SACC "March for the Alternative" on Saturday

I feel the SACC march in support of the London March went well on Saturday! I thought it was well attended despite being organised at the last minute. The reason for this was that we didn't want to detract from the London march by having people choose Southport over the hassle of travelling to London!

We gathered on the grass and assembled into a line for marching. Thank you very much to the people who marshalled! A really important job in order for the march to go ahead! Some people expressed that they felt uncomfortable marching with others who they would normally dissociate with. I understand this is a new thing for some people to be confronted with and whilst it often causes some raised eyebrows and discomfort I am very keen to include everybody who is willing to make positive contributions to the anti-cuts campaign. I would always ask that people give this way of working a chance since I am very keen to get away from our group being taken over by what some might call "the usual suspects" and I believe being able to attract and maintain interest from broadly differing groups will and has strengthened us. We cannot be dismissed as easily if we have people from all walks of life included and on principle it is not my personal belief that anyone should be excluded based on their other associations. We all have our own political beliefs and we may disagree very strongly but what matters is where we DO agree and that we are willing to work together positively. The group does not expect that all contributors agree on everything or that they feel as though they are represented by the other people on the march. Each person speaks for themselves and I am not going to allow others to censor any of our contributors for this reason. We are apolitical in our organisation but feel it is important to allow others to maintain their own beliefs and campaigns - I believe a more difficult, but ultimately more productive path.

Many thanks also go to Steve Jowett who you can see holding the other side of our banner in this picture. He has tirelessly been adding quiet but vitally important contributions to our group (including the loud hailer) and other groups such as Gemma Brannan's Children's Centres Campaign. Steve is standing for Labour in the local council elections in May in Ainsdale ward and is much too kind to promote himself! I can assure you he is the most humble, kind and tirelessly hard working man I have ever come across, he absolutely fundamentally believes in social justice and does all he can, whenever he can, to contribute to improving things for other people as anyone who has met him will attest! But that is enough sycophancy! ;)

We then marched down the Promenade. Thanks very much to Peter Raymond of "Peter Raymond photography" who took all these pictures!

The march was attended by individuals concerned about cuts, Labour party members, UKIP parliamentary candidate Terry Durrance, Green Party members, Unite, the TUC, the West Lancs Pensioners Forum, Doctors from the hospital, PCT employees, mums with children, people concerned about New Directions, a wonderful lady called Susan England (who I will write more about later), Cynthia from Compass and many more, a pleasingly broad spectrum of people!

As we marched we chanted! "No return to the 80's! Defend the NHS!", "No ifs! No buts! No public sector cuts!", "They say cut back! We say fight back!"

We held up traffic when crossing at the pedestrian crossing and Steve and I used the banner to shield everyone from any oncoming traffic as we crossed! If you were the bikers we held up, thanks very much for waiting so patiently!

As we turned onto Lord street some shoppers were mildy irritated at having to mind out of the way but many cars beeped their horns in support and our chants grew stronger with the support!

We held up cars again to cross Lord street! Again, thanks for your patience!

We gathered outside the Town Hall and we had speakers on the stairs.

This is Cynthia speaking about Compass. 

Me waffling about things and hoping I am making sense!

This is Susan England. She is an American with dual citizenship and has worked as a nurse in a few different states in America. She spoke absolutely wonderfully in support of our NHS and her emotion very well expressed her (and many of our) fears and sadness about the American system of healthcare. She spoke about what many of us are absolutely fearful of - that if you are wealthy you can get healthcare but if you are poor or vulnerable you die. She spoke, through tears, about patients who are afraid to call an ambulance because they aren't sure their insurance will pay for it. Absolutely heartbreaking. I can't thank her enough for being brave and strong enough to fight back her tears and speak so passionately about something so important!

This is a lady from West Lancs Pensioner's Forum. She spoke with frustration about why the Government was spending money on overseas aid when they are saying they are not able to look after their own people. This isn't my first worry since I think it is very important to try and fight global inequality in order to maintain and promote the human rights of all people, here and abroad but as I said at the time, it does illustrate an important point about the difference between what the Coalition say and what they do. In the same week they announced a cap on benefits of £20k per year, they, a cabinet 18 out of 23 who are millionaires, it was reported in the papers, spent £20k of public money on transporting and hanging artwork in their offices. We have plenty of money for: the bid for the world cup - a tournament that would have cost much for us to hold, the pope's visit despite the vatican having billions in wealth, we are paying for an extravagant wedding of two aristocrats, we have money to fight wars in afghanistan, iraq and libya, we have £1.2bn to completely re-organise the NHS, we are able to cut corporation tax. They say we have no money to support the welfare state, to adequately fund the NHS, to reorganise HMRC so we can have fair taxation and collect the billions unpaid illegally every year. I think it is very important to look at what they do not at what they say. They want you to believe TINA (there is no alternative) and that cuts have to be made to public services. Public spending is only one side of the deficit, the other is tax. David Willets on newsnight (the squeezed middle) says they know the tax system is not fit for purpose but that a reorganisation to make it capable and fair would cost money they didn't have. How can you sort a deficit (an imbalance between tax incomes and spending) if you have a tax system which is acknowledged to be inadequate? They are incompetent, I would argue, in spending money reorganising the NHS when it is a policy which is opposed by many and unnecessary. The money would be better spent funding HMRC who are suffering austerity cuts and job losses and already fail to adequately collect owed taxes see NFA's document on fraud here - http://www.attorneygeneral.gov.uk/nfa/GuidetoInformation/Documents/NFA_fraud_indicator.pdf

Here is Terry's placard that provoked controversy! I welcome his support and am pleased he came to march (and marshal too!). He is happy to march alongside everyone and he shouldn't be hassled for trying to offer support to the cause that everybody feels is important! He isn't expecting everyone to agree with him or be converted and he was told, along with everyone else, to bring his own placard for his own cause. 

This is Laurence from Sefton Green Party speaking.

We finished the rally by having a chant and then we dispersed! I am stupid for not knowing when our next meeting was! It is on 11/4/11. The Socialist Health Association meeting is on 14/4/11. Please have a look at the Upcoming events section for more information as you have to book for this meeting (it is free but they need to know numbers).

"Does my society look big in this?" T-shirt

http://www.philosophyfootball.com/view_item.php?pid=688

Check out this rather amusing T-shirt available above!

Mark (Tel 020 8802 3499) from philosophy football says:

"DOES MY SOCIETY LOOK BIG IN THIS?

