voluntary sector funding debate

This is a report from a public debate on Tory cuts to voluntary sector funding in Hammersmith and Fulham. The debate was organised by the Hammersmith Community Law Centre, which lost 60% of its funding in recent voluntary sector cuts. The debaters were Hammersmith and Fulham Councillor Harry Phibbs, Polly Toynbee, Labour MP Andrew Slaughter, Nick Seddon and John Fitzpatrick. It was chaired by Clive Coleman.

Another majestically windy summer evening in London, and a tall, roly-poly white man by name of Councillor Harry Phibbs takes the stage at the Irish Centre in Hammersmith's Blacks Road, to talk awesome neocon garbage about funding voluntary and public services. To wit: 'Of course you could [fund more voluntary organisations] if you increased the total budget, but we all realise that there's a problem there... do you put the council tax up?'

'We could put yours up,' says someone in the audience.

'What about the money that went to your pay rise?' say several others.

'What about those ludicrous [street] cleaning machines,' wails an irate member of the audience called Mark Mitchell. 'They cost thousands of pounds. They do [nothing]. They go throughout the day, especially when people are walking along the streets. It's spending on the wrong things.'

Harry Phibbs is a Tory councillor at Hammersmith and Fulham Council. That makes Harry part of the Conservative administration that is trying to snuff out the left-leaning lawyers who run the Hammersmith Community Law Centre by cutting over £100,000 from the centre's annual council grant.