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WALTHAM FOREST: Council leader defends 'flawed' report
A FLAWED and inaccurate report paid for with money allocated to aid the borough's poorest people is acceptable, according to Waltham Forest Council's leader and health bosses.
The £47,000 research by consultants Dr Foster Intelligence, which was financed by the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund (NRF), was found to have breached the company's own code of conduct.
But Waltham Forest's Director of Public Health Pui-Ling Li and Primary Care Trust chief executive Sally Gorham believe the discredited report is valid.
Their view is shared by council leader Clyde Loakes, who described the research as "valuable" even though official papers show it was not used to 'to fashion or operationalise interventions'.
The report, and the way the contract was tendered, is one of a number of aspects of the use of NRF in Waltham Forest which is currently under investigation.
An inquiry was launched following a complaint that the research was littered with vague assertions, inconsistencies and reached conclusions which were at odds with expert opinion.
Furthermore, 80 of the 207 postcodes listed in the report were found not to exist.
Upholding the complaint, the Dr Fosters Intelligance Ethics Committee said: "Issues of particular concern were the failure of the measures to check data sources, the evidence of inadequate editorial rigor, and the lack of adequate explanation of the methodology."
The support for the controversial research, which was commissioned by the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), was revealed in a written response to a question from Conservative group leader Matt Davis during a full council meeting last Thursday.
Cllr Davis's questions mirrored those asked by Metropolitan Police Authority member Lord Toby Harris in Parliament last month, who was told the local authority should respond.
Cllr Davis asked what assessment had been made of the success of the Dr Foster Intelligence contract.
Cllr Loakes, who chairs the LSP, responded: "The director of Public Health, supported by the PCT chief executive, has recommended that the LSP board accept the findings from the work, because the editorial errors do not discredit the findings and conclusions of the report'.
"This is based on her professional view that although there were typographical errors in the report, they do not undermine the findings of this work and the conclusions and recommendations included in the report were proportionate to the significance of the findings and the limitations of the method used."
12:24pm Tuesday 25th March 2008
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CommentPosted by: Disgraceful, Waltham Forest on 1:35pm Tue 25 Mar 08
The errors in the Dr Fosters report were most certainly not just typographical ones, they are more serious and fundamental than that. This is looking like a whitewash done to protect the unelected and unaccountable LSP's poor handling of the entire NRF/BNI programme and is a disgrace.
The errors in the Dr Fosters report were most certainly not just typographical ones, they are more serious and fundamental than that. This is looking like a whitewash done to protect the unelected and unaccountable LSP's poor handling of the entire NRF/BNI programme and is a disgrace.
Posted by: Me khalid, walthamstow on 2:42pm Tue 25 Mar 08
yes white was for sure very bad thing
yes white was for sure very bad thing
Posted by: concerned for his sanity, walthamstow on 3:05pm Tue 25 Mar 08
Cllr Loakes has got to be either one of the most intellectually dishonest or one of the stupidest people ever to hold elected office in this borough. Just put us all out of our misery please and resign Mr Loakes. You are not up to the job. There's nothing wrong with admitting it. No-one will think the worse of you is you face up to it now. Staying on, so clearly out of your depth, getting progressively mired in scandal and becoming more and more unpoular by the day, you are facing a lifetime of public contempt and ridicule in this borough. For your own sake, when in a hole, stop digging. You are still young enough to start a new career elsewhere where no-one has ever heard of you.
Cllr Loakes has got to be either one of the most intellectually dishonest or one of the stupidest people ever to hold elected office in this borough. Just put us all out of our misery please and resign Mr Loakes. You are not up to the job. There's nothing wrong with admitting it. No-one will think the worse of you is you face up to it now. Staying on, so clearly out of your depth, getting progressively mired in scandal and becoming more and more unpoular by the day, you are facing a lifetime of public contempt and ridicule in this borough. For your own sake, when in a hole, stop digging. You are still young enough to start a new career elsewhere where no-one has ever heard of you.
Posted by: Gary, e17 on 3:58pm Tue 25 Mar 08
How come I can comment in this, or one about Cohen but cannot comment on Lib Dem Cllr beating his wife up, well here goes he should just resign.
