SWINDON BOROUGH COUNCIL TO BACK MORE DISGUSTING CUTS IN VITAL SERVICES.

As if peoples lives were not bad enough with the Credit Crunch, and the huge job loses from big employers such as Honda, the Swindon Borough Council (SBC) are planning on making many lives that little bit more difficult.

Under the new planes which were revealed in the Swindon Advertiser two days ago, street lights could be turned off, youth clubs being cut and funding for transport for the disabled and elderly is being severely slashed. The reason behind this is because of SBC’s £12 million budget blackhole.

As if the above was not enough, these new planes could see caretakers being removed from community centres and the cutting of vital bus services.


In my eyes the worst of these cuts is the slashing of funding for the Dial-A-Ride service- a voluntary transport service for disabled and elderly people who struggle to travel. I know that this service serves a great purpose in Swindon, due to the fact that my Grand Grandmother who is 89 years old uses the service often. This important service will be stripped of £50,000.

Old Town resident Mary Ratcliffe, a member of Action Against Elder Abuse had this to say:

“it’s a cruel decision. They are hurting the most vulnerable people in society. There are lots of people who rely on that for their lives- they can’t cook, they can’t go shopping. It’s very valuable for them. If they are not running efficiently then the council should help them be efficient instead of taking away their funding.”

What makes these cuts even more disgusting is that there are signs galore that the SBC are wasting money left right and centre. Let me give an example; last week the SBC gave £450,000 to a private company for the pointless Wi-fi project. That money could have been spent on the Dial a Ride service and no cuts would need to be made for approximately nine years, by which time the budget blackhole could have been filled by more appropriate means. On top of this I reported here that the SBC wasted government grants -which were meant to be spent on the very services they are cutting- on paying the bill left by Radio One’s Big weekend.

The other area of concern is the cuts in Youth Services. It has been proposed that there be a 10 per cent reduction in the services, which may include the closure of some youth centres. This to me is troubling because my personal opinion is that there isn’t enough for youngsters to do as it is, so with this reduction, there will be less to keep teenagers off the streets and out of trouble.

This is crazy. If the council was run properly and public money spent as it should, then we wouldn’t be in this mess. The proposal will be discussed at a Cabinet Meeting on Wednesday 9th December.

SWINDON BOROUGH COUNCIL'S £500,000 WEEKEND BILL

It has been revealed that Swindon Borough Council plan on spending a Government Grant which is meant for maintaining and saving public services and helping local businesses which have been hit by the credit crunch will be used to pay off the bill left by Radio One’s Big Weekend.

In papers that were prepared for the Council Cabinet meeting on the 9th September, the council recommends that last years £428,000 Local Authority Business Growth Incentives Grant and next years £240,000 should be used to pay off a £498,000 bill left by the Radio One Big Weekend.

Now, I am not some spoil sport, but at the end of the day, that money should be put to better use. If the council actually took care of their finances, and worked out whether having that event in Swindon was financially viable, then they wouldn’t have to spend this money on the bill.

I can think of some many different things that this money could be better spent on. Like keeping open Library branches that face closer in Swindon, saving the Groundwell Park and Ride which was key to our economy in Swindon, getting young people back in to work, it could have been spent on cleaning up the town centre, which is looking more like a ghost town everyday and a hundred and one other projects that would of benefited Swindon.

The Council should of made sure that they could afford this event before they went ahead with it. I am sure that a few businesses did benefit from this, especially those in West Swindon, where the event was held, but if they invested it properly then the whole of Swindon could of benefited.

Swindon Borough Council and the Pro-Paedophile website

After I found out about the NF’s website being blocked, I took it upon myself to have a closer look at the Swindon Library Webfilter, I wanted to know what websites the Swindon Borough Council deemed acceptable and what the deemed unacceptable.

To do this, I searched for all sorts of things on Google, and to be honest, I sincerely wished I didn’t.

One of the websites I found that Swindon Borough Council deem acceptable sickened me to my core. It really did shock me, because I was sure that not even Roderick Bluh and his cronies could sink that low. But by god they did.

The website I am talking about is called Attracted To Children, and yes it is as sick as it sounds. It is a website ran by a group of paedophiles, and they try and put themselves and other paedophiles across as a demonised minority who deserve rights. They openly state their sexual attraction to children.

To illustrate what kind of website I am talking about, let me give a few quotes I found on the site.

1) Paedophilia, a simple sexual and emotional attraction to young children, is often seen as the ultimate evil.
2)I’ve wanted to work with children for a while because I find them sexually attractive.
3) I work with children because society doesn’t want me to, and I will publish a guide to help other non-offending paedophiles ( and possibly also non-contact offenders who are legally allowed to work with children) to do the same.
4) we must work with children in order to counter-indoctrinate them, so that they don’t grow up to have the appalling values of the adults of today.

As you can see, this shouldn’t be a website which should be allowed to be viewed by the public, yet, Mr Bluh doesn’t think so.

The Stop The Bias campaign started off as just to unblock the NF website, but this has now become secondary to a new objective: to get this sick website blocked, and other criminal websites blocked as well.

Please offer your support for this campaign. We will be holding a demonstration in December, outside the Library. Email me at Swindon@yahoo.co.uk

SWINDON LIBRARY HAVE BLOCKED THE NF WEBSITE

In 2005, Manchester National Front noticed that Manchester libraries were blocking the National Front site. This unlawful internet censorship started a three year campaign of intensive complaints and letter writing by Manchester NF both Manchester Council and Manchester library services. At first these liberal leftist bodies would not budge and smeared the NF site as having 'offensive content'. More letters and calls followed as the intensive campaign was kept up. Now we are pleased to report this has been a great success and the National Front site has been unblocked and is now available throughout Manchester libraries. Well done Manchester National Front!

The above is taken from the main National Front site. While this may be a little victory in the big scheme of things, a victory it is none the less. And this is exactly what the Swindon NF are doing. We have sent a few emails of complaints to the Head of Swindon Borough Council, Mr Bluh, and also to Library services.

Below is the response we received from Mr Bluh:

Thank you for your email of 5 September. I am happy to assure you that Swindon Borough Council does not have a policy to block access from its library computers to any registered British political party, however odious some, including me, might find their views.
Our internet filter has restricted this information based on indications of “Phishing and Fraud”. Until the nature of this restriction is understood we are unable to provide access via the People’s Network. We are reviewing this with the supplier of Internet filter and will make a decision on opening the access once the review is complete.
Yours sincerely,
Councillor Roderick Bluh
Leader of the Council

I somehow doubt the reasons he has given to have any basis in fact, and to confirm my suspicion, I have found out who the Internet Provider is and have used the Freedom of Information act to find out the real reasons behind the Blocking of the NF site from Swindon Libraries.

I will update here as soon as we have found out more.

Mike