Frank Field MP has written a letter to the Liverpool Echo saying that the libraries are not worth saving and asking campaigners what services, such as elderly care, they want to see cut to save the libraries.
The tone of the article was very impatient, irascible and frankly insulting. This is my reply.
Dear Echo,
Frank Field doesn’t understand why huge protests met the attempt to close eleven Wirral libraries.
He tries to pit the defenders of community libraries against other services. What hypocrisy! Library campaigners often work alongside health, education and care workers to defend their communities. The Labour Government seems to favour stuffing the bankers’ mouths with silver and making the poor and vulnerable pay the price.
He alleges libraries are empty. Firstly this is wrong. In most areas they provide an excellent service and are prized by their community. Even where there are problems, what’s the cause? Field’s Labour colleague Lynda Waltho in a parliamentary report says the library service has been ‘woefully’ led. Now who has been in Government for twelve years. Who bears responsibility?
Field and the council leadership should be engaging with staff and the community to see why their original proposals were so deeply flawed. If Field wants cuts, by the way, what about MP’s pay and expenses and the pointless Trident deterrent?
Yours faithfully,
Alan Gibbons
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October 4th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
This is a great disappointment to me. I had always thought Frank Field thought things out well; often made sense. I thought well of him. What is happening to people whom one used to admire? He is way out of line by equating the saving of community libraries as a strike against the needs of the elderly and infirm. That is the most cynical manipulation of the facts that I have ever heard, and downright nasty to boot: to scare the elderly and infirm, and those who care for them, with such threats. Mr Field, you have shown an unpleasant side and I hope you will realise it will alienate a lot of people. Libraries and communities and a decent society: that’s what we want to preserve. And we will do so, in spite of you.