Children raise their voices for their library

                             Photo: Lorraine Skinner

 BNCTV seemed to have stopped uploading their videos to YouTube so I cannot embed them here. They have posted a video showing Muhammed Butt talking to campaigners outside Kensal Rise Library earlier this week.  Follow the link to see what he has to say.

The film is notable for the militant primary school children spontaneously voicing their opinions about the library at the beginning of the clip.

Kilburn Times: Library night raid "shameful"

Following on the widespread condemnation by campaigners and authors the  Brent and Kilburn Times   LINK added its powerful voice yesterday to criticisms of Brent Council's clandestine raid on Kensal Rise Library:

In a hard-hitting editorial they state:

The night raid was a shameful episode, one that will win the council no friends, either within or without the borough. It is indeed difficult to imagine councillors and officers planning so nefarious an act: did they do so behind closed doors, at dead of light, speaking only in whispers as they plotted?

Focusing on the fact that the new leader of Brent Council, Muhammed Butt, claims he did not know about the raid they say:

His embarrassment must be profound, since just a few days earlier he had promised that the library's books would remain in place for the time being. Perhaps it is time for him to exert his newly-won authority and hold someone accountable for this brazen breach of trust, before he is made to look like a fool again.

HEAR! HEAR!

In a withering coda they conclude:

Sadly, it seems futile to add that the council's reputation has been damaged. When it comes to the borough's libraries, Brent seems content to behave in a way that leaves it with no reputation to preserve.

In it heartening to have a local newspaper which stands in solidarity with the community against a council that attacks those it was elected to serve.

All Souls: Our 20th century Fellows never imagined this would happen

Keep Willesden Green campaigner Susan Clark has received the following response from All Souls College to concerns she expressed about the situation at Kensal Rise Library after Brent Council's dawn raid:

The College has of course been made aware of the “dawn raid” to which you refer. 

It is indeed very sad that the Council has closed the library.  This is something we made clear to the Council would trigger a reverter, thereby resulting in the freehold coming back to the College, something our Fellows of the early 20^th century never imagined would have happened. 

We had hoped the Council might keep the library open, and encouraged them to discuss with the Friends of Kensal Rise Library that possibility.

At present, we have no “exact plans”.  On all property-related matters, however, we are advised by professional advisers.  Some time ago we advised the Friends of Kensal Rise Library to meet with these advisers to discuss what might happen if the site were to revert to our ownership, and I know that at least one meeting has taken place between them.

Yours faithfully,

Tom Seaman

Fellow and Estates Bursar

 

Authors round on Butt and Brent Council

The Guardian reports Muhammed Butt's comments at yesterday's meeting with Kensal Rise campaigners:

The leader of Brent council, Mohammed Butt, told campaigners he did not order the overnight removals and was not informed the clearance was happening until a couple of hours before council workers moved in.

"The decision to empty the building had been made before I took over the leadership and the go ahead was made by the police at that time on the basis of public safety concerns," he said. He added that his IT system had failed at home and that he had not found out about the removal until midnight last night.

But he stood by the decision to remove the items, saying they had been left in the building for months and would have begun to deteriorate had they remained.

He said the council's solicitors and those acting for All Souls College, Oxford, said the library building had now reverted to the college. He hoped All Souls would return the building to the use for which it was intended.

 Brent Council's action has been widely condemned:

Alan Gibbons, author said:

I grew up in an area where you didn’t vote Labour- you were Labour. As I became politically aware in the mid to late nineteen sixties, for all its flaws, we had an idea what Labour was about. It meant public service. It meant hospitals and schools that were free at the point of use. It meant libraries and swimming pools and municipal socialism.

Compare this hard-won, long-fashioned identity with the actions of Brent’s Labour council, skulking into Kensal Rise library in the early hours of the morning to strip it bare. I have written to Labour leader Ed Miliband asking him to condemn the council’s actions.

The shadow Culture Secretary Dan Jarvis was well received at the Speak up for Libraries rally in March for asking failed Culture Minister Ed Vaizey if he was a champion for libraries. That question will look like double standards if the Labour leadership fails to distance itself from this irresponsible act of cultural vandalism.

The removal was denounced as “wanton destruction” by the biographer Sir Michael Holroyd. And author Maggie Gee called the move “cowardice”. She said:

The philistinism of unscrewing the brass plaque remembering Mark Twain from its wall in the middle of the night, would horrify anyone who still recalls Labour’s founding mission to share education, knowledge and hope with the people. We will continue to fight for our library.

Fellow writer Michael Frayn said: 

The library is now an unlibrary, in the way that people became unpersons in the darkest days of the Soviet Union. I hope they took the titles of the books off as well. Removing unbooks from an unlibrary – who could possibly object?

Kensal Rise issue challenge to Cllr Butt

Kensal Rise community library campaigners have sent this message to Muhammed Butt:

Dear Cllr Butt,

Perhaps after the action early this morning you might like to join us this afternoon at 3.30 at the library?

You might like to explain to residents in this community the reasons for the action you have taken.

That is, if you are still serious about 'engaging' with us.

