Part-time councils an insult to public
EVER tried to get through to your local council only to find your call held in an endless queue or just never answered at all?
At the same time your council tax bill soars to pay all their wages.
AlamyMichael Gove’s plan to crackdown on slack councils is spot on[/caption]
How much worse will that become if town hall jobsworths have working hours drastically cut to a four-day week — with no reduction in pay?
Astonishingly, this is already happening in the Lib Dem la la land of South Cambridgeshire, while other councils such as Labour-run Norwich are eyeing up the scheme.
Michael Gove’s plans to crack down on this ludicrous trend are spot on.
As the Levelling Up Secretary rightly points out today, it is an insult to hard-grafting taxpayers and “completely wrong”.
He says: “People who pay council tax work five days a week or longer.
They deserve to have 100 per cent of the service — not 80 per cent.”
We couldn’t agree more.
Such slacking is a legacy of working from home, which was vital in the pandemic but has too often mushroomed into a culture of skiving.
The Government must rapidly nip it in the bud.
Like PM Rishi Sunak with his pro-car stance, Mr Gove shows he is in touch with the frustrations of ordinary Brits.
Such grassroots policies will strike a chord with anyone who has been given the council runaround.
The Tories should pursue them relentlessly at their conference this week and right up to the General Election.
On the wrong track
BULLYING rail union bosses are not only heaping misery on the travelling public.
The workers they lead into strikes are also sacrificing pay in the hope they will win a settlement by Christmas.
But insiders believe Aslef chief Mick Whelan plans to hold out for up to a YEAR in the expectation Labour will win power.
By then, however, he and his dinosaur cronies will have brought the debt-laden rail industry to its knees.
Striking train drivers should wise up.
Their union is only speeding them into an era of driverless trains.
Tragic complacency
BRITAIN cannot afford to go soft on its deadly knife crime epidemic.
This week’s tragedies in Croydon and Luton show there is no time to waste.
Yet shocking figures show the number of offenders jailed for a first offence is plunging.
We will never beat this scourge if courts don’t provide a strong deterrent.
More knife offenders must be locked up, not fewer.
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