SPECIAL CAMPAIGN LOW PRICE. JUST £12.99 (a not for profit price)! Mr Cameron and his, very, junior partner Nick Clegg would have us believe that our society can do just fine with fewer nurses and teachers.  Closing down schools, hospitals, childrens' centres and services for the elderly adds up to a smaller, worse society, neither big nor better. All in the cause of deficit reduction?  How about taxing the bankers' bonuses and closing down corporate tax evasion. Wear Philosophy Football's  'Does my Society Look Big in This'  T-shirt on the 26 March  TUC March for the Alternative, the brilliant direct actions of UKUncut or wherever and whenever the protest takes you. Available in sizes S-XXL, plus women's skinny fitted."

Minutes from the Meeting with the Council Party Leaders taken by Nina

SACC meeting with Sefton Councillors Dowd, Parry and Robertson

March 2, 2011

Minutes

(Text in parenthesis is paraphrased)

The meeting opened with a welcome and small speech from the chair Kat Sumner.

Submitted questions:

1.   Gemma Brannan:

From our knowledge you have used emergency funding to keep the Sure Start centres open while you undertake the review but if the review proves that Sure Start should stay open, how do you propose to fund this? Also why don’t you follow suit of Liverpool council and stand up to the Government and refuse these cuts?

Additional question: We have heard that three (Children’s Centre) staff  will lose their jobs tomorrow – is this true and if so who are they?

Paula Parry: We are having a review which will be finished in September and we won’t know until September what that says.

Tony Robertson: I’m not aware of redundancies you mention. We started the process to look at where savings can be made. One of the ideas was reducing the number of centres and that was aimed at phase two and three centres. But it was clear quite quickly that that was not the way we wanted to go. I’ve been lobbied a bit about it. So we decided to conduct a review of all centres. There must be opportunities to look for savings across the whole network. I don’t have views about what those savings might be but savings will have to be made, no point pretending otherwise. The review will go on for some months and will report at the end of the year. The desirable outcome is to retain the network of children’s centres, but to find savings from what they deliver. It will be interesting to see what comes out of the House of Commons on this because MPs have been talking about this, and say not to get too fixated on buildings, it’s the services provided that are important. There may be some emerging government policy. The government may impact on the review as well.

Peter Dowd:  If the proposals go through it will be more than three people (losing their jobs). My party’s doing it’s best – the other two parties are taking this lying down. I come from a different position. The government are making cuts of £44m but we don’t have to do it so quick. We are in a difficult situation funding it. The Sure Start service we should be funding totally. The buildings are important but the services are crucial. It’s £1.8m on phases two and three – are we going to spend it? I wouldn’t be making those cuts.

Follow-up question to Paula Parry from GB: “Have you actually attended any centres?”

PP: There are guidelines as to what we have to provide and we have been providing over and above those, putting extra services in. We have to look at everything in this difficult year. We don’t want to make big cuts but the country is in a mess. We need new ideas. We are putting a noose around our children’s necks.

2. Jim Ford:

I asked Ms Carney at the last meeting: “What are Sefton doing to make sure the cuts program is not falling disproportionately on our town which is 20 miles distant from the centre of South Sefton (i.e. Bootle, Crosby and Maghull) where Sefton services are increasingly being centralised. What is the outcome of the geographical assessment which Sefton has carried out to ensure equity and that our town is not disproportionately experiencing cuts across a range of services, and that cuts are fairly distributed across the Borough of Sefton”  Her response, in short, was that geographical assessments were not being carried out but that assessments based on demographics were.  She also said she was happy to develop “neighbourhood approaches” in various ways but could not answer my question about whether we could have a Town Council rather than a “toothless Area Committee”. I would like to pose the same questions to you – What are you doing to ensure the cuts program doesn’t fall disproportionately across Sefton and can Southport have a Town Council which better accommodates its different history, geography (position on the Ribble) and needs (an ageing population)?

.

PP: There has to be a referendum for a town council. I made enquiries and extra grants were awarded on this basis: Bootle - £100m, Southport - £27m, Maghull and Formby - £1m each. So I don’t consider that Southport has suffered. The Area Committee issue comes up tomorrow (At the budget meeting). It needs to be looked at again.

TR: I would hope the decisions are not taken based on geographical differences. Sefton is a diverse area. The Southport councillors would be the first to shout out if they thought Southport was being short-changed. On a town council, Southport had a referendum five/six years ago. That led to one Area Committee. If that debate is re-opened that can change.

PD: It depends what you mean by a town council. Maghull has a town council, the Area Committee is a town council by any other name. Or is it that Southport wants to opt out of Sefton? It’s for the people of Southport to make that decision.

Follow-up: How would they call for a town council?

PD: There would be a referendum, it’s up to the people of Southport to start that process, it’s in your hands.

(Something about a Petition...?)

PD: In reducing expenditure, it hasn’t gone out to ask anyone. In June we (Labour) called a special council meeting on how we were going to consult people about the cuts. The other two parties didn’t turn up. We wanted to start the consultation process. The council haven’t consulted. No consultation at all. The Equalities Impact Assessments were incredibly narrow. It was a sham. And then that has lead to the ridiculous scenario of making the decision to close children’s centres and then doing a u-turn. And there will probably be a u-turn on youth centres too. You have campaigns set against each other. The same with the Botanic Gardens – we make the decision then back away because there wasn’t time to properly consult.

PP: It was playing politics (the meeting set up by Labour). It was worse than anyone thought and that’s because the country had been left in such a mess.

TR: First Peter Dowd says there is no need for cuts then he says we should have had a consultation process. We have no choice, we have to make the cuts.

3. Linda Tilston:

You must not cut the number of Southport Area Committees – there is barely enough time to discuss the issues already being put forward. Instead, cut the number of councillors to one or two per ward. We needed three per ward when councillors had full time jobs as well as their council duties but now they are paid a salary and many have given up or retired from other full time occupations. I understand we could save £330k per year. What steps need to be taken to do this? Does it involve National Government or can it be done locally? Others have put this suggestion several times in the local press. Regarding Youth clubs and playing/football pitches. Could you not ask Tesco and Asda to sponsor these? They make so much money out of our town and put little back. They could be allowed to put up signs showing that these are being sponsored by them, so it will be in return for advertising and goodwill. We cannot allow institutions that keep our young folk off the streets, learning new things and being inspired to close. So, we need our libraries and small clubs e.t.c. Especially if the police force is being cut back and they will not be available for anti-social behaviour problems.

PD: There is a debate to be had (about the number of councillors).  There are usually two in a ward (Sefton has three per ward). But even with one per ward we would save £600k, nowhere near the £44m, but have the debate. But other parts of the borough might not want that. As for youth clubs/supermarket sponsorship, it’s a Big Society question, but I don’t think we want to be grateful to Asda, Tesco for providing services. The Big Society is getting smaller every day. That’s not going to solve the problems. They couldn’t put their hands in their pockets when there was a boom on, so they’re not going to in a recession.

