Tories call it a once in a lifetime opportunity
So we finally get to hear how Gloucestershire’s public sector is going to be destroyed. The Tories are going to shave off £108 million pounds off the budget, sack 1 in 6 people and close libraries and youth clubs amongst other things. So it seems we are all in it together, that is together in having our services and communities destroyed.

This is now the time for people in Gloucestershire to take a stand against this vicious assault on their communities. Now is the time to show them that we are all in it together, together in resisting these cuts.

Demonstration on the 20th November:
http://www.pcs.org.uk/en/news_and_events/events/index.c...D2A5F


Gloucestershire County Council Tories unveiled another load of cuts under the title "Meeting the challenge", if the government was truly meeting the challenge they might want to get our money bank of the banks which have caused this debt. You have to love the language they use, challenge, best value, opportunities blah, blah, blah. Translated this always means cuts, cuts, cuts.

To further rub it in they have the audacity to call it a New Deal and an opportunity:

“It is a chance to go back to the beginning and start from scratch,” he said. “I believe this opportunity is a ‘New Deal’ for the council and communities. It is a once-in-a-generation chance to change the way we do things – to rethink the way we provide public services.”

Lets look at this statement

“It is a chance to go back to the beginning and start from scratch,”

Yes this has been the Tories wet dream since time began, the rolling back of support and services and state support. This is the destruction of all the gains that have been won by ordinary people over the past 100 years. So it is you and me who has to start from scratch not the Tories, or for that matter the bankers and banks which have caused this crisis and continue to receive their bonuses and bailouts while we lose vital services. The banks caused this crisis, not public sector spending.

Hawthorne further continues his sickening crap “I believe this opportunity is a ‘New Deal’ for the council and communities. It is a once-in-a-generation chance to change the way we do things – to rethink the way we provide public services.”

This is a once in a lifetime opportunity, not for us but for the Tories to rush through the biggest cuts in living memory to our public services. And who is this we he talks about, because I don’t remember signing up for this, in fact the government doesn’t even have mandate to govern as they did not receive enough of the vote to have an electoral majority.

So yes it is a new deal a new deal that translates into a rough deal for the poor and vulnerable people in our communities, for young people, for the elderly and the sick, for all the public sector workers who work hard every day servicing our communities who will lose their jobs. Its also a raw deal for us as tax payers, when we still pay the same tax which rather than paying services goes to pay off a debt caused by the rich, the bankers and the politicians and let’s not forget the MP’s expenses scandal while were at it.

These cuts won’t affect the current government cabinet which has 29 Ministers of which 23 have assets and investments estimated to be worth more than £1million. How about we take all their money off them and give them a “once in a lifetime opportunity to change the way they do things” they will then see what it is like living on benefits with no job and relying on the public services they are currently destroying. You know it is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

So the great opportunities we have are:

ONE in six jobs will be cut (1,000 jobs lost 60 per cent in the next two years):
– opportunity for people to live in poverty and be placed into an extremely competitive workplace and become a further financial burden on the state because they are on benefits and not paying tax.

£108 million in cuts: equals massively reduced services to everyone, don’t believe the crap about services being protected, these levels of cuts will hit everything

Libraries will be closed or opened only part-time and Youth centres shut and bus routes axed: Real good opportunities there, nowhere for kids to go, no transport and no access to information and books, can’t wait its so exciting to be offered such great opportunities!!

2,000 acres of council farmland will be sold to farmers or other landowners, raising up to £25 million. This is our land not the councils to sell, Privatisation and selling off of our natural assets, which can never be recovered. Lets not forget they also want to sell off vast sections of the forest of dean.

Mr Hawthorne said: “It’s regretful that some jobs will go and it is clearly going to be a very difficult process. There will be some pain, but I believe we have done our best to protect the services people really want.”

Yeah right, it’s your party who is pushing through this ideological assault on our society, I would recommend that we remember that at election time. How can services be realistically delivered with a quarter of the budget cut, this is just utter crap. I for one want more services. To state that these are the services people really want is a further insult, as if we don’t want libraries and youth clubs, support services for vulnerable people etc. Your not protecting any services, how is cutting 108 million pounds protecting services. Again bullshit deceitful rhetoric.

So it seems that the big society model is going to be rolled out in Gloucester. This basically means that the government will shut down services, sack people and then expect people to run these services for free. That sounds like a real good opportunity doesn’t it. Lose your job, come back and do for us for free on benefits and if you don’t we will cut your benefits for three years.

As Hawthorne states “I fully believe that communities are ready and able to take on some of these services. It is up to communities to shape services the way they want them.”

