena, got permission to work in the Warsaw ghetto, as a Plumbing/Sewer specialist.
She had an ‘ulterior motive’.
She KNEW what the Nazi’s plans were for the Jews (being German).
Irena smuggled infants out in the bottom of the tool box she carried and she carried in the back of her truck a burlap sack, (for larger kids).
She also had a dog in the back that she trained to bark when the Nazi soldiers let her in and out of the ghetto.
The soldiers of course wanted nothing to do with the dog and the barking covered the kids/infants noises.
During her time of doing this, she managed to smuggle out and save 2500 kids/infants.
She was caught, and the Nazi’s broke both her legs, arms and beat her severely.
Irena kept a record of the names of all the kids she smuggled out and kept them in a glass jar, buried under a tree in her back yard.
After the war, she tried to locate any parents that may have survived it and reunited the family.
Most had been gassed. Those kids she helped got placed into foster family homes or adopted.
Last year Irena was up for the Nobel Peace Prize.
She was not selected.
Al Gore won — for a slide show on Global Warming.
Irena Sendler is a inspiration to us all.Pity we cannot say the same about our Politicians that only care about their prospects.Irena Sendler faced the prospect of death for helping others.Our Politicians fear the Chief Whip.And they wonder why Politicians are not held in high regard.
While she is at it she could think up a response to the new crime stats that show crime actually fell during the recession, when it is usually expected to increase in times of financial hardship. Come on Lynn – “I blame Labour” Oh no wait, that’s not right.
Good grief indeed. And it comes to something when I find myself nodding in agreement with anything George Galloway says – but it happened! He responded to a discussion about the ‘pointless messing about’ with the NHS by saying “As far as the Government goes, it’s not pointless. They are dismantling the NHS with the aim of handing large chunks of it over to their friends in the private sector who will line their pockets.’ fair point, well made George! And Lynne, silence again?
I am getting a bit fed up with hearing Labour blamed for everything and anything, we are having to face cuts and job losses which most people are taking on the chin please please please stop this moaning and blaming and get on with the job
“I am not enjoying government,” one senior Lib Dem MP said last night. “We are being asked to defend some ugly policies but it is hard to say what we have got to show for it in return.”
I wonder if this was our dear Lynne?
(It’s from the Independent)
@Helen – you are right to mention the Health White Paper. It typifies how Lynne’s Government is going about it’s business.
Andrew Lansley’s health reforms have been described as the biggest changes to the NHS since it was set up. Whatever you think of the plans (in my view they are bad): did anyone vote for this? I doubt it, as there was no mention in any manifesto.
Not only that, Lynne’s Government colleagues said prior to the election that there will be no more ‘tiresome, meddlesome’ restructures. Why? Because they waste money. Yet within days, Lynne’s Government are introducing such wholesale reforms that they will apparently need years to implement and cost 1.7 billion – money which won’t go to patients.
Of greater concern is that the coalition agreement didn’t mention the reforms either. In fact the White Paper directly contradicts the coalition agreement. What a waste of time that was.
Amazingly, we are led to believe by Andrew Lansley that this fundamental re-shaping of the NHS has been invented in the last couple of weeks. What nonsense. The Tories have been cooking this up for years and they are able to do it because they have the support of Lynne and her Lib-Dem colleagues. There is no mandate at all for these reforms. Imagine for a second that Labour had done this – can you imagine Lynne’s outrage?
We’ve been duped, conned, mislead. If Lynne and her Government can do this, just weeks after the election and so few days after their own agreement what will they be doing a year or two down the line? So much for the new politics.
Lynne has left the building.
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