PP: We have written to the Electoral Commission to ask to have less councillors per ward. We won’t go from three to one. They will come back to us in 2012. It may come in in 2013. The Boundary Commission will look at the size of the wards.

TR: I wrote to the Boundary Commission – I support going from three to two members. The reality is it isn’t going to be something in the foreseeable future. Going to businesses is not going to get us anywhere near. I wouldn’t be hopeful.

Follow-up question: What about restricting new sites or putting  conditions on opening new stores?

TR: We will always try to gets something for the community. Highways, park improvements.

PP: Everyone can contact their local councillors. I don’t have difficulty with businesses giving money. Sainsbury’s has buckets at every till and they give to local projects (calls of “That’s customers’ money not the company’s” from the floor).

4. Paul Rigby:

Would each of the Speakers say if they really have a commitment to decent public services for all or if they believe only those who can afford it should have the best they can buy and everyone else should swallow their pride and go to charities for basic soup kitchen style services?

TR: We would all say we believe in public services in a civilised country. In practice that comes down to the amount of money society has. If there is not enough we are in a bust. That’s why we are reducing services.

PP: All councillors come into it to have the best public services we can provide.

PD: I have a commitment to public services. In the main we live in a wealthy society, the 5^th biggest economy in the world. We shouldn’t have to rely in charity. We have got the money. Public services should be provided based on need not on what others feel like giving. The government is ruining this country.

TR: My party didn’t create this bust. Her (Paula Parry’s) party didn’t. Bankers went unregulated by Peter Dowd’s party.

5. Maureen Whalley:

66 Sefton Councillors last year were paid a total of over £1m, that money also includes employers’ pensions, even with the cut in allowances, the three councillors who lead their parties (with special responsibilities payments) will still receive in excess of £30,000 from April 1^st 2011 paid for by Sefton council taxpayers, also with a possibility of a reduction in meetings they have to attend. Do you not think that these amounts are excessive? How many jobs could be saved by reducing the amount of councillors? (There was an extra statement about Oldham deciding to cut the number of their councillors).

PD: £1m, 66 councillors - £15k each, so that’s a maximum of 66 jobs that could be paid for. We will have a 5% cut in basic allowances. To go further than that, that is a discussion to have in due course.

TR:  Oldham are in the same situation and looking to do the same thing. On the financial issue, I do have a job, it’s not a job I can do full-time. I only work 10 hours a week, that’s because being on the Cabinet takes up a lot of time. My employer only pays me for 10 hours a week and my pension is based on 10 hours a week. If council didn’t pay me I wouldn’t be able to do it.

PP: If you go from 66 to 22 you save two thirds of a million. Independent people made a recommendation and we have said please reduce our wages.

6. Mervyn Evans:

Do the Councillors believe their internecine bickering and spending as listed in last week’s Champion (23/2/11), is more important than the needs and respect of Sefton residents?

PP: Meetings now are completely different to years ago. People would stand up shaking their fists. We work well together now. We can’t agree all the time.

TR: Political debate can sometimes be positive, sometimes be childish. I don’t always like it when it gets to that tribal level. We don’t really achieve anything.

PD: There should be political debate not bickering. Sefton Council has been a hung council since 1986. Most of the time we work together. We are in a democracy - most of the time we get on with it. But there are going to be times when there are disagreements.

Follow-up question: Are councillors allowed a free vote or do they have to vote along party lines? £53k on golf courses?

PP: We are allowed a free vote but we tend to think along similar lines. It would be lovely to say no but we have to deliver a balanced budget. I think two parties will act responsibly and one will not.

TR: Lib Dems tend to be free thinkers. 27 free thinkers will want to put their own perspective on things. Parties do coalesce around certain views. We discuss the debate and decide which way to go. There will be times when we do not go along party lines. I try not to force people down lines they do not want to go down. I do have a whip but don’t tell them to sort out councillors.

7. Tony Wall:

Dear Councillors, please look again at the decision to axe the Duke of Edinburgh scheme and close youth centres in Sefton. I believe 900 of our young people, our future, are presently involved in the scheme. Where does it leave them? I do know that this qualification, is held in high esteem by employers, and says a lot about the character of the person achieving it. On the subject of youth centres, even if the cost is up to £1m, surely that is a price worth paying particularly as we in Sefton have the fourth highest numbers nationally using these resources. I know there are drastic savings to be made in the budget but please don’t take these exceptional resources from our able bodied and disabled youth, which are great channels for their energies.

PD:  My daughter did Duke of Edinburgh, it’s fantastic for young people. It’s not just about Duke Of Edinburgh, when you cut Early Years Intervention, Child Trust Fund, primary schools, free and active, further education, clothing grant, bus passes taken off them, youth centres closed, EMA gone, £9,000 uni fees, they are getting battered. Take a step back, we need to fight for young people. Where are we going to get the money? Last year the Labour party wanted to get the consultation process going. We knew the government were making cuts – we wanted to get in early. (PD then spoke about PCT savings of £4m which could have closed the gap). We’ve been at the table the whole time. The cuts are too fast, too deep. For Duke Of Edinburgh scheme, we’ve got to find the money and give those young people a break.

PP: The PCT money comes from the government.

TR: I have a huge amount of sympathy but there is a lack of money. I hope we can make progress and resolve some of the issues. It’s highly likely that Sefton youth services will have to make savings. Is it regrettable? Is it too fast? I wrote a letter to the Times suggesting it would be helpful if there could be more support as we try to deal with this situation.  I will try to resolve some of the issues surrounding young people. In Liverpool there looked to be an all-party agreement but that included four Sure Start Children’s Centres – and that has broken it. The reason there is no agreement is over those four children’s centres.

PP: Everybody wants to minimise the cuts for disabled groups. I was speaking to a woman with an autistic son who is looked after for 3 hours – it could be 2 hours if organised differently and not in those buildings. She said that’s fine as long as the service doesn’t stop .

8. Danny McGowan

If Sefton Councillors believe, as we do, that these cuts are unfair and are going to hurt the poorest and most vulnerable the hardest, why have they not organised any marches along the lines of the “Fair deal for Liverpool” event on Sunday 20^th Feb, organised by Liverpool City Councillors. Would they use such an event to call on corporations like Barclays to pay the same rates of tax as the rest of us, and for a maximum wage in the public sector to include those bankers whose debts have been nationalised too?

PD: We had a march in Maghull, with 200 mostly young people. We would have had more people with more notice. We have started that process.

TR: I have been a trade union officer and we specialise in marching. I am not sure they achieve a great deal though. I want to lobby government ministers, I think that’s an important thing to do. Paula has done the same thing.

PP: I paid for it myself too (going to London).

