Opinion: ANGUS CLARK

COUNCIL NEEDS TO MAKE A STAND AGAINST AUSTERITY

All over Scotland this April Councils are beginning the process of closing more libraries, cutting back on social care, closing schools, increasing class sizes, locking the doors on leisure facilities, and making more staff redundant. The worst of these austerity driven cuts are still to come. So far only 40% have been carried out but the rate of implementation will now increase sharply. Since 2008 most of the cuts have been on organisational structures and voluntary jobs losses, but soon it will become impossible to avoid the complete withdrawal of important services to many people, including the vulnerable elderly and disadvantaged.

One example of how this austerity has squeezed Councils is in our own East Dunbartonshire. The ruling Coalition is about to implement £ 54.1 million in service cuts for 2014/15. The reductions will become more difficult to achieve with £20 million being required over the next 3 years. The measures for the coming year will include increased class sizes from 18 to 25 pupils, a decrease in classroom assistants and an increase in school meals charges. The Council’s policy is simply to ‘try to make the best of it’ and hold off the worst cuts for as long as possible, but accepting that damage will be done to the community.

So what are Councils such as East Dunbartonshire to do, and do they have any alternative options? They are in a sense exposed for what they are; carrying out the Con Dem Governments ‘dirty work’. Councils would respond that they are the unwilling participants in the Con Dem Governments implementation of its neo liberal agenda and roll back of the State. However there is simply no convincing argument for austerity as there are hundreds of billions of pounds available for illegal wars in the Middle East and North Africa, for being part of an immoral nuclear arms race and for bailing out a corrupt and degenerated financial system. We are fundamentally a rich country but an exceptionally unequal and divided one!

 The opposing argument is that if Councils don’t implement the cuts or set a ‘no cuts budget’ then this will be illegal and the Government will impose unelected ‘Commissioners’. In other words they should give way to blackmail. The flaw in this argument is, firstly, that it will be the Councils which will be blamed for the cuts and not the Government, with the likelihood that the electors will vote them out at the next election. Secondly, there are alternatives which although having no guarantee of success, are politically achievable given a coherent strategy and strong political leadership.

 All ‘anti Austerity’ Councils need to unite together, regionally or nationally, with a view to preparing a united strategy on how they are going to oppose the austerity measures with the backing of local government trade unions, community organisations, and other like-minded ‘progressive ‘ groups. It should take the form of a mass Campaign along the lines of the successful ‘anti poll tax’ but even bigger and it needs to involve the whole community. Also, make no mistake, even if there is a ‘Yes Vote’ for Independence in 6 months’ time, the austerity drive will continue apace due to the global nature of the economic forces driving this economic crisis.

A possible mechanism to put pressure on Councils would be the recently formed ‘The Peoples Assembly’, a political grouping which recently had its Glasgow launch. The aim would be to reach a situation where the community would have confidence to back their Councils in defiance of the cuts agenda and against the Government.  

  Confidence should be high from the success of the ‘bedroom tax campaign’ however even more determination is needed to increase the pressure on Councils. The strength of expression of the community will dictate whether Councils take notice and whether the Government would be unwise enough to attempt to take action against them. This is how social progress works, by challenging the system. Councillors need to play their part; after all they didn’t become involved in local government in order to decimate public services, or did they?

The Swinson List

Jo Swinson has sent out an email asking those on her email list if they will be avoiding shopping in companies who have been shown to actively tax avoid.  This is SSP Campsie Organiser, Neil Scott's brief reply.

"I will be avoiding Starbucks (which will be a huge chunk from their profits as I am a coffee fiend :P ).  I also avoid all Nestle products and have done for many years and choose not to shop - if I can -in ASDA because of Walmart's terrible employee relations and use of Workfare, and likewise I will be doing my best to avoid Tescos for their use of Workfare slavery.  Also, the charity, PDSA and as much as I can, those on this list  who have not pulled out of the scheme.  

I will also be avoiding Marks and Spencer and Waitrose because of their refusal to dis-invest from Israel.

 I will also be ensuring, along with my SSP comrades and those new socialist contacts in East Dunbartonshire who I have met in relation to the Radical Independence Conference, that your part in the destruction of the Education , and NH services in England and welfare across the UK and support for what are now being seen to be LETHAL cuts are well publicized.  It is disgraceful what you have actively VOTED FOR as an individual and as a member of the Liberal Democrats, these terrible cuts to have taken place in England - cuts that benefit the few investors, including politicians,  in Serco, ATOS and the companies in waiting who are ready to break up and profit from our services.  

The impoverishment of an increasing number of people, and the abhorrent reliance on foodbanks (something your coalition partners seem to welcome) shows how much the poor and rich really are NOT in this together.  

Our publicly owned services should be protected in Scotland, and I feel avoiding the Tory, Liberal Democrat and New Labour driven "Better together" campaign is the best thing Scots can do to ensure this happens.


Neil Scott"

Cameron, the rich, on Social Justice

Let’s be clear about something when David Cameron speaks about “broken Britain.” It was the Tories wot dun it.