How come I can comment in this, or one about Cohen but cannot comment on Lib Dem Cllr beating his wife up, well here goes he should just resign.
Posted by: A Woman, Waltham Forest on 4:18pm Tue 25 Mar 08
I agree. Censorship is alive and well at the guardian. I have never heard anything as disgraceful as a wife beating councillor being able to keep his seat because it doesn't breach the "code of conduct". Disgusting.
I agree. Censorship is alive and well at the guardian. I have never heard anything as disgraceful as a wife beating councillor being able to keep his seat because it doesn't breach the "code of conduct". Disgusting.
Posted by: NT on 4:46pm Tue 25 Mar 08
The opinions about the Doctor Foster Intelligence (DFI) report that the [italic]Guardian[/italic] attributes to Councillor Loakes and the PCT’s Pui-Ling Li and Sally Gorham are very surprising.
When I first looked at the DFI report in early 2007, I was astonished by its flawed nature. Amongst other things, I discovered that
• the analysis of disease that was offered ran counter in several key cases to previous expert opinion, including that of the PCT;
• the terminology used was sometimes misleading;
• the methodology used was vague and unexplained;
• the proposed solutions to local health problems were for the most part wholly unoriginal; and
• the postcode analysis included many examples of postcodes that were void.
None of this was academic. For example, in the body of the report, DFI rightly concluded that the deprived wards had high rates of cervical cancer, yet in the postcode analysis, cervical cancer was not even mentioned! Thus, healthcare professionals who picked up the report, and turned to the postcode analysis when planning their interventions would have completely overlooked a major local killer.
Subsequently, I put all of this into an eleven page complaint to the Dr Foster Intelligence Ethics Committee, and in a judgement of 6 December 2007, it ruled in my favour, and, amongst other things, instructed DFI to amend the report and re-circulate it.
Thus, any suggestion that the flaws in the DFI report were minor, or that the Ethics Committee believed them to be so, are well wide of the mark.
Finally, quite why Councillor Loakes and his colleagues are pontificating about this now is also very puzzling. I first informed the Council of the DFI report’s flaws in March 2007. It did not even raise my criticisms with DFI until August 2007. As recently as 5 February 2008, the Council told me under the Freedom of Information Act that it was ‘unable to locate any correspondence that related to the evaluation of the DFI report’. Given that the Council first received the DFI report as long ago as October 2006, the current assurances ring rather hollow, and are surely an ill-advised attempt to close the stable door long, long, after the horse has bolted. That the report has never been used ‘to fashion or operationalise interventions’ - the very reasons why it was commissioned in the first place - makes the whole situation even more lamentable.
The opinions about the Doctor Foster Intelligence (DFI) report that the
Guardian attributes to Councillor Loakes and the PCT’s Pui-Ling Li and Sally Gorham are very surprising.
When I first looked at the DFI report in early 2007, I was astonished by its flawed nature. Amongst other things, I discovered that
• the analysis of disease that was offered ran counter in several key cases to previous expert opinion, including that of the PCT;
• the terminology used was sometimes misleading;
• the methodology used was vague and unexplained;
• the proposed solutions to local health problems were for the most part wholly unoriginal; and
• the postcode analysis included many examples of postcodes that were void.
None of this was academic. For example, in the body of the report, DFI rightly concluded that the deprived wards had high rates of cervical cancer, yet in the postcode analysis, cervical cancer was not even mentioned! Thus, healthcare professionals who picked up the report, and turned to the postcode analysis when planning their interventions would have completely overlooked a major local killer.
Subsequently, I put all of this into an eleven page complaint to the Dr Foster Intelligence Ethics Committee, and in a judgement of 6 December 2007, it ruled in my favour, and, amongst other things, instructed DFI to amend the report and re-circulate it.
Thus, any suggestion that the flaws in the DFI report were minor, or that the Ethics Committee believed them to be so, are well wide of the mark.