TR: That may on face value achieve something. It’s important to influence the people in power. I have also been lobbied by the likes of people here and I have taken that to government.

PP: I’ve never organised a rally, they are usually about just one issue. I don’t think a march would help, unlike lobbying.

On the debts being nationalised....

PD: I don’t want to make cheap shots but you could have a Robin Hood tax which would bring in £30bn a year and would go some way (to cutting the deficit)

10. Terry Durrance:

The council have announced that despite the public spending cuts, the £3.5million upgrade of Southport Market will go ahead. This is despite the fact that the number of existing market tenants is very small (probably only around 10) and the rents to be charged on completion of the upgrade will be such that new traders will not be be attracted into signing expensive leases. For a fraction of the cost that the council are putting into this project, they could offer a financial subsidy to existing tenants and support them in relocating into alternative premises in the area. It is a fact that there are many empty shops in the town centre - some of which have been empty for a very long time. It is wrong to be investing in creating more retail outlets whilst vital council services such as SureStart and Youth Centres are at risk.

PP: The Lib Dems and Conservatives disagree on this. We asked the market stall holders what they thought. It’s better than they thought it would be. People like to go to markets, you get a good service, and you get the cultural centre.

TR: I do disagree. I don’t think it should have been put in. But councillors thought there should be public sector investment. It’s not undesirable. It’s just unaffordable. The money we need to borrow, the running costs in the first year are £400,000, that money could help with the issues we are concerned about.

PD: For years we didn’t invest and we should have done. The Conservatives have pushed for that investment and I am not going to complain about that. It brings in rent and income. It’s nonsense to say cut the market and save children’s centres. I support it but object to £15m investment in cultural centre and people who have been paying £200k for rent... it goes with a coastal town. Southport can pick up on that growth it’s nonsense that we can save the children’s centres [by scrapping the market]. We have a business plan that sets out the costs, we believe it will come into profit.

SACC questions:

11. What sanctions will the Council and councillors face if they fail to agree a legal budget by 10/3/11? Will the council face those sanctions if they pass a budget which is not legal because proposals have not been put to council in accordance with public law surrounding impact assessments and public consultations, therefore meaning decisions have to be made with incomplete or incorrect information and without consultation or on political bias alone?

TR: I hope it’s not the case due to our indecision. We have to set a legal budget however much we dislike what we do. Margaret Carney has tried to have an independent perspective, if she says it’s not legal we have to change it. As it has been developing she knows. The aim of savings .... the biggest risk is not achieveing the savings, she has to be satisfied going into that knowing it is achievable. She would say we could not make that saving. We are in a process driven by money and a short time scale. That could meant with more time we could have made better decisions.

Kat: What if the budget is illegal due to the correct assessments not being carried out?

TR: if the council is challenged it will be subject to the law of the land; if we have done something wrong we could face sanctions.

PD: Do the books balance? She [Margaret Carney] says yes I think you can, she gives a technical judgement. What happens if impact assessments and Consultation processes haven’t been done, I can’t do a great deal. But if an organisation decided to challenge that and the judicial review said [the same] we would have to go back and redo the consultation process.

PP: We have got until the very last moment to set a budget, i’ve been there at 2am and not allowed to go home. The chief executive has got to agree that it is a robust budget.

Questions from the floor:

1.   How much is being spent on the town hall clock and the building?

TR: £15 to £16 million, (PP: £15.2 million). The issue we have got was that when the project was planned and started, would you start it now? Would you defer it? The council is involved in contracts with a capital project like Netherton activity centre... it shouldn’t have gone ahead but it would have cost more to stop it than go ahead.

PP: When the cultural centre was started times were different, we received 2 grants of £4 million and £4 million, we had to spend this money by the end of March. The whole project of £15.2 million... if we stoppednow we would have to give 8 million pound back. It will provide something when it is finished.

Q: Are the contractors on the project from Southport?

PP: They showed us a map of Southport where the people working on it came from. Very significant amount are from Southport or Sefton and West Lancs, that is because we said to the developer that we wanted to use local labour and we want you to buy from local suppliers too.

PD: (I believe he said it costs £640 thousand pounds a year to run)

If we were doing it now we wouldn’t because circumstances are different. We have to look forward, we have to have a vision for the future.

Q: Today I supported three families in need (at a Children’s Centre). Who is going to pick up this preventative work if the centres close?

PP: The money spent on youth is spent through youth clubs and many more schemes depending on necessity.

TR: It is a huge challenge, government policy is going to be crucial. I have been to children’s centres and .... have a friend who works there in Southport.

PD: It is well known that £1 spent in early years saves £7 later on. It is short-termism. Down the long term it is going to cost more. Invite us back, we shouldn’t be allowing it to happen. We should protect them above all.

TR: How do you do that? We have (the cuts) front loaded, we could manage the amount they are cutting if they could do it over 3 or 4 years. We as the leaders with the 3 MPs should go down and say to (Communties Secretary) Eric Pickles think again.

PP: the 3 MPs have already been down and done that. One MP has come back and said they are all in a queue with every other MP.

Q What have you got against young people?

TR: I don’t think we have anything against young people. It is unsustainable, that’s why we are making these savings.

Q: We need councils that are prepared to put their neck on the line, we expect the tories not to, but labour should be fighting for people’s interests.

PP: this country is in debt... the governemt would send in a team [to sort out a budget if we refuse to set one]. It would be worse the longer you leave it.

PD: The government ... say we want to pay it off in 4 years. That is a political decision not an economic one. We could pay it over 60 years; we are paying it over 4 years. I fundamentally disagree, economists disagree, it is a complete nonsense. If we put off paying it for longer, we would not be cutting children’s centres, putting tuition fees up etc.

TR: The real issue is we are beholden to the money makers ... if they are not prepared to invest our economy would end up like Greece and Ireland. It is because of what happened when Greece dared to stop...

PD: Greece and Ireland are much smaller, you are not comparing like for like. We are one of the financial markets. We are a fundamental different place. The reality is ... the lib dems, under Nick Clegg, they are economic liberals not social liberals. There is a big debate how the Tories or the liberals in the party are going to run it. People paying are the people in this room.

Q: Sefton is one of the worst hit for cuts, Wokingham has seen an increase in their budget...

TR: The formula the government use to see what each area gets... the reality is it does have results that are not helpful. Liverpool was worse off than us. They look at the formulae, just hope that it’s fairer ...

PD: We have had £35 million extra area based grant, which they cut by 66%. Hertfordshire didn’t have that grant so they didn’t have that cut, it was focused on areas in the north. Will Eric Pickles and the government in two years have a fairer system? No because it is full of Tory and Lib Dem MPs.

