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Carlisle - lives and livelihoods devastated
'We're still waiting for investment promised in 2005'
Brent Kennedy, Socialist Party Carlisle
There's an army helicopter hovering overhead, three trees have been uprooted from the sodden ground in my street, one of them into next door's garden. My daughter's school is closed, but at least we've still got electricity this time.
The railway routes and the main roads to the north, west and east of Carlisle city centre are cut off by floodwater. Not only thousands of homes, but also several factories, supermarkets and industrial estates are awash, raising questions about the local economy and jobs when this is over.
The infrastructure has been hit, with power stations out of action, cutting off thousands. The civic centre is flooded again, which will cause disruption and huge costs for months, and the city council is now operating from Penrith, 20 miles away.
Ironically, the local Socialist Party branch had to call off its planned Saturday stall against council cuts to vital local services - one of our slogans being "save our fire stations and care homes".
Cameron has turned up for the TV cameras, but his promises of support will be as empty as John Prescott's 2005 post-flood guff about millions for a "Carlisle Renaissance" which never materialised.
Labour city and county councillors are slavishly refusing to fight Tory cuts to the local government services we now need. They must now stand up for our community or stand aside.
Residents will be homeless for up to a year as plaster and floorboards are ripped out. Instead of the financial and psychological costs of existing in cramped hotel and B&B rooms, the council should immediately requisition the 1,586 empty homes which it has just identified and make these available at fixed rents or charge the insurance companies.
Socialist Party member and textile worker Dave Barton was flooded out for ten months in 2005 in Warwick Road (which you'll have seen on the TV news). "My next door neighbour had to find his own salvage firm and then his own builders. We were held to ransom by the guys who hire out the dehumidifiers."
Martin, another socialist and building worker, was taken on then by one of the many cowboy firms from all over the country which swooped in and made a killing from flood victims. "Of 12 guys working there, I was the only one who hadn't done time. There was also corruption from the council and builders' merchants. Afterwards the residents paid through higher rents or insurance payments."
The much-vaunted new flood defences haven't been adequate against the second or third "one hundred year event" in parts of the county.
Cameron posed as leader of "the most green government ever" until he 'cut the green crap' and dropped measures to fight the climate change from which we are now undeniably suffering.
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The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.
The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.
The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.
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- When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.
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We therefore urgently appeal to all our viewers to donate to our Fighting Fund.
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