7 - John Dougherty on Culture Minister, Ed Vaizey

I don't know if you heard Ed Vaizey's recent appearance on Radio 4's Front Row, during which he claimed that there's no library service crisis (and I ended up shouting at the radio)?

Clearly the man was unaffected by our seventh most viewed post, in which I sang a satirical song about how useless he's been at looking after our libraries:


What's Wrong With Ed Vaizey? - John Dougherty

See you at 1:00pm for number 6!

Whatever it is, it's still wrong - John Dougherty

Having overslept a little, I'm just packing to go off to the Wychwood festival in Cheltenham, to hang out in the Children's Literature tent with the likes of Philip Ardagh, Jamila Gavin, and our very own Elen Caldecott & Cindy Jefferies. So today's post is going to be a relatively short follow-on from my last one, with other people doing most of the talking.

The destruction of our library services continues apace, and there have been a number of developments over the past couple of weeks.

For me, the most shocking one is probably the revelation that Surrey County Council, having justified their plan to offload their libraries on to undertrained volunteers on the grounds of cost - "The initiative is part of the county council's aim to keep all 52 of its libraries open despite the fact other local authorities are closing branches across the country due to financial constraints" - have now blithely admitted that it will save no money at all. Not a penny. So why the hell are they doing it? Why have they wasted taxpayers' money on a court case? Why are they trying to downgrade such an important public resource?

It begins to look as if these closures are ideological. But whose ideology? Yes, most of the councils that are closing libraries are Conservative-controlled; but if we put this down to Toryism, how do we explain the disgraceful behaviour of Labour-run Brent Council, with their secretive, heavy-handed night-raid and acts of cultural vandalism?

Perhaps it's not ideology. Perhaps it's idiocy. Perhaps, as Philip Pullman says, our libraries are in the hands of people who simply don't understand them. Or perhaps all our major political parties are now infected by the same stupid, greedy philosophy which says that unless you can see exactly how much money something is making, it has no value.

Whatever the reason, something has to be done before it's too late, and the person who should be doing it is Culture Minister Ed Vaizey. But he's doing nothing. He can't even be bothered to reply to campaigners' letters.

So I ask again - what's wrong with Ed Vaizey?


John's website is at www.visitingauthor.com.
He's on twitter as @JohnDougherty8.

His latest books include:

Finn MacCool and the Giant's Causeway - a retelling for the Oxford Reading Tree
Bansi O'Hara and the Edges of Hallowe'en
Zeus Sorts It Out - "A sizzling comedy... a blast for 7+" , and one of The Times' Children's Books of 2011, as chosen by Amanda Craig

What's Wrong With Ed Vaizey? - John Dougherty

Much has been written about the singular uselessness of Ed Vaizey.

For those of you who don't know, he's the UK Minister for Culture, Communications & Creative Industries, and as such is responsible for supervising library services in England; you can read more about how badly he's failed to do this at the excellent Public Libraries News.

For those of you who do know - and that's all of you now, if you've read the preceding paragraph - I hope you enjoy this little home movie.




Please feel free to share it around. You'll find the embed code here if you'd like to screen it on your own blog or website.


John's website is at www.visitingauthor.com.
He's on twitter as @JohnDougherty8.

His latest books include:

Finn MacCool and the Giant's Causeway - a retelling for the Oxford Reading Tree
Bansi O'Hara and the Edges of Hallowe'en
Zeus Sorts It Out - "A sizzling comedy... a blast for 7+" , and one of The Times' Children's Books of 2011, as chosen by Amanda Craig