PP: we haven’t had huge grant, we had extra money for ringfenced items but now taking a lot of the ringfence out.

Q: Councillor Dowd recently quoted Ireland, their problem is the euro. This town is bedevelled by neglect...

PP: You shouldn’t do cultural centre and the market? If we didn’t do those things, all those things would go down, you should maintain it.

TR: Local authorities can’t put in the money they want, the pier good example. Campaign – I know there  is a sinking fund to make sure maintenance is done in the future, there is not going to be much money around. Just spend it wisely. What I want council to do is to descentralise to give more power to individual committees.

PD: massive investment but done with private money... sea wall put up; ocean plaza, joint investment...

Q: next round of cuts, no beach cleaning, etc. Crosby/parking cost money publics – split council up.

TR: Committees can manage themselves. People of southport did prior to 1974, but while it is part of sefton we can only give Southport as much autonomous power as we can.

Q:. It is the kids who are suffering. Are you willing to take if further for your people ... 5 or 10 years this country will be gone. Stand up and do something about it. Get money from the banks

TR: Tax evasion. I work for the HMRC – i have been campaigning to get the government to do something about tax evasion in this country, it contributes to the difficulties we have got,

PP: Northen Rock.. was bailed out.. if it had gone it might have taught others the lesson. There are people who have got something for their families. I understand that is important to you.

Q: New Directions - 28% pay cut from committee set up by the council. Doomed to fail by the council, £3 million deficit for new directions. Can they offer something for New Directions to avoid redundancies and huge pay cuts?

PD: Glen (Williams) was right to raise that point, there are plenty of people who might lose their jobs, ND cost the council £12 million to buy the services, home helps and day centres cut by £3 million. What happened is the terms and conditions looked at and they took a cut, the council wants to consider it for ND. They need breathing space. It’s a case I’ll be trying to make.

Q: Jacob: youth centres, 21 thousand signatures, these are people most find it difficult to speak out.

TR: Jacob made one of the best speeches i have ever heard at the last council meeting. The issue of being lobbied is part of democracy, everybody has been responded to who has contacted me. I have allowed young people to open my eyes to the way they are thinking. I have spent time at Litherland youth ... I can’t speak for all the council but hope they have taken notice. I haven’t stuck my fingers in my ears., that is what democracy is about: having your views taken apart and realising your view might be wrong. I have found it encouraging but difficult.

PP: Jacob has earned a lot for young people, they haven’t been  read. Then you talk about disabled services. We want to do the best for disabled people. (But when you have threats to come to people’s houses that doesn’t help at all).

PD: I agree with Jacob’s presentation... you have to listen to these sorts of things there is room for manoeuvre. We started late, so there is now room to move. You spend a lot of money and provide centres for social care. Put all that together and you go to provide contractors and say lets do that more simply. It is a hundred million so let’s knock off 2%, there is an opportunity to do that. No harm in trying. If you go down to government to put your case, demonstrations. It is not about giving in, it is about saying this is what people are telling us. I hope you can do that.

The meeting ended with Kat thanking the three councillors for attending.

URGENT REQUEST!

38 Degrees have just sent the following e-mail:

Dear katherine, 38 Degrees members have voted that the NHS is our number one priority. [1] We've been working together and over 150,000 of us have signed the Save the NHS petition. Nowwe're ready to hand in the first batch of names to MPs. Lynn, a local 38 Degrees member, has arranged to meet John Pugh MP at his constituency surgery to share our concerns about the government’s plans for the NHS. Like her, you live in John Pugh's constituency - Southport. Are you free to join her tomorrow? The plan is to meet at 8.30am at the car park of the Shakespeare Centre, Southport, PR8 5AB, so there’s a chance to talk before meeting John Pugh MP at his surgery at 9.00 am. John Pugh MP has the power to challenge the government’s plans now, because he’s on the Health Bill Committee. It's his job to listen to what his voters in Southport have to say about the plans he is discussing. Tomorrow we can make sure he hears how many people in Southport and all over the country want the government to rethink their plans for the NHS. Please come to the car park of the Shakespeare Centre, Southport, at 8.30 am tomorrow to help Lynn deliver the 38 Degrees NHS petition to John Pugh MP. Hope to see you there, David, Hannah, Johnny, Charlotte and the 38 Degrees team PS - If you need to get a hold of Lynn, her phone number is 01704 577050   Notes: [1] http://blog.38degrees.org.uk/2011/03/10/results-what-we-decided-to-focus-on-next/

Minutes from the Regular Meeting 14/3/11 taken by Nina

Minutes: SACC Regular Meeting.

The Windmill, Southport
Monday 14/3/11
8pm

1. Minutes from the last regular meeting and meeting with Ms Carney approved  with some additions (on the blog). From the money raised on the night of the MC meeting, £80 paid the balance, £20 deposit was paid by Kat leaving £57 to be shared by SWACA and Parenting 2000.

2. Matters arising from the minutes of the last meeting:
FOI requests: An FoI has been put in to ask for a list of budget cuts but has not been responded to even though it has gone past the 20 days. The request has now gone to an internal review. We need this info for a possible judicial review of the budget.

Another FoI has been put in regarding who the heads of department are.

Petitions FoI: Nina spoke with Steve Pearce on the phone and he explained why the rules regarding petitions had recently changed. Nina will contact him again through WhatDoTheyKnow to put it in writing for the record what was said. Also ask whether the petition rules apply to petitions to all levels of the council – full council, cabinet and committees. Stuart said next step could be writing to Information Commission if FoIs not replied to.

John has also put in an FoI with the NHS Sefton Director of Public Health.

3. The meetings with Council Leaders and Margaret Carney.
Feedback, what went well, what could be done better: Edit questions, more concise, criticism about letting people ask questions who weren’t there (Kat said because she wanted all to have a voice even if they were not for whatever reason able to attend eg through being housebound). Move the speakers on quicker to get through more questions. The meetings were chaired well by Kat. Stuart asked whether it was a good idea to offer the questions in advance – Kat said she didn’t want it to come across as if we were trying to trip them up, also didn’t want them to be able to say they didn’t have the info to hand.

4.  Plan going forward for a meeting with Sefton MPs – John Pugh, Bill Esterson and Joe Benton. Bill Esterson has said he will come to a meeting, got to pin him down to a day. Nina to follow up request with Joe Benton, Gemma will speak to John Pugh to try to get them to confirm a day.

Liz (Ford) will try to make contact with Socialist Health Association who have a meeting on April 14 at St Luke’s Church hall - see the useful dates section of the blog for information.

5. Judicial review of the budget, we are going to press ahead with investigating calling for one and collating information with this in mind.

