Fight the cuts - VOTE TUSC AGAINST CUTS on 5th May

Fight the cuts: Vote for a socialist alternative

Dave Nellist
Socialist Party councillor, Coventry
TUSC steering committee

Dave Nellist at NSSN lobby of TUC, photo Suleyman Civi

On Thursday 5 May millions of people get the chance to pass judgement on a year of the Con-Dem government.

Elections are being held for local councils in England (outside London), the Scottish Parliament, the National Assembly for Wales, and the councils and Assembly in Northern Ireland.

In all these elections there will be socialist candidates offering an alternative to the diet of cuts and austerity supported, to one degree or another, by all the establishment parties - the Tories, the Lib Dems, Labour and the nationalists.

Hanging, like the sword of Damocles, over every village, town and city, is the prospect of deeper cuts to essential services and local jobs than seen for decades.

But while the cuts originate in parliament and Whitehall, the government's job in making those cuts is partly eased by the lack of real opposition from Labour and many trade union leaders.

When the government proposed to cut future pension and benefit rates, by changing the way in which they are indexed - Labour abstained. When the government debated widespread cuts in disability, housing and other benefits - Labour abstained. In every council where Labour currently has a majority, as far as I know they have passed on the government's cuts, without a single Labour vote against.

You can't rely on Labour to stand up for you, because at heart they want most of the same cuts, only "slower". They don't disagree with the government's direction of travel, only the speed; forever repeating "too far, too fast". They don't intend to resist the cuts, only to cynically harvest public opposition on their road to the 2015 general election.

And in recent weeks, Labour's strategists' master plan for that election has emerged in the newspapers, to rebrand Labour as 'Blue Labour', consolidating the party as "small-c Conservative" - as if Labour's record on privatisation, wars, and the widening gap between the rich and the rest wasn't 'blue' enough already!

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) will be standing 180 candidates in 53 towns and cities in England on 5 May. Our candidates are drawn from the best working class fighters, who will protect local services, including active members of the following trade unions: PCS, Unison, Unite, FBU, RMT, Aslef, CWU, UCU, NUT, and NASUWT.
     

Stop the cuts

  

If elected, TUSC councillors would campaign to stop the cuts being implemented locally by linking up with trade unionists and working class communities and helping to coordinate the fightback.

This election is but part of a longer term anti-cuts battle. The last 12 months have just been year one of a five-year government austerity plan.

26 March showed the strength of feeling among working class people and their families when half a million trade unionists marched through London to protest at the cuts. But protest and rage is not enough; we need a strategy to beat the government.

The TUC needs to support those trade unions starting the fightback, by developing an escalating programme of coordinated national industrial action, beginning with the defence of pensions in June. Alongside that, trade unionists need to develop a serious political alternative to the establishment parties' overlapping agenda of cuts and austerity.

Vote TUSC Agianst Cuts on 5 May.

Focus on Bilton Ward

The 7th & final seat Rugby TUSC are contesting in the local elections this year is Bilton Ward.

BILTON WARD - VOTE STEVE ROBERTS - on 5th MAY

Steve Roberts lives in Bilton ward and works for the fire service.  He is the chair of the Fire Brigade Union (FBU) in Warwickshire and an active member of Rugby against the Cuts.  If elected he will fight ALL cuts in jobs and services in Rugby.

Focus on Brownsover South Ward

The sixth seat Rugby TUSC are fighting in the local elections is the Brownsover South Ward.

Brownsover South covers the South and West of Brownsover estate from Keswick Drive/Lindale over to Hawlands and Coniston Close.  It also includes old Brownsover around Boughton Road and the new housing in Projects Drive and Aqua Close.

BROWNSOVER SOUTH - VOTE CLIVE DUNKLEY - on 5th May

 

Clive was born & grew up in Brownsover and attended Boughton Leigh School for six years in the 1970s.  He currently lives in the Brownsover South ward and works as a teacher.  Clive is an active member of the teaching union the NUT, Rugby Against the Cuts and the Socialist Party.  If elected Clive will oppose ALL cuts.

Focus on Hillmorton Ward

The fifth seat that Rugby TUSC are contesting in May's local elections is Hillmorton Ward.

HILLMORTON WARD - VOTE DAVE GOODWIN - on 5th MAY

Dave Goodwin is 40 and has worked on the railway since leaving school in 1986. Almost a proper cockney he lived in East London for 29 years before moving up to his adopted home of Rugby. If asked Dave says that London is a great place but he won't be moving back there in this lifetime! Dave follows West Ham United and is known in certain parts of Hillmorton as West Ham Dave.

Dave has been a member of the RMT and its predecessor the NUR since he joined the railway and has struggled with the rest of his union's membership through the disastrous period of privatisation and the recent assaults on Network Rail staff's terms & conditions which have led to approximately 1500 redundancies.

A Health and Safety rep, Dave has fought issues at a local and national level and will do the same for his constituents should he be elected. No Cuts mean No Cuts, this country was in a worse state at the end of world war 2 yet we built the NHS, built social housing and brought industries into public ownership. We must all fight these neo-liberal free market millionaires who don't care if you carry the can for their failures.

Focus on Eastlands Ward

The forth of the seats Rugby TUSC are contesting is Eastlands  ward.

Eastlands covers the area around Eastlands Road, the Southfields Estate, and the Slade Road & Sidney Road areas.

EASTLANDS WARD - VOTE FOR BERT HARRIS - On 5th May

Bert Harris, 49, is former Labour Candidate and led Rugby’s campaign against the Poll Tax. He has lived in Rugby all his life apart from the 3 years he spent studying Politics at Liverpool University. For the past 17 years he has run his own business supplying Crew to the live events industry and also works as a freelance Stage Manager. Bert is a Wolves Season Ticket holder and also enjoys golf, fishing and mountain biking.

