Socialist Party Wales Socialism In Wales
By Ross Saunders
Cardiff Tory Councillor Kathryn Kelloway has sparked outraged by calling on social media for the tents of homeless people in the city to be “torn down”.
Kelloway challenged Labour Council Leader Huw Thomas on Twitter to remove the tents for reasons of “safety”, “prosperity” and for “a better image for Cardiff”, sparing not a word for the impact on the homeless people who relied on the tents for shelter.
Her tweet immediately provoked 2000 angry replies, including from former Wales rugby players Ian Gough and Gareth Thomas. Many pointed out that it is the government led by her Party that is driving the housing crisis and compromising our safety and prosperity with its austerity drive.
Cardiff Tories have been forced by the outcry to suspend Kelloway, who is unreprentant, calling critics “virtue signallers”, claiming that adequate alternatives to rough sleeping exist and that anyone on the streets has chosen to be there.
These comments by Kelloway are unfortunately echoes of claims made by Cardiff’s Labour run council. After Lindy Pring died in a tent in the snow last year, Cabinet member for housing Lynda Thorne said that “there is no need to sleep outside at night” because Cardiff Council provides adequate support for everyone at risk of homelessness.
Like a lot of opposition-run councils, Cardiff wants to have it both ways –denying that the cuts they have obediently implemented are causing suffering in our communities while at the same time denouncing Tory austerity in the abstract. 24 new rough sleepers appear on Cardiff’s streets every month. Homelessness is up 12% on last year in Wales, according to Shelter Cymru, and up 9% in the last 3 months and all experts acknowledge that these figures under-report the actual levels of the problem.
Cardiff Council has cut a quarter of a billion pounds of services and 2500 jobs. They have evicted from council housing the victims of the bedroom tax and other benefit cuts at the same as they cut funding for services provided by homeless organisations like charity, The Wallich.
They abolished the Community Alcohol and Drug Team but most importantly, they refuse to take a stand against the government and fight for more funding, despite sitting on £100 million of reserve cash which could plug the gap while a campaign is built. Cardiff Against The Cuts has called a protest outside Cardiff Council’s budget-setting meeting on Thursday
The homelessness crisis is escalating. Both the Tories and right-wing Labour councillors want to hide the problem rather than solve it.
It’s the bad choices of our representatives that are really to blame for the housing crisis. Big business demanded we put their need to restore their profits before our need for housing and the other basic necessities, and big-business politicians like the Tories and the Blairites are only too willing to help them get that demand met.
It’s not tents we should be tearing down: it’s the Tory government and the capitalist system they represent.
- Scrap universal credit and the benefit cuts.
- No more job losses: no more cuts in public services; nationalise workplaces like Bridgend Ford that threaten closure or cuts.
- No evictions; cap rent; for a mass programme of council-house building planned and coordinated to fully meet real needs.