These proposals will now go before the authority’s cabinet next week for approval which means they will definitely go through, because it’s full of Scumbag Tory Cotswold dwelling tossers.
Then there will be a public consultation, which basically means we will ask for your opinion and then we will do exactly what we want.

They have to go to full council in February so go you still have time to resist, organise and defeat these cuts.
All over the country groups are being setup and demos organised.
These cuts are not inevitable or for our benefit and they can be stopped.
This is not necessary and the debt was caused by the banks and it is those who should pay for this crisis.

Resist and organise!!

Speak to people about the cuts, dispel the myths.

http://www.tuc.org.uk/industrial/tuc-18087-f0.pdf (cuts leaflet)
http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Countering-the-cuts-myths

This is a brilliant analysis of what's going on by David Harvey and why we should all be anti capitalists and is good entertainment check out some of the other animated talks on the right hand side.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOP2V_np2c0&feature=play...edded

See below for an outline of the myths that are being peddled to us about this debt and crisis to see why these cuts are not necessary.

MYTH: Debt is the highest it’s ever been
Debt is 70 per cent of GDP, this is high but not unprecedented.
1920-1960 debt 100%
End of second world war 250%

MYTH: The UK’s debt crisis is one of the worst in the world
We have less debt than US, Canada, Germany, Britain, Japan, Italy and France.

MYTH: Government debt is ‘unsustainable’
70 – 80% debt is held internally and long term which makes it easy to manage.

MYTH: The government shouldn’t get into debt.
Debt can be used to invest in future to make economy work better to create money.
Cuts decrease demand for goods and services, makes it harder for businesses and individuals to generate an income. Everyone is worse off.

MYTH: Public spending got ‘out of control’ under Labour
Public spending same as early 1990s and lower than any point since the 1960s.
Spending always rises during a recession as a result of welfare spending on unemployment.
Increased spending in the 2000’s repaired schools and hospitals left in ruin by the tories.
The crisis is an opportunity to build the infrastructure of a more energy-efficient, green economy to prepare us for the future.

MYTH: The UK has a big public sector compared to other countries
It is lower than France, Italy, Austria and Belgium, as well as the Scandinavian countries (OECD World Factbook 2010).

MYTH: Spending on the public sector is ‘crowding out’ private sector growth
Investment in public infrastructure and services is essential to private sector productivity, it is more likely to stimulate private sector investment by maintaining levels of demand and preventing a deeper collapse of economic activity.

MYTH: Public sector workers are overpaid
Recently average wages in the public sector have moved marginally above those in the private sector, because privatisation has pushed many low-paid jobs out to the private sector meaning that private sector wages have fallen due to some private sector workers being severely underpaid.

MYTH: The financial crisis was caused by a lack of money in circulation
This one is true to some extent. The system of finance capitalism pursued in the UK and US since the 1970s has moved money away from the poor toward the rich. The rich have got richer and hoard their money, so it is not in circulation.

MYTH: Cutting public spending will help us avoid economic disaster
The economy has for the last 2 years been propped up by government interventions. To reduce these and expect the country to have economic growth is a joke. Cuts equal less jobs, less money, less spending and possibly another recession.
This crisis was a golden opportunity to move toward a more economically, socially and environmentally sustainable national and international economic system. For a while all countries were so concerned about the whole system that there was at least a chance to overcome narrow self-interest and look toward a more co-operative and sustainable future. We are about to squander a once-in-a-generation opportunity for progressive change – unless, that is, we organise and campaign for an alternative.

MYTH: There is no alternative to cuts
Every year we could raise:
£4.7 billion from a 50 per cent tax rate on incomes over £100,000.
£5 billion from a tax on vacant housing
£25 billion from closing tax loopholes
£20 billion from a Robin Hood tax on financial transactions
Save money:
No trident
Stop war in Afghanistan
Stop privitisation and paying consultant huge fees.
All of these are political choices.

We don’t have to live in a world where unemployment co-exists with a long-hours culture in which workers are so stressed that mental health problems are on the rise.

We don’t have to live in a world where bankers gamble millions across the world in elaborate financial casinos at the same time as 1.4 billion people live on less than $1.25 a day.

We don’t have to live in a world where there is no limit to how much of our collective economic output goes to the rich, yet others do not have enough to eat.

It is worth remembering that after the last crisis of this scale and significance, and with public debt something like three and a half times the size it is today, we established the NHS, created the welfare state, put in place comprehensive education and built a vast number of public housing estates.

History tells us that there is more than one way out of an economic crisis.