Hackney’s Green-run council has ‘apologised’ after the mayor Zoë Garbett set an October 7th deadline to end the borough’s twinning arrangement with the Israeli city of Haifa. She claimed the council voted to end the twinning arrangement on Tuesday, but that legal advice would stretch the pointless divorce “over the next few months”. She expected everyone to believe this deadline was a pure coincidence.
The partnership with Haifa dates back to 1968, and mostly involves exchanging medical staff between hospitals. It is one of the most ethnically and religiously diverse areas of Israel. This is what the Greens have decided is the priority for Hackney, roughly 3000 miles away. They have since apologised for their “error”:
“We apologise for the insensitivity of the original closing date for our consultation. We originally set the consultation to run for ten weeks on the consultation platform. As soon as we noticed this error, we changed the closing date.”
Hackney’s council tax is going up by 4.9% this year…
Burnham confirms he spoke to Trump last night about drilling in the North Sea:
“I indicated in the phone call that we had a week last Monday that I would take a pragmatic approach when it comes to the North Sea, and that is my intention as we go forward from here. There is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that. Hence, me indicating that to the president…”