I would like to point out that the following statement has been on Chi Onwurah’s website since May 2016: “It’s my job to scrutinise the Government on its disastrous broadband policies and to speak up for libraries and the importance of the digital economy to the UK.” http://chionwurahmp.com/my-record/

Sadly it appears that her statement that she doesn’t know whether or not she is minister for libraries is part of the ongoing coup against Jeremy Corbyn.

Corbyn has made clear statements in support of public libraries and against closures. There is absolutely nothing to prevent Chi Onwurah from launching a campaign to protect libraries except her own reluctance to act.

Onwurah states that “I had undertaken a hugely labour-intensive Freedom of Information request on library opening hours, correlating the results to demonstrate how they had fallen exponentially under the Tories.”

If this work is done, why not simply publish it?

The dominant right wing of the parliamentary Labour Party and their acolytes in councils like Lambeth and Lewisham are starting to pay lip service to public libraries, as they are belatedly waking up to the fact that it is an electoral issue. But many of them still quietly adhere to this arrogant, ignorant and snobbish nonsense from failed librarian and right wing Labour policy adviser to a succession of losers, John McTernan- http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/8838633/Liberal-whingers-are-wrong-we-should-shut-our-libraries.html