London Bridge is falling down
Where is the Knight We Need in a familiar script?
In the UK, London is the latest of council groups to signal potential bankruptcy.
That’s after Birmingham, Britain’s second largest city, went bankrupt in June, resulting in reduced sanitation services, libraries cut, and dimmed streetlights.
Some in the city described things as “Dickens” like.
For families with disabilities, transport services were cut entirely, leaving them with bus passes that are useless as the individuals can’t travel independently. The load on families increased.
But there were more bankruptcies before - Nottingham, Woking, Thurrock.
In February, UK local government warned that nearly half of all Councils would likely face bankruptcy in the next 5 years.
1 in 10 over the next year.
As usual the impacts involve people.
Assets are to be sold - for example, houses, libraries, land.
Services have been cut, homelessness is on the rise.
Rubbish goes uncollected.
Everyone agrees how this happened - the austerity policies started under David Cameron in 2018, and never ended under the Tories.
This saw Westminster slash funding for Councils while calling on them to focus on the ‘basics.’
Lord Pickles, responsible for local government and housing, attacked councils for “silly spending” and “waste,” and accused them of “stockpiling taxpayers money”.
Sound familiar?