If you want to see where Tory plans to shrink the state will lead, look no further than Barnet. The Tory-run London suburb is in the process of shrinking the number of town hall staff from 3,200 to as few as 332. It is outsourcing so many of its services to the £7bn multinational company Capita, that it has, in effect, “agreed to a friendly takeover”.

But though this is all being done in the name of “saving money”, it is far from clear that it has so far saved a penny. On the contrary, Barnet is now subjected to all sorts of new-fangled charges. For instance, if you now phone the local library to ask if it stocks a given book, the call is routed to a call centre in Coventry, 114 miles away,  an exercise for which Barnet is said to be charged £8. Not that complaining will help: Capita will be running these services for at least the next ten years, whether Barnet residents like it or not; and information about services that used to be public is now off-limits for reasons of “commercial sensitivity”. So much for local democracy. (Aditya Chakraborrty, The Guardian)

I was tempted to call this move typically neo-liberal, but really it isn’t neo-anything.  It’s just plain stupid, laughable, in fact.  For how long will the residents indulge this idiocy?  For ten years, I assume. The idea of public services, free at point of use and paid for by the community, is disappearing.  In England you are increasingly on your own and everything, however petty, has a price affixed to it.  Bring back public service for the public!