24Dash runs a story about Ken Livingstone joining the campaign to save the BAC. It includes this from Martin Linton:
This was a very precipitous and ill-thought action by Wandsworth Council and I hope they are beginning to have second thoughts and are beginning to see the enormous damage their cuts would have. Battersea Arts Centre has built up a fantastic reputation over the last thirty years and it would be appalling if it was forced to close.
Wandsworth Councillor James Cousins has written to the Wimbledon Guardian pointing out an apparent anomaly in Martin Linton's reactions to two local issues.
Your readers must be perplexed at Battersea MP Martin Linton's priorities when it comes to the real issues facing his constituents.Battersea's invisible man is quick to condemn the council decision to cut funding for Battersea Arts Centre, but strangely he maintains a trappist-like silence on NHS plans to shut the Bolingbroke Hospital.
This Is London (aka the Evening Standard web site) runs a story about the closure of the BAC.
Battersea Labour MP Martin Linton accused the council of "killing" the centre. He said: "If they withdraw all their support, the centre will close."
The debate about the future of the BAC reachs the pages of the Guardian. The story, of course, includes a quotation from Martin Linton:
Local Labour MP Martin Linton, who sits on the BAC board of trustees, said he was "appalled" by the proposals and suggested that the council's claims were suspect. He said: "Wandsworth is in no danger of being capped, it has huge reserves and it already has a low council tax, so [councillors] have no need whatsoever to make any cuts."
The Wimbledon Guardian reports that all three Wandsworth MPs support the new law which will raise the minimum age for buying tobacco from 16 to 18. Martin Linton is quoted as saying:
I'm not under the illusion that banning cigarette sales to children will automatically stop them smoking, but it will make it more difficult and the fact is it's smokers who take it up in their early or mid-teens who are the most likely to die of lung cancer.It's also very difficult for shopkeepers when the age for alcohol is 18 and the age for tobacco is 16.
It'll be far easier to apply a single age limit. They already do this in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the US and it's high time we did it.
