Power to the people

The consultation that came out yesterday from the shadow minister for libraries Helen Goodman MP isn't a public consultation. I emailed to clarify this today as the questions don't look like they're intended for the public, rather those in the councils. I got the surprise response that Helen wanted to have a chat with me on the phone, which she did. She is very nice and pleasant but the consultation isn't for library users, I told her how we're sick of sham consultations and our views being ignored and how I was disappointed. Her reasoning is what they are consulting on at this stage is too detailed for users. I don't know if this means Labour are going to consult users before they come up with their manifesto for the next election or not but I suspect not and once again the people who use and pay for libraries are ignored. How are you supposed to represent people when you haven't asked them for their views? If this wasn't meant for public consumption they just had to put that on the document, it was shared with the world but not specifying who should respond. I'm very cross obviously and will write my own submission and put it on my blog so they can safely ignore it at their leisure.