Finally, quite why Councillor Loakes and his colleagues are pontificating about this now is also very puzzling. I first informed the Council of the DFI report’s flaws in March 2007. It did not even raise my criticisms with DFI until August 2007. As recently as 5 February 2008, the Council told me under the Freedom of Information Act that it was ‘unable to locate any correspondence that related to the evaluation of the DFI report’. Given that the Council first received the DFI report as long ago as October 2006, the current assurances ring rather hollow, and are surely an ill-advised attempt to close the stable door long, long, after the horse has bolted. That the report has never been used ‘to fashion or operationalise interventions’ - the very reasons why it was commissioned in the first place - makes the whole situation even more lamentable.
Posted by: Mr Khalid, walthamstow on 4:48pm Tue 25 Mar 08
[quote][bold]Me khalid[/bold] wrote:
yes white was for sure very bad thing[/quote] I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake
Me khalid wrote:
yes white was for sure very bad thing
I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake
Posted by: mr khalid, walthamstow on 4:53pm Tue 25 Mar 08
[quote][bold]Mr Khalid[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]Me khalid[/bold] wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing[/quote] I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake[/quote] Whitewash I means
Mr Khalid wrote:
Me khalid wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing
I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake
Whitewash I means
Posted by: Mr khalid, walthamstow on 4:55pm Tue 25 Mar 08
[quote][bold]mr khalid[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]Mr Khalid[/bold] wrote: [quote][bold]Me khalid[/bold] wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing[/quote] I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake[/quote] Whitewash I means[/quote] Loake puling sheep over our eye
mr khalid wrote:
Mr Khalid wrote: Me khalid wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing
I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake
Whitewash I means
Loake puling sheep over our eye
Posted by: Observer on 5:00pm Tue 25 Mar 08
[quote][bold]Mr khalid[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]mr khalid[/bold] wrote: [quote][bold]Mr Khalid[/bold] wrote: [quote][bold]Me khalid[/bold] wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing[/quote] I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake[/quote] Whitewash I means[/quote] Loake puling sheep over our eye[/quote] The extent of your intellect and ability suggests you would be ideally suited to be his successor.
Mr khalid wrote:
mr khalid wrote: Mr Khalid wrote: Me khalid wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing
I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake
Whitewash I means
Loake puling sheep over our eye
The extent of your intellect and ability suggests you would be ideally suited to be his successor.
Posted by: Mr. T. C. Hull, Walthamstow on 5:47pm Tue 25 Mar 08
Why is there so much surprise about this matter? It just proves what I have been saying for some time. This Borough is under the maladminstration of 'Loakes and his Jokes'!!
Why is there so much surprise about this matter? It just proves what I have been saying for some time. This Borough is under the maladminstration of 'Loakes and his Jokes'!!
Posted by: md250, ilford on 8:59pm Tue 25 Mar 08
[quote][bold]Observer[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]Mr khalid[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]mr khalid[/bold] wrote: [quote][bold]Mr Khalid[/bold] wrote: [quote][bold]Me khalid[/bold] wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing[/quote] I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake[/quote] Whitewash I means[/quote] Loake puling sheep over our eye[/quote] The extent of your intellect and ability suggests you would be ideally suited to be his successor.[/quote] GOD HELP US
Observer wrote:
Mr khalid wrote:
mr khalid wrote: Mr Khalid wrote: Me khalid wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing
I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake
Whitewash I means
Loake puling sheep over our eye
The extent of your intellect and ability suggests you would be ideally suited to be his successor.
GOD HELP US
Posted by: md250, ilford on 9:00pm Tue 25 Mar 08
[quote][bold]Observer[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]Mr khalid[/bold] wrote:
[quote][bold]mr khalid[/bold] wrote: [quote][bold]Mr Khalid[/bold] wrote: [quote][bold]Me khalid[/bold] wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing[/quote] I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake[/quote] Whitewash I means[/quote] Loake puling sheep over our eye[/quote] The extent of your intellect and ability suggests you would be ideally suited to be his successor.[/quote] GOD HELP US
Observer wrote:
Mr khalid wrote:
mr khalid wrote: Mr Khalid wrote: Me khalid wrote: yes white was for sure very bad thing
I mean to say whitewas a very bad thing to blind the peolp who read this report Loake
Whitewash I means
Loake puling sheep over our eye
The extent of your intellect and ability suggests you would be ideally suited to be his successor.
