Peckham Rye Labour

Tomorrow tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people will be marching in central London to show their opposition to the Tory-Lib Dem government's ideological attack on public services. I'm proud to be joining them, along with hundreds of colleagues from Southwark Labour Party and, I'm sure, thousands of residents from our local area. The havoc caused by the depth and speed of the cuts is already having a direct impact on the quality of life of many people living in Peckham Rye. Victoria, Renata and I are receiving lots of casework from people who are losing out on services, support and help because the cuts have been so deep, and so disproportionately targeted on inner city areas such as Southwark. So Southwark Labour's position on the cuts is clear, but the same can't be said of the Lib Dems. Of course, not all Liberal Democrats in the UK are in favour of the cuts. At least some have signed a public letter to voice their opposition to the Government...

Last night I went along to a council Overview and Scrutiny meeting to see the Lib Dem Executive Member for Resources, Cllr Tim McNally, being quizzed about council finances. One of the issues that was discussed was the payment of bonuses to approximately 40 of the most senior staff at Southwark. As Cllr McNally explained, there are two ways to pay people, either by a fixed salary or you can incentivise pay and make it performance related. Fair enough you might think. However it seems that the Lib Dems and Tories running Southwark have devised a third way to pay staff - paying a 10% or even 15% bonus to the highest paid staff that bares no resemblance to council performance given that, just a few weeks ago, Southwark was officially rated the worst council in inner London! We are in difficult economic times and you and I are counting our pennies. In the coming weeks it's increasingly likely that a whole host of council schemes will be cut as the capital programme spending is review...