The RESPECT Party
George Galloway Online
Salma Yaqoob Online
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Cuts Crisis: the gutting of Manchester
These cuts will kill our communities. It is not just the 2,000 city council jobs being axed in Manchester or the 1,500 in Liverpool but services in every area of the city are being destroyed.
- Six libraries are being shut while all will close on Friday and Sunday.
- Two swimming pools in Levenshulme and Miles Platting will close. This is despite £250,000 of refurbishment on Levenshulme Baths recently, money now wasted.
- Leisure centres in Levenshulme, Ardwick and Newton Heath will be shut along with Debdale Sailing Centre. Abraham Moss leisure centre is also under threat.
- Black bin collections will no longer be weekly. Overnight street cleaning will end.
- Lollipop staff for schools are being axed.
- All public toilets except one are being shut.
- Every Sure Start and youth centre is being given up by the Council with 30 posts being lost.
- The cost of childcare will increase for council staff.
- Manchester Advice is being abolished.
- 300 homes for vulnerable adults requiring care are being stopped.
More jobs will be lost in the private sector as a result. Youth unemployment is already topping 1 million nationally and these cuts are the destruction of hope. Alongside the increase in tuition fees and the abolition of the Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA), young people are being left without facilities, jobs or even the chance of education. This is a recipe for social explosion and despair.
Manchester returned no Conservative MPs at the General Election. Manchester is a solidly Tory free zone and the people of Manchester are being punished. Across the country, money is being pushed to Tory areas and taken from those that voted against them. In London, the situation is blatant with boroughs that voted for Ken Livingstone losing out to those that voted for Boris Johnson. How dare they play politics with our services and our kids’ future?
The government says we need these cuts to pay the deficit. The deficit was created by bankers that gambled with other people’s money. When they lost, the government stepped in to pay the debt. Now, we are asked to sort out the mess with our services and our jobs. Meanwhile, the bankers continue to get untaxed bonuses and carry on gambling.
The Liberal Democrats posed as an alternative to the Tories in urban areas but sold themselves for high office and free market economics. Now, they scream about the gutting of our cities while propping up a Tory government.
There is an alternative that does not involve cuts to the services we all rely on. Closing the tax loopholes that allow the very rich to avoid paying, taxing financial transactions (Robin Hood tax) and higher corporation and income tax on the richest in our society. With a deficit four times larger than now, the 1945 government was able to build council houses and form the NHS.
The deficit is not the reason for this ‘austerity’. It is much more about a Tory ideological hatred of the state supporting the poorest and providing basic services – the Tories want all this privatized so that the state only does the things that help them get richer. There must be a campaign for this alternative.
Labour’s argument that we can only implement cuts will destroy our communities. It is not enough. We need to stand up for people of Manchester, Liverpool and the towns. We need to stand up for our public services. Even Manchester City Council’s leader, Sir Richard Leese, argues that the people of Manchester should ‘vent their anger’. In every city and every area of the cities, we need to launch campaigns that bring the community together against the butchery of our services. We need councillors that will stand up for local services.
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