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Councils in crisis – a different approach is long overdue
Based on his experience of Haringey Council Councillor MARK BLAKE believes only a radical policy rethink will reconnect councils with the alienated constituencies they are supposed to serve
NOT OUT OF THE WOODS: Page High Estate, Wood Green, the future of Haringey council housing hangs in the balace


WITH the lurching into near bankruptcy and a controversial budget meeting due on March 3, the travails of Haringey Council in north London tell a sorry tale of our country’s 21st-century decline brought about by the folly of elite politicians.
 
Haringey Council, like many local authorities after a decade and a half of austerity, is teetering on the brink of financial collapse. 

The mainstream narrative on this will swing from Labour’s perspective of its dire inheritance of 15 years of Tory misrule and the consequences of years of cuts and the subsequent decay that has followed, to the right-wing media’s usual reporting of a failure of Labour local authorities to manage their household budgets.
 
There’s no denying the economic and social vandalism that austerity has visited on the UK has decimated public services, turbo charged income and wealth inequality and almost wrecked the economy.
 
However, there’s another angle to this story which will of course be ignored by the mainstream media and political analysts. 

Haringey Council provides a view, in microcosm, of the plague that has infected British economic and social policy for the past 40-plus years and two policies in particular showcase this.
 
The council for nearly a decade froze council tax. This was sold as a progressive policy protecting the poorest residents from a regressive tax as the Tory-Lib Dem coalition had stripped away national subsidies for poorer households. 

The Rebirth of the African Phoenix, by Roger McKenzie
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We desperately need to reform the justice system
Features / 23 April 2025
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Britain’s justice system is in disarray due to austerity and a dominant philosophy that pursues criminal justice solutions to social problems. It’s time for the left to provide an alternative, writes MARK BLAKE