I am literally cringing with outrage and embarrassment. Could there possibly be any worse combination of the vile and the tacky? In what is evidently a pilot for possible Tory policy after the general election, conservative councils are actually floating the idea of refashioning local public services in the image of spivvy, sleazy, dirt-cheap budget airlines. Some nauseating moron from Barnet council, which lost about £30m when the Icelandic banks went bust, actually decided to call the new policy "EasyCouncil" after the business ventures of the tax-dodging 'serial entrepreneur' Stelios Haji-Ioannou. Given that Haji-Ioannou is a member of the New Enterprise Council, set up to advise the Tories on business policy, this could even be his idea. Whoever gets the 'credit' for this repulsive idea, what it entails is sectioning off a large number of basic council services and making your access to them dependent on your ability to pay - whether you're looking for planning permission or in need of adult social care. The council leader, a gimlet-eyed former business consultant named Mike Freer explains that

he wants to persuade residents to do more to look after themselves and intends to forge "a new relationship with citizens" which will include the understanding that, as with budget airlines, the council will not automatically provide blanket coverage of services as they have tried to do before.

The Telegraph enthuses about how residents "will be able to pay more for improved services". They will be "able" to do this because they will have no other option, of course. The council will also be outsourcing core functions, such as refuse collection, street maintenance, etc., supposedly to save money. The main way in which money is saved by outsourcing is in what management magazines refer to as lower HR operating costs - fewer staff, lower wages, no union shenanigans. That means worse service, and it also means raising unemployment and cutting demand in the middle of a recession. The overall effect is to use the recession to attack the very basics of public service, substantially roll back welfare, introduce the most regressive measures into provision, and mount an attacked on organised labour.

So, if there is any reader who lives in Barnet, please get some of your friends together and occupy the bloody council offices. I would especially appreciate it if you would make your protests known to Mr Freer.