Broken Barnet: A Tale of Two Libraries

Link to Broken Barnet

"Enraged library users were in abundance at the Barnet Cabinet meeting last night. Enraged in a very British, middle class way, the way that we do so well: polite, seething, disgusted, asking lots of brilliantly acute questions, to no avail, and then allowing their innate decency to stop them from jumping up and slapping the faces of the odiously smug Tory Cabinet members.

"Last week it was announced that Barnet would not be allowing local campaigners to run a community library in Friern Barnet, but that it had decided to support a similar residents proposal for Hampstead Garden Suburb.

"... It was very sad to see the residents take their turn at the table, and walk away so angry and frustrated by the process they have been duped into following. Their naivete is to their credit: they really believed that there is a system of democratic consultation in this borough, that they were being invited to engage in a Big Society venture, and that they could trust our council to help them do it. In short, they had not realised they were living in Broken Barnet.

"They do now."