Bert has not been politically active for a few years but has been forced back into action by the severity of the ConDem’s cuts. He says, ‘ At the time of the Poll Tax campaign we warned of the effects on council services, the Poll Tax was defeated by a mass movement of the people, lets hope the same can be done with the campaign against the cuts’. He added, ‘ The bankers are sitting pretty with their big bonuses while we are forced to pay’.

Focus on Leam Valley Ward

Over the next week Rugby TUSC will introduce all their candidates for May's local elections in Rugby, we start by looking at Leam Valley ward. 

Leam Valley covers the Birdingbury, Grandborough, Leamington Hastings, Flecknoe and Willoughby areas.

LEAM VALLEY - VOTE FOR GEOFF DEWHIRST - on 5th MAY

Geoff says "I have worked in Rugby for 6 years, and am seeing, from a professional point of view, the effects that the cuts are having already. They’re hitting all levels of society in one way or another. But, inevitably, it’s the most vulnerable who are facing the greatest losses. I am 62 years old and have experienced the rigours of post war social deprivation in my home town of Bradford, and am determined to fight all retrograde steps. If elected, I will steadfastly pursue an anti-cuts agenda, until these measures are substituted with more equitable policies."

Local Election Manifesto

Stand up to the Con-Dem Government

For councillors who refuse to implement the cuts!

TUSC has agreed the policy platform, outlined below, on which it is proposing to contest the elections to local councils that will take place next May in every area of England bar London. TUSC is also involved in discussions to organise an election challenge for the Scottish parliament and Welsh assembly elections (there are no local elections in Scotland and Wales in 2011).

The local elections policy platform, agreed at a conference of TUSC supporters in January, is the basis on which any prospective council candidate who wishes to can stand under the TUSC name in May's elections.

The local elections policy platform is a supplement to the core policy statement that TUSC candidates endorsed when they stood in the general election in May 2010, which still stands as the basic policy position of the TUSC coalition (see 'Trade Unionists and Socialist Coalition Policies' below).

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition policy platform for the 2011 local elections in England:

THE LOCAL council elections in May 2011 will be the first opportunity voters will have in England to register public opposition at the ballot box to the Con-Dem government's unparalleled attack on our public services.

But the elections are not just a chance to make a one-day 'protest vote'. They are also an opportunity to elect councillors who can actually stop many of the cuts from being implemented locally.

Over the years, it is true, local councils have been stripped of many of their powers over different services. Margaret Thatcher, who began this process, famously said, "I must take more power to the centre to stop socialism" - in other words, that public services that 'crowded out' the private sector should be curbed or, where they exist, should be opened up to private companies to make profits from public needs. It is a matter of record that the New Labour government carried on with this approach throughout its 13 years in office - the turnover of private companies running public services reached over £80 billion in 2008, for example, 126% higher than 1995-96 under the previous Tory government.

But councils still have enormous powers and responsibilities, controlling budgets totalling billions of pounds, spent on services from housing to schools, youth clubs, libraries, adult social care, crime reduction, sports centres, highways maintenance and refuse collection, to name but a few. They have legal powers, over some non-council provided services for example, including many of those now privatised, that they can exercise for our benefit.

What councillors do, therefore, can still affect the quality of our daily lives. They certainly don't have to accept every dictate from central government to cut or privatise our services. They have a choice. Even a minority group on a council, or a single councillor, can make a difference, by using their position as democratically elected local representatives to appeal to and help organise community campaigns and trade unionists to fight.

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is an alliance which includes individual trade unionists, community campaigners and different political parties. Yet, while we each have our own general policies and programme, all our candidates are committed to using every opportunity open to councillors - from public campaigning to presenting policy motions at council meetings - to do everything possible to protect and improve our public services. Voting for TUSC councillors will make a difference.

All TUSC councillors will:

* Oppose all cuts to council jobs, services, pay and conditions - we reject the claim that 'some cuts' are necessary to our services.

* Reject above inflation increases in council tax, rent and service charges to compensate for government cuts.

* Vote against the privatisation of council services, or the transfer of council services to 'social enterprises' or 'arms-length' management organisations, which are first steps to privatisation.

* Use all the legal powers available to councils, including powers to refer local NHS decisions, initiate referenda and organise public commissions and consultations, to oppose both the cuts and government polices which centrally impose the transfer of public services to private bodies.

* When faced with government cuts to council funding, councils should refuse to implement the cuts. We will support councils which in the first instance use their reserves and prudential borrowing powers to avoid passing them on - while arguing that the best way to mobilise the mass campaign that is necessary to defeat the cuts is to set a budget that meets the needs of the local community and demands that the government makes up the shortfall.

Rugby TUSC to contest local elections in May

The recently formed branch of the Trade Unionist & Socialist Coalition will be standing candidates in this year's local elections in Rugby.  Candidates selected so far, who will be on the ballot paper as Trade Unionists and Socialists Against Cuts, include;

Bilton  Steve Roberts  (FBU)
Dunchurch  Pete Mclaren   (NUT & Secretary of Socialist Alliance)
Brownsover South   Clive Dunkley   (NUT & Socialist Party member)
Hillmorton   Dave Goodwin   (RMT)
Caldecott   Julie Weekes   (UCU)
Leam Valley   Geoff Dewhirst   (UNITE)
Eastlands   Bert Harris   (Former Secretary of Rugby Anti-Poll Tax Union)