John Williams, Cardiff Central Socialist Party, and Unite the Union executive council candidate
I stopped caring what the Labour Party put through my letterbox a long time ago. But Labour’s recent local newsletter caught my eye.
It claimed that council tax in Cardiff is now officially the lowest in the whole of Wales. £242 below the current Wales average.
This is 100% correct. But that only tells half the story.
Cardiff Labour council increased 2025-26 council tax by 4.95%. The rest of Wales increased council tax by 7.2% on average.
So, the real story is that Cardiff Council didn’t increase as much as the rest of Wales!
Sacked union rep
And if that wasn’t bad enough, I noticed that on the newsletter, they used an image of sacked union rep at Cardiff council, Tom Watkins. He used his own tools to fix a bin, but in reality, there is an anti-union campaign at Cardiff council, which Tom fell victim to.
Tom is furious, and so he should be. They use him in election leaflets. But let him get sacked after 33 years of service. It’s clear that Cardiff Council don’t care about its workforce or protecting vital council services.
Cardiff Council has reserves of over £134 million. It should use that in the short term to fight cuts. And, at the same time, use borrowing powers and the full might of the working class and the trade union movement to build a mass campaign with other councils to the demand full funding from Westminster. That is the policy of Unite the Union – the union that many Labour councillors are members of – and of Wales Trades Union Congress (TUC).
Wales elections
We don’t have council elections in May next year. But we do have Welsh Senedd elections.
We need to replace pro-austerity politicians with socialists who will stand by workers and who will fight austerity. We’re pushing at an open door, with the recent Your Party founding conference passing a motion demanding that Your Party councillors do just that.
