David Cameron has been spending his time standing on stages around Europe appearing Prime Ministerial. But what has this achieved for UK plc?
It’s all very well to pontificate on the Eurozone crisis. It conveniently distracts you from troubles back home and comes at a time when the Coalition Government has all but admitted their plan for cuts has failed.
Speaking of which, back home they continue to resist calls to cap banker’s bonuses and have moved the political agenda on to a long-awaited focus on the benefit cap aka welfare culture (the 1980s) or the undeserving poor (the Victorians). The poorest are always good to take a hit when times are tough. They are the ones to blame for the crisis now aren’t they?
And at the same time unemployment continues to rise and the economy continues to slow down even further than it did last year.
We now know we will have less money to spend on pubic services in the next few years. It’s how we choose to spend it – injecting money into the economy to stimulate growth and jobs, or sit on our hands being gleeful about Greece and Italy. This is the new dividing line in British politics.
Here in Swale the announcement that Thamesteel was going into receivership and with it 400 jobs was greeted with little more than a whimper by the local Tory MP, Gordon Henderson. Appearing in front of television cameras during the week, he appeared to suggest that he knew every single worker personally. Sadly, his bum stayed firmly fixed to the Green Benches during Prime Minister’s Questions the next day. There’s no question that had he caught the Speaker’s eye he would have been called.
Then there are the proposals being put forward by Swale’s Tory-led Council. Cuts to community safety – just at a time when crime is likely to increase – are combined with cuts to private sector housing support. This is the ‘jewel in the crown’ and one of the few services that benefits real people stuck in substandard housing at the whim of market forces. And there are going to be more of them in the next year or two.
We would reverse these cuts and install a fully functional private sector housing support service.
We would also give a one-off pay increase to the lowest paid workers earning less than the average wage in Swale. This is in contrast to the incremental pay increases made across the board at Swale Council.
And we would make community safety our number one priority.
