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Saturday 16 June 2018

The Eerie Quiet of Brent Council

One of the things that make the current quiet of Brent Council so eerie is that there are actually many scary things on the near horizon. 

Firstly, there is whatever happens in the Brexit process, which even Boris Johnson concedes might lead to "meltdown" during which (as with Corporal Jones) his best advice is "Don't Panic".  Since one case being considered in Whitehall apparently includes the RAF airlifting emergency food supplies I really can't see what we could possibly be panicking about.

But there are also a range of things, the ultimate fate of business rate localisation, the local government settlement and the freedom of action the Council retains over its financial position which frankly no one appears to be talking about.

Even odder, I think, is that a Labour Council is putting out press releases such as this one.   This sounds as if it might have been dictated straight from Whitehall with no effort to point out that the problems of the Council are enormous, the policy described is a sticking plaster and that it is central government that has created these problems through its rigid Tory ideology.

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