Tag Archives: no-cuts budget

By Mariam Kamish, Secretary Caerphilly Trades Council  In scenes of pandemonium, the chair of Caerphilly Council’s Joint Scrutiny Committee shouted me down, demanded I leave the podium, and threatened to have me thrown out of the council’s 2026 budget meeting. I had called on councillors to break ranks and table a motion to overturn last year’s decision to close ten ...

By Dave Bartlett (Secretary, Cardiff Trades Union Council) Around 250 assembled in Merthyr on 25 October for the first ‘all-Wales gathering’ of Your Party. The meeting was led by Beth Winter (former Labour MP) and Mark Serwotka (former general secretary of PCS) who have been given the leadership of Your Party Wales. This was a Your Party Wales event but ...

By Dave Reid Needed—a real political alternative for the working class The Wales Gathering of Your Party on October 25th in Merthyr is a welcome, if limited, start to building a new workers’ and socialist party. The 31,000 people in Wales who indicated in July they wanted to join shows the huge potential for a mass party to challenge the ...

Dave Walsh, Liverpool Socialist Party member, is chair of Liverpool and District Trades Union Council. As a teenager in the 1980s, he was one of hundreds of young people employed as an apprentice by Liverpool’s Militant-led Labour council which defied the cuts and beat back Thatcher’s Tories. For many years, the Socialist Party has put the demand for a new ...

By Mariam Kamish, Secretary Caerphilly Trades Council (in a personal capacity) Caerphilly Council’s cabinet is proposing to close two South Wales Valleys cultural icons and end an essential service to the community. Not out of financial necessity – but on the advice of a consultancy firm. The plans – out for public consultation until 10 September – include the closure ...

What is the point of a Welsh Labour government if it merely passes on UK Tory cuts? By Dave Reid Happy New Year! – the Welsh government has put forward a devastating budget for public services in Wales for 2024. The figures are terrifying: £1.3 billion of cuts in real terms since 2021, even though Welsh Government ministers have said ...

By a local government member of Unison Cymru Councils facing a cliff edge It was two years ago that Northamptonshire Tory Council invoked a Section 114 notice- under this measure they were indicating they could only afford to spend money on  essential services – in other words they had run out of money and were in effect declaring themselves bankrupt. ...

By Mark Evans, Secretary Carmarthenshire County Unison (in a personal capacity) A report from the Welsh Local Government Association (WLGA) Finance Subgroup paints a bleak picture for the future of local government and the important services it provides in Wales (COVID-19 INCOME AND EXPENDITURE SURVEY FOR QUARTER TWO AND FUTURE BUDGET PRESSURES). The report includes a survey by the WLGA ...

Swansea residents will be dipping into their pockets once more because of the failure of the council to fight for the resources need to run the city off the Tories in Westminster and the Welsh-led Labour Government in Cardiff.

Carmarthenshire Council Unison branch has again called on councillors in the Plaid-led council to set a legal no-cuts budget for 2020-21 and slammed the “sham consultation” which has given Carmarthenshire people the choice of cuts or more cuts. The union points out that the devastating effects of the cuts in the county – “The impact of the council … implementing ...