GOD HELP US
Posted by: Claire Lewis, 114-998 on 9:29pm Tue 25 Mar 08
Enough! When is someone going to report this? I've had enough of reading about this issue and the disrespectful answers or no answers from Clyde Loakes about a very serious matter. He's totally taking the Michael and we're all just sitting here allowing him to. To NT, may I suggest you report your concerns to the appropriate authorities as soon as possible. Our borough is a laughing stock.
Enough! When is someone going to report this? I've had enough of reading about this issue and the disrespectful answers or no answers from Clyde Loakes about a very serious matter. He's totally taking the Michael and we're all just sitting here allowing him to. To NT, may I suggest you report your concerns to the appropriate authorities as soon as possible. Our borough is a laughing stock.
Posted by: Campbell, Leyton on 9:40pm Tue 25 Mar 08
The Loakes issue here is a deeper issue that one will instantly grasp and for the average voter will not instantly mean much to them. There are sinister undertones here
The Loakes issue here is a deeper issue that one will instantly grasp and for the average voter will not instantly mean much to them. There are sinister undertones here
Posted by: Claire Lewis, Walthamstow on 9:44pm Tue 25 Mar 08
Sinister issues need to be reported and dealt with!!!!!!!!
Sinister issues need to be reported and dealt with!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Frances Hay, Walthamstow on 9:45pm Tue 25 Mar 08
Ray Ling (the Chinese Fence) may also be implicated in mishandling of this
Ray Ling (the Chinese Fence) may also be implicated in mishandling of this
Posted by: NT on 10:05pm Tue 25 Mar 08
The internal audit and fraud report into the LBWF-DFI contract is finished, but not yet publicly available.
According to a paper by the chief executive which was presented to the LSP earlier this year (but - guess what? -not placed on the LBWF website), no fraud was found, but, on the other hand, the Chief executive has admiiteed elswhere that" The procurement of the DFI report did not fully follow the Council’s Contract Procurement Rules. The appropriate processes to seek authorization and record decisions were not followed...This is bad practice and we have taken steps to ensure that all staff are fully aware of the need to follow procedure and the consequences of failing to do so".
Three other investigations into the BNI are currently running.
I have certainly reported all these (and other) matters to the appropriate authorities, and there will certainly be developments in the near future.
Nevertheless, I still wonder why so few councillors have involved themselves in these issues. I have kept them all fully informed. Where this is all going to end up is so obvious that one might expect them to be getting edgy. But perhaps they are?
The internal audit and fraud report into the LBWF-DFI contract is finished, but not yet publicly available.
According to a paper by the chief executive which was presented to the LSP earlier this year (but - guess what? -not placed on the LBWF website), no fraud was found, but, on the other hand, the Chief executive has admiiteed elswhere that" The procurement of the DFI report did not fully follow the Council’s Contract Procurement Rules. The appropriate processes to seek authorization and record decisions were not followed...This is bad practice and we have taken steps to ensure that all staff are fully aware of the need to follow procedure and the consequences of failing to do so".
Three other investigations into the BNI are currently running.
I have certainly reported all these (and other) matters to the appropriate authorities, and there will certainly be developments in the near future.
Nevertheless, I still wonder why so few councillors have involved themselves in these issues. I have kept them all fully informed. Where this is all going to end up is so obvious that one might expect them to be getting edgy. But perhaps they are?
Posted by: Walthamster, E17 on 12:09pm Wed 26 Mar 08
The contempt Loakes and his crew show for the electorate is truly mind-boggling. How can the report be valid when 80 out of 200 postcodes supposedly surveyed were nonexistent? It's a work of fiction! And paid for at great expense by all of us.
Clyde Loakes can not, now, be considered capable of running a council. What is the next step?
The contempt Loakes and his crew show for the electorate is truly mind-boggling. How can the report be valid when 80 out of 200 postcodes supposedly surveyed were nonexistent? It's a work of fiction! And paid for at great expense by all of us.
