Ms Currie said she hoped her relationship with Mr Cameron would force the council to cancel the move, but that she doubted it would make a difference.
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Mr Cameron’s official spokeswoman declined to say whether the Prime Minister had spoken with his mother about the anti-cuts petition, telling a Westminster media briefing: “I’m not going to get into private conversations between the PM and his family”.
Currie said: “I think it’s a great error. Please give us enough money to keep these important things open”. She told the newspaper: “My name is on the petition but I don’t want to discuss this any further”.
Ian Hudspeth, the Conservative leader of Oxfordshire County Council, has previously written a six-page letter addressing “a number of serious issues” with the Prime Minister’s misunderstanding of the council’s funds.
THE mother and aunt of Prime Minister David Cameron have backed the campaign to save the county’s children’s centres.
“Mary Cameron’s intervention after signing a petition to save childrens” centres has been splashed over the front page of the Daily Mirror.
“But while our local authority and our Prime Minister squabble over whose fault it is that there are 95 separate cuts planned for Oxfordshire, we are the people who will suffer without our frontline services”.
All 44 centres in the county – providing services such as children’s play, drop-in clinics, antenatal help, social events, English lessons, jobseeking advice and mental health support – are at risk of closure.
After all, Mary Cameron is not the only member of the Cameron family to criticise her local council over axed services.
Cameron is the MP for Whitney, which is an area covered by the Oxfordshire council.
Oxfordshire County Council and Mr Hudspeth refused to comment on Tuesday on Mrs Cameron’s signing of the petition or the planned cuts.
The 81-year-old’s name reportedly appears among the 10,000 people who have signed the petition online and in person, which aims to protect the “lifeline” of children’s centres in Oxfordshire and “maintain universal access to their vital services”.
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SOCC also wrote a letter to Melinda Tilley, the councillor responsible for children’s services, saying: “Cutting these essential services would leave families vulnerable and isolated, and fail an entire generation of children”.
