politics – Page 4 – The Alternative Council

🧵 Austerity & Alibis: Shropshire Council’s Five-Year Plan to Save Itself (From Itself)

Shropshire Council has published its Medium-Term Financial Strategy (MTFS) — a 100+ page saga of budget balancing, political tightrope-walking, and the kind of fiscal optimism normally reserved for national lottery winners. The headline? A projected £63 million black hole by 2029/30, held at bay in the short term by one-off grants, temporary patches, and whatContinue reading “🧵 Austerity & Alibis: Shropshire Council’s Five-Year Plan to Save Itself (From Itself)”

The Gatekeepers of Silence: Shropshire’s Transparency Dream Team

The Transparency Tango: A Two-Council Performance in Delayed Disclosure Let us distil this for the public record: This, my friends, is not administration. It is performance art. And the recurring theme? Transparency is a threat to the system. Act I: Shropshire Council’s FOI Vanishing Act On 1 March 2025, a Freedom of Information request wasContinue reading “The Gatekeepers of Silence: Shropshire’s Transparency Dream Team”

The Pyjama Council

The Pyjama Council: How Remote Working Became the New Civic Disservice Once upon a time, in the sleepy shires of Shropshire, there was a noble dream: a council that served its people with diligence, integrity, and perhaps even a touch of punctuality. Fast forward to 2025, and what do we find? The dream is aliveContinue reading “The Pyjama Council”