What Cameron thinks of poor and working class who are being persuaded to vote for him by Sun, Times and Daily Mail - photo by photographer Michael Schofield


When was British society at its most “happiest” using measurable scales?
During the noughties?

No. During the ‘90s? No.

Ok. The ‘50s or 60’s?

Nope.

It surely can’t be the Thatcherite ‘80s?

Got that right.

The year in which various health indicators have shown that the UK was at it’s happiest was 1978. The year BEFORE the Thatcher victory. The year of the so called winter of discontent.

Why?

Because that is the year when the UK had reached its highest level of equality and social mobility.

Of course, this is something the Murdochracy ,the Tories and the New Labour project do not want you to know.

What happened in between then and now?

Well – Thatcher and her Government decimated our society; wrecked our manufacturing base; destroyed mining towns and villages; made no-go areas of our inner cities; created a society where rather than feeling safe and happy, people feel they need to walk on each other – and kick each other down - in order to succeed – or at least to feel they are succeeding.

Surely the Labour Party changed this?

Well, let’s be fair. The Labour Party, according to social and health indicators, did not destroy society on quite the same scale, but the fact is, they did little to address the gap between rich and poor. They continued the Thatcherite/ neo-liberal project that ensures the people on the bottom struggle and work the hardest to feed themselves and their children, but receive the most “jip” – being called lazy or worse, dismissed as some sort of genetic “underclass.” And all the “main” political parties are turning to the poor to pay off the rich bankers debt by cutting their services and their chance of a job.

Back in the early eighties when I started working, the Thatcher project was only beginning to show its teeth. There were still communities of council housing where the unskilled worker lived side by side with policemen, nurses, tradesmen and women, public service workers – REAL communities. People could decide how to spend their money – either on a mortgage or on renting a decent house. And every family who needed a house could get one without a wait or having to scrape deposits or risk 95% / 100% mortgages. The current housing system sees young people unable to get a house either from the council – or onto the “property ladder.”

Those of us who “failed” in school (failure being part of the educational language at the time – some good things have happened educationally in the meantime…) could find unskilled – well paid – jobs in factories. Education was not quite the market it has become where people with qualifications within a percentage point of each other compete for precious college or University places.

Nowadays “failure” is on the part of society – the UK Thatcherite/ neoliberal economy has meant our young people are failing to find jobs because, let’s face it, there are few of them. And there will be fewer as the Public Sector are made to pay in jobs and funding for the failure of the much vaunted private sector (the private sector – let’s face it – who caused the “crisis”).

What is a fair society? Is it this scrabble for the pieces the rich throw down from their table? 2% of the people in country benefit from the current system – the very rich – the Cameron’s, Murdoch’s and Rothermere’s who are telling the rest of us we must cut cut cut and live in austerity. When, apparently, times were good – before the “economic downturn” (or the rich rip-off to term it properly) we were told we needed cuts in our pensions/ public services/ pay. Now times are bad, we, the majority of this country are told we need to cut back even more. So when were these good times? For the majority of the country, it seems that the “good times” were just times when the rich were getting even more rich than they are now while shafting the rest of us(the rich in this country made over £300bn extra bucks in the last year, while the rest of us are asked to suffer for their greed).

Why do we not hear any of this in our press?

Well, our press is controlled by the very rich.

Lord Rothermere, whose Daily Mail daily attacks the poor and working class, and who supports the Tory “austerity” drive, ie. the drive to impoverish the poor even further in order to make them pay for the rich’s greed, pays NO TAX in this country.

Why? Because he makes his money here, but is “non-domiciled.” The man is worth nearly a reported billion pounds… yet pays nothing to our society only bile through his working class bashing rag.

Rupert Murdoch not only avoids tax in the UK on his incredible fortune, but has been cited in various tax avoidance cases in the US and Israel to name two. Murdoch is reportedly worth £7bn – but pays no tax here – in the country his Sun and Times target the poor for cuts – and the “austerity” Tories as their party of choice – the party that ruined towns and villages across the country in their “greed is good” philosophy.


As I have said in another article ( HERE ), Twitter and other outlets for real people’s opinion have turned the tables. But not completely.

The Tories and Labour – and the SNP in Scotland - all want one party rule – their party. So they, in their various ways, ensure the smaller parties – or the left - or the sensible – or those purely wanting fairness - have little exposure in societal debates and discussion. This not only happens through the billionaire supported and opinionated press ignoring the Lib Dems or the Scottish Socialist Party, but also in ignoring poverty charities such as Child Poverty Action Group, or damning reports about equality such as the Black Report or more recent work by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett ( see HERE and on the election HERE) and perhaps seemingly less important, the legislation against placarding streets during elections.

Look out for legislation against certain types of blogging or twittering or opinion pieces in the future as the greed driven Thatcherite poverty bashing parties and billionaires all panic.

And as far as Cameron’s “social justice" message this morning, in the words of the young woman who heckled him yesterday, “I don’t believe you.”

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