Clyde Loakes can not, now, be considered capable of running a council. What is the next step?
Posted by: mdj, e10 on 12:35pm Wed 26 Mar 08
So was 40% of the whole report mistyped, or just the postcodes? Mr Loakes needs to be cautious before approving a report which may yet be the subject of police action. How many Councillors can we have passing through the criminal courts before someone calls a halt to the whole sorry game?
Does Mr Rayner also welcome the report? If so will he defend it in court, because that's where things seem to be headed.
So was 40% of the whole report mistyped, or just the postcodes? Mr Loakes needs to be cautious before approving a report which may yet be the subject of police action. How many Councillors can we have passing through the criminal courts before someone calls a halt to the whole sorry game?
Does Mr Rayner also welcome the report? If so will he defend it in court, because that's where things seem to be headed.
Posted by: K, Highams Park on 12:57pm Wed 26 Mar 08
"How many Councillors can we have passing through the criminal courts before someone calls a halt to the whole sorry game?"
A lot is the answer, if the noises I'm hearing about all of this stuff is true.
"How many Councillors can we have passing through the criminal courts before someone calls a halt to the whole sorry game?"
A lot is the answer, if the noises I'm hearing about all of this stuff is true.
Posted by: NT on 3:27pm Wed 26 Mar 08
The postcodes issue needs clarification.
The DFI report consists of two parts, a discussion and a statistical annex. The latter lists all the postcodes in the deprived wards, and, for each, provides some socio-economic data, and a series of index numbers, which allegedly demonstrate how likely the people living in that postcode are to suffer from a range of serious diseases.
Unfortunately, when the 207 postcodes that DFI lists for the Cann Hall and Cathall were checked against the Post Office’s own data base, no less than 80 came up as void, while another two were outside the area.
When I challenged DFI about this, one of its employees replied:
‘The postcodes we used were provided by the PCT, I believe after consultation with the local authority. We accepted these in good faith as accurate and supplied them to Experian who undertook this aspect of the analysis for us. There was no indication from either the client or Experian at the time, or subsequently that there were such inconsistencies’.
One issue here is how the void postcodes entered into the analysis in the first place. The DFI employee, as has been seen, appears to blame the PCT. For its part, the London Borough of Waltham Forest has commented: ‘The PCT were [sic] aware that some postcodes were incorrect at the outset and these were pointed out to Dr Fosters [sic], with the understanding that they had been removed [sic]’.
But leaving this issue aside, if the DFI employee’s statement is taken at face value, it still raises a major difficulty. According to the data base, the postcode E114PQ – to take one example – does not exist. Yet in the annexe, DFI confidently claims, apparently on the basis of the Experian data, that it is in Cathall; that it is predominantly composed of families on benefits; and that these people have a range of stated risks of various illnesses.
Quite clearly, something, somewhere, in the postcode analysis has gone drastically wrong; and that an error of such magnitude could have occurred inevitably casts a long shadow over the rest of the data in the annex.
One final point. I first told the Council about the postcodes issue on 14 March 2007. This was the first it knew of any such problems, but later the same week, it confirmed that what I said was correct.
However, the Council did not then write to DFI seeking clarification until 14 August 2007.
This hardly speaks of urgency.
Why weren’t Councillor Loakes and the PCT’s Pui-Ling Li and Sally Gorham on the case then?
The postcodes issue needs clarification.
The DFI report consists of two parts, a discussion and a statistical annex. The latter lists all the postcodes in the deprived wards, and, for each, provides some socio-economic data, and a series of index numbers, which allegedly demonstrate how likely the people living in that postcode are to suffer from a range of serious diseases.
Unfortunately, when the 207 postcodes that DFI lists for the Cann Hall and Cathall were checked against the Post Office’s own data base, no less than 80 came up as void, while another two were outside the area.
When I challenged DFI about this, one of its employees replied:
‘The postcodes we used were provided by the PCT, I believe after consultation with the local authority. We accepted these in good faith as accurate and supplied them to Experian who undertook this aspect of the analysis for us. There was no indication from either the client or Experian at the time, or subsequently that there were such inconsistencies’.
