Socialist Party Wales Socialism In Wales
By Gareth Bromhall
Members of the Socialist Party attended the January 9th cabinet meeting of Swansea City council last week in what has become an annual event in Swansea as the only organised force in the city that have consistently challenged to council on cuts by putting forward a legal no cuts budget solution to the imposition of Tory austerity.
A one-off, general election-related deal from the Tories has mean that the planned £18m in cuts have been softened with a sizeable pay-out from the Welsh government as well as hike in council tax meaning that the council have for the first time in years claimed to be putting money into departments in stead of cutting.
This lead to heated debate between Alec Thraves of the Socialist Party, who rightly pointed to the £70m in cuts over the past three years, leading to some departments to be cut by up to 50% and the further cuts are still on the block as a projection for the next three, and council leader Rob Stewart who had the audacity to suggest that council services had been improved by the devastating cuts that Labour authority have passed on since their election.
This back and forth was the basis of an article published on Wales Online. It was also reported that once the Socialist Party had left the cabinet in turn congratulated themselves on another year of successfully administering Tory austerity.
On the evening news on the day of this meeting it was announced that 125 beds in the local hospital are being blocked by patients unable to leave due to a lack of social workers, a department that has seen drastic cuts in the past few years. This scandal highlights the reality of the cuts, in stark contrast to what was suggested by the council leader that morning.
It’s clear that any apparent momentary pause in austerity in Swansea will only be a temporary measure, that the above inflation rise in council tax will hit the pockets of residents and that it will not even begin to reinstate the decline in services and job losses that have been a reality for the best part of a decade.
We will continue to put pressure on the Labour authority and councillors to change their tactic and take up a legal no cuts budget to to finally challenge austerity and the Tory government that implements it.
