September: protest against cuts to the heating

• I DOUBT that many Tribune readers take the “council spokesperson” at the end of an article seriously, but the council have really got a cheek with your report (Estates unite on heat rations, November 18) to boast of a 67 per cent approval of their plan to cut communal heating by five hours a day.

Their idea of “consultation” on this one was a silly manipulative card, posing leading questions about whether or not people with financial anxieties wanted to pay higher bills – of which, out of thousands sent out, only 400 were returned.

This means a total of just 268 people said they would rather pay the lower of two unspecified increases, and any more nuanced responses in email form do not seem to have contributed to this meaningless statistic.

The biggest joke of all is that they were going to make the changes whatever people said. It even said that on the card!

Islington Council have not listened to tenants, whatever their claims about this sham of a consultation.
It’s a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy.

RICHARD LARCOMBE
Chair, Finsbury Estate Tenants’ & Residents’ Association