Sutton and Croydon TUSC

The Liberals' Lament

Sutton's Liberals complain most bitterly, in a leaflet recently pushed through doors, about, “unprecedented reductions in our funding”, which means they will be “forced” to make cuts in services. They don’t seems to have noticed that they, the Liberals, are part of the very government about which they complain! And strange, they made no mention of this prior to the May local elections! 

Their leaflet implies the issue has appeared quite unexpectedly, out of the blue! With much wailing and gnashing of teeth they lament the need for this dreadful austerity (austerity for most, that is). On a new, purpose-built website you can almost hear the sound of their many wringing hands! They have, it says, “taken a careful and measured approach” in these “difficult circumstances”. Undoubtedly many tears will have been shed.

However, they are making the people of Sutton a very generous offer - the opportunity to participate in choosing which of their services will be cut! This is the equivalent of holiday-makers on the Titanic being asked to suggest who should be selected for the few remaining lifeboats. (The first class passengers having already sailed away on theirs…). 

We can expect precisely nothing from these inveterate cynics, as they mourn these "difficult times".

The Liberals and Tories, UKIP lick-spittles and, regretably, "One Nation Labour", all sing from the same hymn sheet. That hymn would have us believe, much as Thatcher did, that There Is No Alternative. We must make savings. We can no longer afford public services and the welfare state. We can only afford to bail out the richest; to subsidise with public money the great captains of industry.

They all of them take for granted something TUSC does not. That working people (regrettably of course) must bear the burden of the crisis. A crisis they didn't cause, but which they are expected to pay for.

There is an alternative, of course. But it means putting the democratic forces of organised labour and working people at the helm of government, local and national. It means breaking the power of big business and banks - whose interests are privileged ahead of all others. It means running the economy in the interests of those who create the wealth; not those who destroy it, squander it or hide it in tax havens!

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