We are somewhat baffled about why you would choose to do what you have done.
Did you not say the tables and chairs and more importantly the murals that were painted specifically for our library could remain? Along with all the plaques and photos commemorating the opening of the library by Mark Twain.

Regards and hopefully see you at 3.30.
 

"We will not let Brent Council's cowardly, middle of the night plundering defeat us"

This morning between 2 and 3am Richard Barrett, Brent's Property Officer, raided and stripped Kensal Rise Library. About 15 workers took the books from the library and also took the murals painted in the 1930's specifically for the library along with all the plaques commemorating the library's opening by Mark Twain.

They took tables and chairs and other assorted objects including a microwave and a box of sticky tape.They were assisted in this action by about 12 police officers.

Campaigners said: 

In a meeting with campaigners last week, the new leader of the council, Muhammad Butt promised that the murals and furniture would not be taken.

We asked him to hold off stripping the library until he had organised a meeting with All Souls College, the council and ourselves.

This action this morning is proof that the council had no intention of trying to ensure that the reverter on the library had not been triggered.

Cllr Mo Butt said he wanted to listen to the community, engage with them.

This is how he listens. By taking this action he has jeopardised the ability of this community to run this library.

We may be finished with Brent council but our campaign continues. We will not let their cowardly, middle of the night plundering defeat us. 

Cllr Butt's words to us are worse than meaningless.  

They reveal what a cowardly, conniving, bunch of dishonest panhandlers they are, but what else would you expect in the Banana Republic of Brent?

Downhills Primary carpet Lord Harris

On Saturday, about 50 parents and children from Downhills Primary and other local  Haringey schools had a ‘carpet time’ in Carpetright, Tottenham Hail to protest against the Secretary of State’s attempts to force our school (and at least one other Haringey primary) to become an academy sponsored by Lord Harris.  Lord Harris has donated millions of pounds to the Tory party and is described as a ‘close friend’ by Prime Minister David Cameron; he made his fortune selling carpets, not educating children.  We thought that if Lord Harris wants to take over our school, we should take over his shop for a short while.  The children listened to the story of ‘The Magic Carpet Seller’ who came to realise that children cannot be mass produced and manufactured in the way that carpet can.  We left the shop after ‘carpet time’ and assembled outside to sing our campaign song ‘Save our school’.  Thanks to Hazel Gould for writing the fantastic story and Andy Graves for the illustrations.

Alperton teachers strike against Co-op Academy move

Michael Gove - profits ahead for private providers?

On Thursday 31^st May NUT members at Alperton Community school in Brent will be on strike against their governors decision to convert to a Co-op academy. The message to parents below from the teachers at Alperton explains why they have taken this very difficult decision to strike. There will be a picket at the school on Thursday from 8.00 am at both the Stanley Avenue and Ealing Rd entrances.

Jean Roberts, Joint BTA Secretary said, “We are proud that teachers at Alperton are standing up against this decision. The academies programme is Gove's plan to worsen state education by removing legal safeguards on teachers pay and conditions ultimately allowing unqualified teachers to teach, privatising the management of all state funded schools and again ultimately opening them all up to be run for profit. Their idea is to have a chaotic free-for-all market in state education which they say will drive down costs and improve the quality of education.

“It will certainly drive down costs but the privatisation of state education for profit will no more improve the quality of education than it will improve the quality of service for the majority of people in the national health service.”

Dear Parents/Carers

Members of the National Union of Teachers at Alperton Community School will be taking strike action on Thursday 31^st May 2012. This is  as a result of the school’s  Governing body voting on Tuesday 22^nd May 2012 to become an Academy. 

We ask for your support for our action and want to explain briefly why we are doing this.

Academies are publicly funded but privately run schools outside of the Local Authority. The NUT, in fact all education unions and the TUC, are opposed to schools being run in this way and believe that this Government wants to privatise the management of education as they do with, for example, the NHS, Royal Mail and prisons. 

Even though Alperton has applied to become a ‘Co-operative’ Academy, there is no evidence that Academies benefit pupils and no evidence that they get better examination results. The teachers are concerned for the future of all students and staff in all schools that change to Academies.

The Government has overspent on converting academies and free schools by £600 million. There is no guarantee that the short term 'bribe' to get schools to become academies will continue, rather the reverse. All schools and academies will receive the same funding from April next year. In fact there has been overpayment of more than £120 million to academies, some having to pay this back by July. The first for profit company has been agreed to run a free school in Suffolk. Others will follow.

Members of staff at the school, both teachers and non teachers have voted by a large majority in a secret ballot against Academy status and the Chair of Governors has acknowledged that there is no ‘consensus’ amongst the different stakeholders.   As a parent you may have been given a letter by your child asking you to vote ‘yes’ or ‘no’ but there has not really been any attempt to provide you with both sides of the argument.

Teachers and staff at the school work incredibly hard to achieve the best results for students attending the school.  Teachers do not decide to take strike action lightly.  

We strongly urge the Governing Body of the school to reconsider its application to become a Cooperative Academy and to undertake a thorough and much longer consultation, with parents and carers being allowed fully to hear both sides of the argument before having their say.

Yours sincerely

National Union of Teachers at Alperton Community School