The Socialist 27 January 2016

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill

Davos summit: a broken capitalist system

Google pays pittance for avoiding £2bn tax

Red doors and wristbands scandal

Steelworkers may face benefit cut-off for not seeking bar jobs

Oscars snub black artists: fight racism and austerity in the arts

Labour councillor smears TUSC policy as 'BNP'

Them & Us

Top tweets: #TraditionallySubmissive

Teaching: a perfect storm is brewing

Teachers need national strategy for a national struggle

A day in the life of a teacher and mother

New wave of protests in Tunisia

India: student death exposes caste oppression

Tories 'Prevent' civil liberties

Labour councillor suspended for fighting cuts

Dave Nellist's byelection appeal to Jeremy Corbyn: 'let's discuss how to fight the cuts'

Labour election post-mortem: nothing to report!

The dark arts of Labour's right

Councillors must fight to defend our services

'People's budgets' and local democracy

Lewisham: no backsliding in council cuts fight!

"I have left work many times in tears" - a council worker

Trade union bill will stretch resources and limit action

Birmingham teachers strike to resist academy attack

24-hour tube strike suspended

Care services under threat in Haringey

Workplace news in brief

The end for deep coal mining jobs in Britain

Obituary: Dean Meehan 1962-2016

Letters

Protesting against closure of Huddersfield A&E

Coventry children's services closure protest

New Socialist Party branch fights against St Austell austerity

Socialist Party discusses the fight for socialism

Socialist Students bake-off

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Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/886/22093

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New Socialist Party branch fights against St Austell austerity

St Austell, Cornwall, photo by Wikimedia Commons (Creative Commons) (Click to enlarge)

Gill Birchall, St Austell Socialist Party

Our new Socialist Party branch in St Austell, Cornwall, has wasted no time contacting our town councillors to seek their view on 'no cuts' people's budgets and to offer our support to those opposed to passing on Tory cuts. At the end of 2015 our town council surveyed local people to ask their opinion on local services in light of intended cuts being passed down from Cornwall Council.

Cornwall is reputed to be the most deprived region in England, with one in four children living in poverty in certain areas. We pointed out to the town council that their survey was flawed as at no point did it give the people of St Austell the opportunity to reject austerity.

Our letter said that those already vulnerable and living in poverty are least able to pay further for services they are entitled to receive such as libraries, leisure centres, public toilets etc. So far we have received three responses, suggesting that 'anti-austerity' is a "meaningless phrase" and that our aim of opposing the impact on the town's most vulnerable is "tokenistic".

Undeterred we are emboldening our approach through weekly paper sales activities to raise awareness and continuing involvement in anti-austerity actions across the county.

In this issue

Socialist Party news and analysis

Housing: smash the Tory wrecking bill