H&F Council defend help for Ireland - but deny help to Irish

Councillor Joe Carlebach, Cabinet Member for Community Care, has got something to get off his chest. He is furious with Polly Toynbee, Guardian columnist and all round Tory hate figure for her left wing liberal views. She is to them what the Daily Mail is to people of a leftward persuasion.

So it is perhaps not surprising that he lashes out at Ms Toynbee's criticism of David Cameron's decision to assist Ireland in their hour of economic need with a loan. To take La Toynbee's line that the UK should extract concessions in return would be morally questionable and economically inept, given the trading relationship between the two nations, he says.

In fact Cllr Carlebach gets a little bit carried away and with an air befitting of a man with a magnificently coiffured moustache, haughtily says this:

"I am reminded of the what Thucydides (c. 460 BC – c. 395 BC) the Greek historian said of friendship “We secure our friends not by accepting favours but by doing them.” This is as true today as it was then and I hope Ms Toynbee and those like minded individuals carefully bear this in mind".

Fine words - and in my view absolutely right - but they will ring a little hollow to the good folk of the Irish Cultural Centre in Hammersmith, one of the few such cultural centres left in the UK and a focal point for the Irish community in our borough. The promises made to them for funding until 2017 have been cast aside and the building is set to be flogged off without even giving them the chance to raise the money to buy it themselves.

Thucydides (c. 460 BC - c. 395 BC) would be spinning in his toga.

So it seems help for Ireland is OK. But not the undeserving Irish in H&F it would seem.