As far as we are aware there have been no public consultations and allegedly "inadequate" (according to Peter Dowd) impact assessments. Celia and Kat investigating this with solicitors, Kat’s tutor and the Public Law Project. Kat doesn’t feel able to take this massive project on. No one else was keen to take it on either so it was decided that we may need to just focus on one or two aspects of the budget rather than try to collate info on every single cut. It has to be a cut affecting a protected group, and someone in that group must be eligible for legal aid. We can get help from the Public Law Project. A JR has been successful in London against all London borough councils with regard to cuts to grants to the voluntary sector. We only have three months in which to launch a JR. We need to exhaust all UK legal avenues before going to Europe (where there may be more success). They have been partly successful in Wirral in stopping closure of care homes while a JR goes through.  Jackie Canning at Wirral Carers may be able to help with that. Can trade unions help with financial support for JR? Nina will email Glen Williams at UNISON and Gemma will try Unite.

Does SACC have class action power? No, would need to identify people affected. Can’t go straight at central government: Fawcett Society tried and were advised although they had a case there was no recompense.

There needs to be a FoI about library and children’s centre provision – Nina will chase up David McCullough. Government guidance say there should be one children’s centre per 1,000 children – sefton has 15,000 children (Census 2001). Have the impact assessment been done? Can they be viewed? Not at the moment. Impact assessment toothless? They only need to show “due regard” to protected groups. European Convention on Human  Rights more stringent than UK Human Rights Act. So age, gender, disability need to be looked at, we need to collect the info. John pointed out that they can do a consultation and ignore the results eg charges for travel rising from £3 to £12 a day (more info at agenda item no.8 at the last health and social care meeting. (consultation on charges for non-residential services).

Children’s centre funding comes from Early Intervention Grant, as does youth clubs. 12.9% cut in Sefton. But £900,000 has been put into the Children’s Centre budget from reserves for this year and they are trying to save that before the review.

But are any of these good for a JR? Youth centres has lots of public support from all age groups. School uniform grant cut affects 9,000 across the borough.

With Children’s centres there is legislation that hasn’t been observed.

A meeting will take place at Kat’s house on Monday 21 March at 8pm (19 Gordon St) to further investigate JR.

6. SACC Committee Roles and reaching out.

Where are we up to with filling roles and setting up committees?

Difficult to find enough people to directly mirror the council Cabinet – so a small committee instead. Meet at Kat’s house two weeks before regular SACC meeting (Mon 28 Mar).

Possibility of encouraging other Sefton anti-cuts groups. Ainsdale library “friends” can we encourage other “friends” groups not just for libraries?

Kat’s contact at Democracy Club may be interested in setting up a Maghull anti-cuts group. Can we contact Birkdale, Churchtown libraries to see if they have a ‘friends’ group and if not can reach out to people to encourage them to set them up?

7. Report back about NHS Consultation meeting.
From those of us who attended. What is happening with NHS, the future of services in Southport and Sefton.

Good blog post by Kat. Worries that some services such as geriatric care will not be profitable enough to provide. Also a worry that there will be big fines for bed blocking, readmission rates and dignity provision. Also should there be an IT system where Social Services can access medical records? And if you really can provide more for less why isn’t it already being done? A doctor has suggested a paperwork strike. John Pugh is leading the Lib Dem opposition to the reforms – we need to lobby him, through the Parliament Uk website and at his constituency office.

8. Any other business.
Southport March For The Alternative, March 26. Putting on coach to go to London - £800, UNISON are sending a coach from Southport, 2 from Bootle, there may be some spaces left. For those not able to travel to London there should be a Southport  march. For those wanting to go to London we should help arrange transport.

PCS Campaigns "There is an alternative", "The Squeezed Middle Classes" and Objective Analysis.

I have added a link (see useful links) to the PCS Union's "Campaigns" tab at a contributor's request. It contains a lot of useful information, particularly the page entitled "there is an alternative".

The PCS is the main union for public sector workers and therefore could be accused of being biased in favour of the public sector. Equally, it is likely to be very knowledgeable about this sector too! As with anything you read I think it is very important to be objective and to recognise bias as well as knowledge where it may exist.

There are some very useful statistical facts in the PCS document and it offers a knowledgeable opposition to the government line that it is a duty rather than a choice to make the cuts in the way they are making them. The principles of objective analysis should be applied to anything we are told by the Government, or politicians, too.  This is not about accusing them of anything, it is about recognising where biases and conflicts of interest might exist and balancing evidence for the various arguments.

Without evidence or argument how can something be considered a credible statement? Just trusting that the Government will not mislead you is pretty dangerous, especially when we have a Government which doesn't have a majority of the vote and has gained power through (legitimate) political maneouvering rather than the support of the voters. It means the government inevitably has more to prove to the people. I always try to look at context, the argument and the evidence when forming my opinion. Recognising it is an opinion is important too! One of my biggest bugbears is spouting opinion as though it is fact, although we are all guilty of this occasionally!

What I have found difficult about the Government line of "The mess we inherited has meant it is our duty to take this action so we don't end up like Greece or Ireland" is, it is an over simplification of many complicated economic issues. Nevertheless, as with anything, it is an argument which I was willing to consider.

I have asked, in person, in writing, by telephone many, many, many times for any kind of justification of this argument. I asked for justification of various points from several people - David Sudworth at Sefton Democracy Club, I have asked John Pugh, John Pugh's office workers, Tony Dawson, Tony Robertson (about Ireland), various individuals in real life and over the internet and I have never, not once, been given any justification which makes sense, despite all of these people stating it. I have never seen a good supporting argument for austerity being a duty, for austerity being the solution or for not imposing austerity causing our economy to go the way of Greece and Ireland's. I have, by contrast, seen a plethora of very convincing arguments for the opposite. That austerity is a choice and is likely to cause significant hardship for the people and damage to the economy (as seen in Ireland and Spain where austerity drives have increased the likelihood of defaulting and worsened their economic crisis). That austerity is largely "faith based economics" and that it causes the poorest to suffer the most.

Austerity is not a duty, whatever the economic situation. The fact that we are told there is no choice is almost certainly an indicator of untruth. There is always a political choice, that is why we have politicians. Sometimes it will be "Sophie's Choice" but there is always a choice. The duty is to the people, not to austerity. Perhaps it could be reasonably extrapolated that if austerity was the best choice, perhaps it would count as a duty to choose the best choice, and therefore, a duty to austerity. But the current situation, in my view, is far from that and many economists agree (300 US economists signed this pledge). The European Commission who originally asked member states to reduce their deficits in september 2010 believed austerity would not lead to growth. No-one apart from the Government is trying to portray the Austerity drive as anything other than a choice and this irritates me. If they said "we know it is hard for you, we are choosing to make the poorest pay in the short term but we think this is the best thing for the economy for x and y reason" I would have more respect for them. Saying it is a duty is just not truthful.

