The Socialist 29 August 2012

Con-Dems win gold for hypocrisy!

Paralympics, Atos scandal, Remploy closures... Con-Dems win gold for hypocrisy!

Build for a 24-hour general strike!

The Julian Assange case

Galloway's ignorant comments

Gove stole our exam grades!

Crisis services handed over to charity food banks

Them & Us

Building workers fight pay cut threat

Sparks protest at London Crown House site

Local government pension scheme

Sheffield recycling workers to resume strike action

Lobby the TUC for a 24-hour general strike

Jobs and homes, not racism

East Midlands: Save our ambulance service

NHS: Unions must defend national pay bargaining

TUSC councillor rejects Walsall cuts 'consultation'

Prison work - £3 a day is exploitation for profit

Women's prisons - Con-Dems' 'reforms' mean cuts and privatisation

Norway: Mass murderer Anders Breivik gets life sentence

Kazakhstan: Human rights campaigner Vadim Kuramshin freed

Leon Trotsky: A revolutionary's life

Fight council tax benefit cuts

The 'madness' of building homes

Notting Hill carnival-goers support Lonmin miners

Socialist Party summer camp

Why I joined the Socialist Party

Save our computer server!

Previous issues, etc

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TUSC councillor rejects Walsall cuts 'consultation'

Walsall council has begun a public consultation on 'spending priorities for 2013-14', speaking of further cuts of around £67 million over the next four years. The consultation questionnaire asks people to say which council services 'were most important to them' and which were 'less important'. Unsurprisingly, it did not include the option of saying no to all the cuts.

Below is an extract from Walsall councillor Pete Smith's reply to Walsall Voluntary Action about the consultation.

Councillor Smith is a member of the Walsall Democratic Labour Party, part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).

Those who care about public services would be well advised to keep out of this exercise in my opinion...

Are we seriously asking the people to legitimise a process whereby they and their fellow citizens will pay more and receive less services, year by year? With respect, count me out...

The citizens and workers of Walsall borough, led by their councillors, should:

Oppose all cuts
Reject increases in council tax and increases in service charges
Campaign and vote against the privatisation of council jobs and services
Call on councillors to refuse to implement the cuts
Argue that the best way to mobilise the mass public campaign that is necessary to defeat the cuts is to set a budget that meets the needs of the local community and demand that the government makes up the shortfall
Mobilise as many sections of the community as possible to join a mass peaceful and lawful campaign to demand that their elected representatives stand up to the massive and hugely unfair cuts rather than aid and abet their implementation

Fifty-seven of the present 60 Walsall councillors belong to one of the three main party groups and therefore will behave and vote as directed by their party bosses. Only a mass popular, public, legal and peaceful campaign engaging hundreds, even thousands, of local citizens might bring a change of mind.