Fireworks show was stopped for council's safety, not the public's!
WITH reference to your report "Labour in vow to bring back public fireworks show" (Gazette, November 5), reinstating a proper fireworks night was something suggested by me in a circular to Labour candidates prior to the 2006 local elections.
I was at the time the Labour candidate for Highbury East and felt it was a central component of the family calendar.
It was much discussed among the candidates but not taken up.
I am glad that Catherine West, the Labour Group leader in Islington, has subsequently championed the cause and that Paul Convery, her communities spokesman, is also a supporter.
What needs to be made crystal clear is that the event was not cancelled on grounds of "health and safety". This was a bureaucratic fig leaf.
As everyone knows, young families, grandparents and single mothers letting off fireworks with bottles and lighters is less safe than a properly organised public display.
The reason the bonfire and fireworks at Highbury Fields were discontinued was to avoid public liability, nothing else.
Who got hurt, how or where they got hurt had nothing to do with anything, as long as public officials could wash their hands of it. - Leo Schulz, N5.
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