Clearly John Pugh, who is part of the government, is the most likely to know about the benefits of austerity and the logic behind choosing it as an economic plan. I didn't receive a response from him at all which is the most frustrating situation. I don't think it is fair to make the statements if you cannot or will not justify them with evidence, especially when you are in a position of power, but if someone does not respond (which is the most common response I have had) how can you tell whether their argument is either legitimate or not? You can't formulate a proper response, either agreement or disagreement.

One of the best debates I have read on the subject is here in New Internationalist. Some of Dan Mobley's arguments about personal debt, whilst true, are not as simple as all that. Yes, people should not have taken on unaffordable loans but the lenders were more likely to know what was really unaffordable (that is, after all, what they are paid to know) than an ordinary person who likely, stupidly, believed that if they could be lent it, it was affordable, based on the naive assumption that banks wouldn't lend to people who weren't going manage to pay it back. This initial move towards consumerism funded by a greater reliance on personal debt (initiated by the Thatcher Government) started the circle which led to the crash.

The other main contributing factor, as I see it, was the introduction of the Tax Credits system by Labour. On the face of it, a great welfare state intervention to improve child poverty and equalise income, but in economic terms a poorly thought out short-term solution to the failure of, mainly the private sector, to provide jobs which paid a living wage. This, coupled with both subsequent Conservative governmental and Labour failures to regulate a housing market which was spiralling out of control and their failures to steer our economy away from being over reliant on a risky, unstable and unregulated industry (the financial industry) sealed our fate. We are now in a situation where the vast, vast majority of people are dependent on a combination of personal debt and state subsidy in order to afford basic things like food, fuel and housing and the Private Sector is still increasingly allowed to make massive profits from cheap or free labour (apprenticeships and work placements) which is unrelated to the real cost of living and therefore the real cost of providing the labour.

Some people argue that private sector growth is fundamental to the improvement of our country's current economic situation. This might be true but then there is economic growth and economic growth and the private sector and the private sector. As I see it there is limited benefit from exponential growth exclusively amongst the super rich at the expense of the majority (like a third world economy except it is the first world who profit the most from third world poverty). I am not an economist, and therefore potentially open to much criticism for economic theorising, but the way I see it, unless the large bloated private sector multinationals share the wealth (with employees here and abroad through wages and pensions and the government through taxation) the playing fields are evened out between the cost and conditions of labour worldwide, what good does it do the country to encourage multinational companies to become even bigger?

If, as is already happening now, this large area of the private sector is keeping wages low in this country, despite having potential to increase them and relying on the state to top up wages for the majority of employees to a level where living is affordable, whilst simultaneously paying massive shareholder profits and big salaries to top employees and, paying a relatively tiny percentage of tax on their profits (as well as individuals earning large amounts paying a relatively small amount in personal taxes) at the same time as conditions are increasingly becoming unfavourable for local business communities and massively favouring multinational corporations, when public money is being put into foreign companies (Lockheed Martin to administrate census data), how exactly is the real economy benefitting?

The workers are poor so the lower and middle levels of the economy do not function, the state has an increased welfare burden and a smaller income from taxation - how is this a stable or healthy economy? Local and national business economies are stalling, how is this kind of economic growth in any way a good thing on the ground? It is in doubt whether the private sector will even achieve the growth the government want, in my opinion, but I think it is also important to consider the type of growth we might see and whether this will bring the benefits expected or needed. The last thing the public want is to grow the still unregulated banking services and big corporations, from which they do benefit little from, at the expense of public health, education, local economies, jobs and equality of wealth. That I fear is the hope of the Government's plan.

The arguments in favour of austerity are all about stability but it is hard to see how this can be achieved in reality and to me it appears there are much better ways to achieve it. A directly related maximum and minimum wage, stricter regulation of the city, a more diverse and therefore potentially stronger and more stable economy, fairer taxation, investment in public services, stable and strong employment - these seem much better ways to me.

Whatever the economic situation it can never be acceptable that the poorest are having their housing benefit cut to 30% the market rate whilst bankers and chief execs are taking home multi-million pound bonuses and pensions despite being instrumental in the crash, despite these big payments diverting vital cash that could be used to stabilise the banks. It is never acceptable that a person should be brought in to make savings that lead to redundancies and then paid hundreds of thousands of pounds but these things are common occurrences.

"We pay Big Money to get the best staff"

The Banker's argument for paying high salaries and bonuses has traditionally been that you have to pay the best to get the best... Well all I'll say on that is that the review of the crisis found that bonuses specifically incentivised the risk taking that caused the crash. This article http://makewealthhistory.org/2011/01/10/why-banking-bonuses-matter/ is pretty informative about why bankers bonuses are bad for the industry and the economy. The Banker's bonuses have been well demonstrated to have been bad for the industry and the point that they "buy the best" is far from proven in my eyes!

The "Squeezed Middle Class"

Last night there was an interesting section on Newsnight featuring the public, David Willets and John Denham dealing with the "squeezed middle classes". It however failed to get to some of the fundamental roots of the problem, I feel. The Government now seem to be at least acknowledging that they are putting deliberate pressure on the middle class although they are still denying they are also putting more pressure on the poor. I notice David Willets was effectively arguing that in order to protect the poorest the middle classes had to pay. On inspection though, how true is this?

Obviously you can tell it is my personal belief that they are putting increased pressure on the poor - reforms to the welfare systems, cutbacks in EMA, The Uniform Grant, rises in the cost of living; VAT, fuel and food rises all impact more the poorer you are. In fact one of the features of Austerity is that it makes the poor suffer. A high and rising cost of living coupled with either frozen or reduced levels of welfare affect the poorest most. A counter argument is not that the wealthy pay more actual money in tax. What is important is the percentage of income they pay in tax. Consistently there are news reports of the very wealthiest and big multinational corporations paying out million pound bonuses to staff despite having a low tax burden and then the staff in receipt of the bonus also having a low personal tax burden. This is in contrast to their smaller counterparts, small business and their employees who often work in much less favourable conditions, earn less but have a much, much higher tax burden.

The trouble was that the argument David Willets made seemed to be that the Government were going after the wealthiest, the poor would be protected and the middle would have to bear some of the costs of that. They mentioned the 50% tax rate as a measure to achieve this. At this point I wanted to rage at the TV and was completely derailed from the assignment I was trying to write!

The wealthiest, in fact the section of society which was ultimately most responsible for the crisis and the poor financial management of the country (apart from a series of Governments), DOES NOT PAY INCOME TAX on the main proportion of their income as supported by this article in the London Standard. If you want to make the richest pay a bigger share you do not do this through the income tax system. The income tax system is the system which taxes the people who are not financially secure.

