Andrew Price, Cardiff Against the Cuts
Thousands of workers, students and anti-cuts campaigners marched through Cardiff on Saturday 5 March to tell visiting Con Dems we don’t accept your cuts, photo Paul Mattsson (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)
Last May voters in Cardiff turned out in massive numbers to throw out a council run by a coalition of Liberal Democrat and Plaid Cymru councillors beginning to implement the cuts demanded by the Con-Dem government.
Last week the now Labour-controlled council announced a package of cuts which many will see as a harsh punishment for those who loyally supported Labour last May.
Under the proposals the council will:
- Slash its 2013/2014 budget by £22 million
- Cut 300 council workers jobs
- Sell off the Flat Holm, an island in the Bristol Channel, ending immediately funding for school visits there
- Close a council-run riding school used mainly by disabled children
- Close a swimming pool and a leisure centre in Splott and Plasnewydd- two predominantly working class areas in the city
- Reduce opening hours for libraries and leisure centres in mainly working class areas
- End respite breaks for parents of disabled children
- Cut subsidies to Cardiff buses
All over Cardiff voters will be asking why a Labour-controlled council is contemplating such shameful cuts.
Opposition
In the past, had a Labour-run council contemplated a fraction of such cuts, all hell would have broken out in the Cardiff Labour Party.
Not any more, as it appears that both the party and the vast majority of its councillors are prepared to quietly do the Tories’ and Liberal Democrats’ dirty work for them.
Cardiff Against the Cuts, a body established by Cardiff Trades Council, unites trade unionists and community groups with those representing the disabled in a campaign to oppose all cuts introduced by this vile government.
It now falls upon us to build a mass campaign of opposition to all council cuts in the city, and to show the councillors that if they are not prepared to defend the communities that elected them, they will be cast aside and replaced by those who will.