One issue here is how the void postcodes entered into the analysis in the first place. The DFI employee, as has been seen, appears to blame the PCT. For its part, the London Borough of Waltham Forest has commented: ‘The PCT were aware that some postcodes were incorrect at the outset and these were pointed out to Dr Fosters , with the understanding that they had been removed ’.
But leaving this issue aside, if the DFI employee’s statement is taken at face value, it still raises a major difficulty. According to the data base, the postcode E114PQ – to take one example – does not exist. Yet in the annexe, DFI confidently claims, apparently on the basis of the Experian data, that it is in Cathall; that it is predominantly composed of families on benefits; and that these people have a range of stated risks of various illnesses.
Quite clearly, something, somewhere, in the postcode analysis has gone drastically wrong; and that an error of such magnitude could have occurred inevitably casts a long shadow over the rest of the data in the annex.
One final point. I first told the Council about the postcodes issue on 14 March 2007. This was the first it knew of any such problems, but later the same week, it confirmed that what I said was correct.
However, the Council did not then write to DFI seeking clarification until 14 August 2007.
This hardly speaks of urgency.
Why weren’t Councillor Loakes and the PCT’s Pui-Ling Li and Sally Gorham on the case then?
Posted by: Deep Throat, walthamstow on 6:51pm Wed 26 Mar 08
NT, you ask why Councillor Loakes and the PCT’s Pui-Ling Li and Sally Gorham on the case then. Its pretty obvious, isn't it? They are colluding to cover something up. As they say in America: follow the money.
NT, you ask why Councillor Loakes and the PCT’s Pui-Ling Li and Sally Gorham on the case then. Its pretty obvious, isn't it? They are colluding to cover something up. As they say in America: follow the money.
Posted by: Uzor Dijeh, Leytonstone on 12:37am Thu 27 Mar 08
[quote][bold]Walthamster[/bold] wrote:
The contempt Loakes and his crew show for the electorate is truly mind-boggling. How can the report be valid when 80 out of 200 postcodes supposedly surveyed were nonexistent? It's a work of fiction! And paid for at great expense by all of us. Clyde Loakes can not, now, be considered capable of running a council. What is the next step?[/quote] I'd say the next step is to make early plans to vote [bold]Conservatives[/bold] in favour for Clyde Loakes' and his fellow [bold]Labour[/bold] councillors at the next local election. In other words, it's about time [bold]Matt Davis[/bold] and his [bold]Conservative[/bold] crew are gifted the opportunity to run Waltham Forest because man does this borough NEED it!
That is my suggestion for the next step. Peace.
Walthamster wrote:
The contempt Loakes and his crew show for the electorate is truly mind-boggling. How can the report be valid when 80 out of 200 postcodes supposedly surveyed were nonexistent? It's a work of fiction! And paid for at great expense by all of us. Clyde Loakes can not, now, be considered capable of running a council. What is the next step?
I'd say the next step is to make early plans to vote
Conservatives in favour for Clyde Loakes' and his fellow
Labour councillors at the next local election. In other words, it's about time
Matt Davis and his
Conservative crew are gifted the opportunity to run Waltham Forest because man does this borough NEED it!
That is my suggestion for the next step. Peace.
Posted by: mdj, e10 on 12:29pm Thu 27 Mar 08
Uzor,
We surely need a change, but the catch is that many of the awful, mean things this Council has done are things that we'd have expected Conservatives to have done back in the days when they were riding high.At present, the Tories can sit back and let someone else take the blame for cuts, &c that we used to call Thatcherite.
And did the Tories refuse to take the Councillors' pay increases? The lack of real choice is deeply worrying: this is what breeds extremism, and the faster our society changes the more fragile it becomes.
Uzor,
We surely need a change, but the catch is that many of the awful, mean things this Council has done are things that we'd have expected Conservatives to have done back in the days when they were riding high.At present, the Tories can sit back and let someone else take the blame for cuts, &c that we used to call Thatcherite.
And did the Tories refuse to take the Councillors' pay increases? The lack of real choice is deeply worrying: this is what breeds extremism, and the faster our society changes the more fragile it becomes.
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