Protest at the Tory Party Conference in Birmingham
Anon | 22.07.2010 13:25 | Health | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Birmingham
Not a day passes without the Tories coming up with new plans to batter workers and the poor. They are tearing into benefits and attacking the most vulnerable. But they are also targeting every worker, whether through pay freezes, tax rises, a jobs massacre or public service cuts.
Sunday 3rd October - 12.00 - 17.00
International Convention Centre, Broad Street, Birmingham
Tory chancellor George Osborne jacked up VAT from 17.5 percent to 20 percent in his budget of pain. VAT is a tax on spending – and it hits the poor the hardest. The rise will cost the average family as much as £450 a year. The tax is slapped on almost everything we buy. It is not a tax on businesses – it’s a tax on ordinary people.
Education has been cut at time of rising unemployment, with universities being cut by £400m, cutting places, threatening a rise in fees, putting thousands of jobs at risk and already dropping courses. The plans to create thousands of "free schools" will herald in a education system in which the priviliged will benefit and private companies will run amok. Education is not a business or privilige, it is the right of all.
David Cameron has written to public sector workers asking them to come up with ideas for saving money. He wants them to cut their own throats. The lies and myths of the public sector being bloated with pay and pensions is a renewed Tory attack on the public sector carried on from the Thatcher days. If there is any bloating of pay and pensions in the sector it is the bosses who benefit from it, not the workers who are no better paid than the average private sector worker. If these services are attacked and reduced they will have an affect on everyones lives, from health care, social services, emergency services, housing services, the list goes on and on.
The government spends billions on war in Afghanistan, even more on nuclear weapons, while bankers lap up bonuses for creating the biggest finacial crisis we have seen in decades, why not end the war, why not scrap weapons that only threaten the destruction of all life, why not tax the bankers? Why are we paying?
Instead of capitulation, it’s time for resistance. Just as in Greece, France, Spain and Italy we need mass demonstrations and strikes.
Start building now for the demonstration at the Tory party conference on 3 October in Birmingham, the Tories have blessed us with a prime location in the center of the country, we must take advantage of it.
Get transport arranged. Let’s bring the anger over the cuts and the war in Afghanistan directly to the Tories.
International Convention Centre, Broad Street, Birmingham
Tory chancellor George Osborne jacked up VAT from 17.5 percent to 20 percent in his budget of pain. VAT is a tax on spending – and it hits the poor the hardest. The rise will cost the average family as much as £450 a year. The tax is slapped on almost everything we buy. It is not a tax on businesses – it’s a tax on ordinary people.
Education has been cut at time of rising unemployment, with universities being cut by £400m, cutting places, threatening a rise in fees, putting thousands of jobs at risk and already dropping courses. The plans to create thousands of "free schools" will herald in a education system in which the priviliged will benefit and private companies will run amok. Education is not a business or privilige, it is the right of all.
David Cameron has written to public sector workers asking them to come up with ideas for saving money. He wants them to cut their own throats. The lies and myths of the public sector being bloated with pay and pensions is a renewed Tory attack on the public sector carried on from the Thatcher days. If there is any bloating of pay and pensions in the sector it is the bosses who benefit from it, not the workers who are no better paid than the average private sector worker. If these services are attacked and reduced they will have an affect on everyones lives, from health care, social services, emergency services, housing services, the list goes on and on.
The government spends billions on war in Afghanistan, even more on nuclear weapons, while bankers lap up bonuses for creating the biggest finacial crisis we have seen in decades, why not end the war, why not scrap weapons that only threaten the destruction of all life, why not tax the bankers? Why are we paying?
Instead of capitulation, it’s time for resistance. Just as in Greece, France, Spain and Italy we need mass demonstrations and strikes.
Start building now for the demonstration at the Tory party conference on 3 October in Birmingham, the Tories have blessed us with a prime location in the center of the country, we must take advantage of it.
Get transport arranged. Let’s bring the anger over the cuts and the war in Afghanistan directly to the Tories.
Anon
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
What's changed
22.07.2010 14:40
The Poor
exclusion
23.07.2010 11:03
shame
and yes, the OP does mentions the above, the SWP poster doesn't
defender
SWP!
23.07.2010 20:07
Protesting over the Conservatives and the spending cuts alongside those who brought this situation about is just too rich for me.
Forget it!
Nope
Eh??
27.08.2010 01:52
Have a look at this:
Or a few Socialist Worker articles from the recent past:
Indeed, I seem to remember a similar protest at a certain party's conference last year...
About the attacks on the unemployed and disabled - I don't think Right to Work is supporting any sort of puritan, Victorian outlook, although I agree that this isn't necessarily clear from the name - for a debate about that, try:
and
It is worth noting that the Right to Work Campaign is explicitly against cuts to unemployment and disability benefits/living standards, and for a reduction in the working week to go with wage increases. The Unemployed Workers Union has been at the main conferences, and is supported by the Campaign.
Here are the statements voted for at the Conferences (I think there were a few amendments that haven't been added yet, but you get the jist...):
...phew, shitload of links there, but I hope that's cleared a few things up!
Rod
P.S.
27.08.2010 17:37
I think the main thing is that, no matter which groups are backing the protest, these cuts to jobs and services are some of the most brutal proposed for generations. We need a large and united response to this, and one way of beginning this is to go to the heart of the beast - the Tory party conference, where all the key Tory figures will be gathering to try and put a respectable face to the public - and show them that we wont stand for it. This could be the start of a bigger wave of protests/direct actions and everyone who wants to fight these cuts should try and get there, no matter what you think (rightly or wrongly) about the group that has called it.
Rod