It is largely the reserve of the people who are employed and pay tax through mandatory PAYE and, therefore, are a reliable source of tax revenue because they cannot easily avoid or evade tax. It is nigh on impossible to find a person who is a top earner and pays income tax because of the way our tax system is set up. It is also very dubious to say you are imposing austerity, which is designed to fund the rich at the (supposedly short-term) expense of the poor and ordinary, with a view to protecting the poorest.

If the Government want to make sure the wealthy pay the biggest share they need to look at corporation, capital gains and inheritance taxes and target them through those systems. Also look at tax evasion and tax avoidance which are often related and costs £bns every year. They need to incentivise small businesses and local business communities rather than protecting big businesses. They need to provide an alternative to reliance on financial services for the economy.

Perhaps if, as is asserted in the programme, the tax system is so inadequate the £1.2bn they plan to spend on unecessarily forcing reform in the NHS which is not wanted by a majority, widely opposed by the public and now the BMA has voted against the bill too, might be better spent on a massive top down reorganisation of HMRC to make it effective. It is ridiculous, when in government, to take the position of  shrugging shoulders and saying "the current system won't allow us to do our job adequately". If that is the case, change it! The NHS works perfectly well and is not in need of reform, HMRC it would seem is so isn't it logical to spend the money there? How can we hope to achieve any kind of economic stability without an adequately performing tax system?

Some good points were made about the tax system for families being unfair and about the proposed removal of child benefit from one individual based on another's earnings and without consideration of the size of the family who are dependent on the wage. It brings me back to the most important point that modern government seems to be conveniently forgetting - means is not necessarily related to income.

Someone on a "low" wage can have quite a high disposable income if they have no expenses and a single earner family with a lot of children or an elderly relative living with them living on what is considered one high wage, is subject to high levels of taxation and has no access to any financial support is not likely to have much in terms of disposable income.

Income is not a good measure of means, or of wealth. It isn't right that someone who is paying high-rate tax should be choosing between food or heat and going without food so their children can eat. Many people can't imagine this happening when the perceived difference between their salary and a high rate tax payer's is so great but they don't acknowledge that without tax credits you get no help with childcare. This basically means both parents cannot work - the childcare is too expensive and more than the second parent would earn. People on lower incomes benefit from various schemes which people who are just over the border into complete self reliance don't, even though their actual income may only be a few thousand pounds per year more.

People often have to travel further for employment which pays well too. With increased fuel costs and specifically costs for large families rising and support falling, children in families with one parent classed as "high income" are now at risk of poverty and deprivation. In short, the idea of imposing a policy you know is unfair and doesn't do what is intended, because the system you are in charge of administrating is inadequate, is ridiculous, and the government need to be taken to task on this.

Personally we will lose £225 per month child benefit when it goes. This is around 25% of our current disposable income - money for clothes and shoes e.t.c. (taking away mortgage, bills, food and diesel) and this is before the income tax levels change and austerity really affects inflation. George Osborne is losing £5 per week and is personally avoiding millions in inheritance taxes. Whatever you think about how much we as a family need to get by, this can't be right - that the very wealthy are able to employ loopholes to avoid tax they are liable for, and lose £5 per week, whilst families like mine lose 25% of our disposable income in one fell swoop. We will manage, and I am much more concerned about the effects of constraints on welfare, particularly illness and disability and housing benefit but on this, we all need to stand together to ask, for the burden - if it the Government insist it must be shared amongst everybody, to be shared fairly with the very wealthy paying a fair proportion of their incomes too. Not through income tax and not focused solely on the easier target of those who pay PAYE and income taxes an claim welfare.

In focusing the argument on "the middle class must pay to protect the poor" they divide and conquer and divert attention from the reality, which is that if the ones who could afford it best contributed, even a fair share, it would better protect the poor.

Recently, supporters of austerity have heralded the recent growth in manufacturing as a promising sign but surely this could not be attributable to any action this Government has taken, since the majority of the effects of austerity are not yet being felt. It is a little pre-emptive to claim this as a triumph especially since the government have not yet implemented their planned growth review framework. The growth is likely to be entirely unrelated to any policy of the Coalition Government and is not necessarily an indicator that manufacturing as an industry is benefitting from coalition policy. In fact if we look at Ireland as a view of the future (as George Osborne urged us to do in 2006) their manufacturing industry seems to be suffering under austerity.

The final myth, and it is also dealt with in the PCS leaflet, is that the "mess" is Labour's fault. This defies logic and statistics, and this kind of tribalism is always off putting. The statistics are dealt with well in the leaflet which shows clearly that Government spending before the crisis, as a percentage of GDP, was lower than when labour came to power in 1997. The logic I will deal with. Yes, the Coalition inherited the economic situation but not entirely from labour ,the economy is the sum of many decades of policy. Budget management is part of the Government's day to day job, the Coalition have not suddenly had to consider the budget as is being made out. I can clearly see links in the state of the economy and influences on it that go back many decades and through many administrations. To claim it is all Labour's fault is stupid, childish and incorrect. The economy, law, policy, general government are all the sum of all that has gone before and I think it is much better to look at what happened, what went wrong and how it can be prevented or improved upon than to sit around pathetically apportioning blame as seems to be what happens in the commons generally. Sadly.

 At the meeting with the Councillors, Tony Robertson kept mentioning this same old Government line and when I asked him about Ireland and how it's economy had gotten worse under austerity he did not answer. Having spent a lot of time trying to unpick the truth of the Goverment line I decided a while ago it was likely a subterfuge designed to get people to accept large cuts without a basis in real fact or supported by meaningful evidence or because the truth was that the Government were in full knowledge damaging the lives and wealth of ordinary people in order to protect the super-rich. You may disagree, my fundamental position is always that there is no one "truth" only many different opinions, what matters is the quality of each argument and the evidence to support it and what you believe.

I am yet to find convincing arguments for austerity and especially the particular kind of austerity being imposed, which outweigh the arguments against it. One thing is for sure, the "too big to fail" banks and multinationals will potentially benefit from poverty and hardship (free/cheap labour, reduced pension, wage and taxation costs, smaller risk of tribunal, fewer employee rights and employer responsibilities, cheap goods and services, reduced competition and new business opportunities) amongst the general population, in fact, on reflection this is likely what the Government mean when they talk about austerity stimulating "economic growth", they mean that the poor will be made poorer so that the super-rich don't have to pay their share. That is my view any way. Read the PCS leaflet, it is a good, precise and convincing argument, backed up with fact and educated opinion. Compare it to what you hear from the Government, which in my perception is often contradictory and unclear.