Literacy news
Pullman campaign blamed for social service cuts
7 Oct 2011
Children’s author Philip Pullman has come under fire from Keith Mitchell, leader of Oxfordshire County Council, for his successful campaign to save Oxfordshire libraries from closure, which has forced unpopular social service cuts in other areas.
Mitchell criticised Pullman and fellow “well-heeled worthies” and “Oxford lefties”, including crime writer Colin Dexter, whose campaign against library closures in the county has been highly successful. The success of the library campaign however, has meant that services for the elderly and disabled would be axed instead.
Writing in the Guardian, Mr Mitchell commented that,
“I was saddened that, deficit deniers apart, these largely well-heeled worthies refused to accept that reducing library cuts would add to the cuts to other services – most likely social care and highways.
Given the scale of the planned cuts, you might expect a caring population to express anger about cuts to care for older people, about the impact of cuts on the highway network and congestion and about the impact of cuts on recycling,”
Read the full story at The Telegraph.
