So £735,000 is about to be cut from libraries across the region. Can we really be surprised, given we have just had an election in Newcastle? What is shocking is the swiftness of the attacks on this type of public service, and one on an already minimal existence.
What's really disgraceful, is that this, I feel, is an attack on a lifestyle. I must surely not be the only person out there who, with excited anticipation, visited a local library growing up with a sense of wonder at all those books to borrow - for free! Now that possibility for kids, their parents, or both, is being eroded to a degree that people just won't bother going in the first place.
You may think this is being overly dramatic - that library services will continue in some form; they no doubt will, but by removing a desire to visit a library on a regular basis, what motivation is there for kids to get into reading in a way that remains with them their whole lives? And when you consider that Stoke-on-Trent (the biggest cuts culprit) doesn't exactly have a reputation for a high level of literacy, the council appear to have shot themselves in the foot. How can they hope to 'market' themselves as a thriving city when the vast majority of its population are the ones to suffer?
These draconian cuts are getting more and more personal. And once more the working-classes are the ones paying for them - not just financially but socially and ideologically. It all comes back to holding down the prospects of ordinary working people whose avenues for learning are constantly shrinking.
Welcome back Labour. Can you spell b*****ds?
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