Lincolshire County Council appears to be acting in clear contravention of UK law in persisting with its plan to close many of the county’s libraries. At least if the statement on the Save Lincolnshire Libraries website is anything to go by. Entitled “Astonishing Misuse of Public Money and Political Power,” it reads:

Lincolnshire County Council has published plans to implement its unlawful decision of December 2013 to close thirty libraries unless volunteers take them over. This not only ignores the High Court judgement of July 2014 that quashed this decision but also the Localism Act which gives charities and social enterprises opportunities to run local services.

The judicial review of this whole plan was reported by Teleread back in March 2014, and the result did not find in favor of the County Council. It’s not clear what grounds the County Council feels it has to press ahead regardless, although it’s perhaps relevant to point out that Chris Grayling, the widely despised UK Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, is currently trying to remove or emasculate the whole process of judicial review – largely it seems because it pointed up how many of his and other UK government decisions were both stupid and actually illegal.

In any event, Lincolnshire County Council appears set to go ahead with its plans without reference to consultations in the interim. “The leading politicians have deceived the people of Lincolnshire into thinking that they could influence anything,” says the campaign website. “They have wasted huge amounts of public money trying to cover their tracks. It has been an astonishing misuse of political power.”

Prime Minister David Cameron himself apparently commented on the judicial review in terms you can read above. Does this mean he was just as much involved in covering up for the County Council’s actions? At the very least, it looks like the cruelest most disgraceful irony.

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