Conversations with library users this week have had a common theme that the councillors are determined to move the library to the leisure centre knowing full well it is not what library users want. There is disgust, anger and disdain towards the leaders of local government in Goole.

There is also a good deal of hilarity as the number of photos of ERYC council leader Handley looking exuberantly joyful in the Goole Times and Your East Riding magazine (both key propaganda tools for ERYC, the former is a for profit supposedly independent business, the latter funded by ratepayers). It is getting beyond parody.

Meanwhile, residents deal hour by hour with the consequences of austerity, and the way this town has been trashed so its East Riding Councillors can achieve their personal ambitions.

The New Yorker magazine, a serious publication with a strong reputation for rigourous fact checking, recently published a lengthy article about the state of Britain. It states the Britain has not recovered from the banking crisis of 2008 - 16 years later. It also says people have experienced the most serious decline in incomes since World War II. The article includes an interview with former Chancellor George Osborne, artchitect of the austerity programme from 2010. He admits that the austerity he implemented was a choice, ideologically driven, not a necessity, but is proud about how devastatingly effective the echoes with wartime proved to be in persuading the electorate to go along with it.

The article examines the impact of how hollowed out public services now are, that the NHS has been sabotaged (deliberately, so that the public will agree to privatisation). That the Brexit the Johnson Govt chose has been an economic disaster. It is very critical indeed about the Johnson government’s authoritarian approach and undermining of democracy.

That is a view of the UK from the US (see: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/04/01/what-have-fourteen-years-of-conservative-rule-done-to-britain

Meanwhile the propaganda from our East Riding Councillors about how marvellous everything is and how wonderful they, how lucky we are to have them, continues. It’s understandable, human, that they are pleased to be achieving their own ambitions. The cloth ear for what the residents of this town actually want is nevertheless deeply disappointing and frustrating.

And public anger in the town grows.

Thank you to everyone who has signed so far. Keep talking, keep sharing, keep signing.