councillor

Brief snapshot

A typical scene in the borough at this point:

'Look at that guy!' one of the People's Party's female councillors shrieked, pointing a pale and shaking finger across the negotiating table at one of the many union representatives who'd turned up to this meeting to fight with her about the council's plans to cut jobs and funding at an important local welfare and benefits advice centre.

The advice centre was much utilised by a very large number of the borough's underprivileged residents - they needed the centre's help to negotiate the nation's complex welfare systems and they needed the face-to-face service that the centre provided if they were ever to figure out their entitlements. People came to the centre in their thousands. And they weren't all losers, as the People's Party would have the people believe. Many were abused wives, or people from war-torn countries, or people who'd been sick, or injured through no fault of their own and needed help getting back to the point where they could provide for themselves.

The councillor was trying to convince the union reps at the meeting that the best way to save the advice centre from People's Party plans to cut funding to it was to find something else to talk about and let her head down to her favourite local.