Labour policies clearly , or rather Gordon Brown, singlehandedly it seems, got most of the western world into a financial mess, starting from the wild west of the US eventually spreading througout the rest of the Americas, then Europe. Gosh, I hadn't realised they had so much power and influence back then. Nothing to do with our general societal predication towards capitalism and innate greed then wanting the goods and benefits of such a system.

Having lived in Wandsworth some years ago it was noticeable then that they charged for everything, and followed the Thatcher model of why should anyone pay for anyone else, apart from subsidising their great council housing sell off, even when we weren't in a recession and during boom times.
Bromley are also notorious for charging for everything, and highly too. Their one o clock clubs charge £1 at least for babes in arms, even though those children are not able to utilise their facilities.

The comment about 'subsidising ' other boroughs is not surprising. I doubt if this move to charge for this playground is as much to do with raising cash to support a service as to just making people pay for something because its seen as a proper thing to do. And of course to stop aliens from Lambeth and Croydon getting in.

londondrz, this is the 'wider topics ' part of this forum so everything exc se23 gets discussed here.