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An Open Letter to Sarah Teather

January 23, 2013 5:00 pm

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Dear Sarah,

As Leader of Brent Council, I was somewhat surprised to read in our local paper this week that you have been “working with the Council” on the issue of welfare reform, and are leading our efforts to mitigate the impact on our residents.

I was surprised because I don’t remember your help in preparing residents for the cuts in Council Tax Benefit and Housing Benefit that are going to devastate our community. Surprised because I don’t remember your help while everyone at the Council was refocusing their efforts on getting as many residents as possible into work and increasing local wages to minimise the impact.

Nor do I recall you standing up for residents by supporting our stance on the Living Wage, or helping reduce residents’ bills through our bulk energy buying scheme. I don’t recollect your offer of assistance in tackling slum housing and rogue landlords or in persuading landlords to accept lower rents rather than throw residents out on the street.

I can’t remember you lobbying Eric Pickles not to strip over £100 million from our funding or to give us the money our residents deserve for underestimating our population by over 60,000. Nor do I remember your help in supporting Brent’s food bank as they broke their own record for the number of vouchers given out in a single day over Christmas.

That’s because unlike the other MPs in Brent, you haven’t helped us or our residents with any of these issues – so far. 

If you really want to help our residents, instead of writing press releases claiming undue credit, why don’t you pick up the phone and ask what you can do to actually make a difference?

Our residents need someone to persuade this Government that they simply can’t take any more pain, they need someone to stand up for them in Parliament on a regular basis and they need help bringing together all partners in Brent to work together to protect them.

I look forward to your call; there is a lot of work to do.

Yours sincerely,

Cllr Muhammed Butt

Leader of Brent Council

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  • Gabrielle

    Very well said.

    It’s absolutely shameless of Sarah Teather to claim credit for things she has not done – however, it’s well known that LibDems in local government have turned that into an art form.

    Ms Teather made some noises in parliament recently indicating she wasn’t happy with the actions of the government – that she’s a part of. Too little too late, and cynics might say her new found conscience had something to do with her losing her ministerial role.

    It would be nice to think that Ms Teather could redeem herself and actually do something proactive to help the people of Brent, instead of releasing preening PR releases.

    I won’t hold my breath …

  • http://www.facebook.com/seema.chandwani Seema Chandwani

    Excellent!!!! Just excellent!

  • http://twitter.com/leonc1963 LeonC

    Nice very true letter that is sadly repeated around the UK, we need more councillors standing up to this rough government that will get us out of the EU on a whim just so he can satisfy his need to demolish everything that was good in society like EU employment, health and safety, welfare and human rights laws.

  • Jeremy_Preece

    Spot on. Perhaps Sarah Teather should stick to stand-up, as she is even worse at politics.

  • http://twitter.com/Ceilidhann Kayleigh Anne

    Sarah “I’m a government minister” Teather’s desperation to pretend she didn’t follow the government in every step before she was replaced by Laws would be hilarious if it weren’t so damaging.

  • MonkeyBot5000

    I do hope you actually sent her a copy of this – even better, send it through writetothem.org who will check back with you to see if she replied.

    At the moment, she’s ranked no. 597 – http://www.writetothem.com/stats/2008/mps – so I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for a response.

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