Labour should fight the cuts

3:44pm Monday 14th January 2013 in Letters

I WENT (with my partner and four-year-old music loving daughter) to the GMSS anti-cuts protest at the Civic Centre and was puzzled as to why there were Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors present.(Unless of course they oppose the cuts made by the Con/Dem government on the Labour controlled council’s budget?)

Obviously Cllr Bob Bright and his fellow cohorts should show some backbone and front-up and actually fight these cuts and not timidly kowtow before the government’s ideologically driven rollback of public and social services. Such political cowardice put on public display is rather nauseating and reveals Newport Labourites are certainly not socialists! They should represent and listen to those who elected them and refuse to do this government’s dirty work for them. It’s pathetic and a total disgrace and reveals a lack of morality and empathy.

Terry Banfield Cardigan Crescent Cwmbran

Comments(13)

Magor says...
5:14pm Mon 14 Jan 13

Labour cant do anything about the cuts.They would have had to do the same if they were still in office.Debt has to be repaid.

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On the inside says...
5:49pm Mon 14 Jan 13

And do what precisley? You rightly state that the real issue is ConDem national cuts to most local authority grants. What can actually be done about this is very limited without an election. The public (even some in Wales) were stupid enough to vote for the Tories, the Lib-Dems were stupid enough to prop them up, and here we are. It is a fact that Tories in local Govt would cut harder and deeper so Labour administrations are able to provide some limited protection but they cannot make £1 into £2 anymore than the rest of us.

It is all very well saying just refuse to make any cuts but that would simply mean the council would be taken over by Govt to avoid bankruptcy. I suppose we could have an armed revolt but, historically, that has not tended to do well in Newport.

Last year £42b in tax went uncollected. If the Govt pulled its finger out and collected just 10% of that and shared that equally amongst all UK local authorities Newport would get £18m. Since Newport's total spend is £237m, an 7.5% increase would solve the problem and no mistake.

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Llanmartinangel says...
6:20pm Mon 14 Jan 13

On the inside wrote:
And do what precisley? You rightly state that the real issue is ConDem national cuts to most local authority grants. What can actually be done about this is very limited without an election. The public (even some in Wales) were stupid enough to vote for the Tories, the Lib-Dems were stupid enough to prop them up, and here we are. It is a fact that Tories in local Govt would cut harder and deeper so Labour administrations are able to provide some limited protection but they cannot make £1 into £2 anymore than the rest of us.

It is all very well saying just refuse to make any cuts but that would simply mean the council would be taken over by Govt to avoid bankruptcy. I suppose we could have an armed revolt but, historically, that has not tended to do well in Newport.

Last year £42b in tax went uncollected. If the Govt pulled its finger out and collected just 10% of that and shared that equally amongst all UK local authorities Newport would get £18m. Since Newport's total spend is £237m, an 7.5% increase would solve the problem and no mistake.
Wasn't there uncollected tax in Labour's tenure then? And wasn't it their squandering of all the money that left the country broke to begin with?

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scraptheWAG says...
7:52pm Mon 14 Jan 13

Terry there is absolutely no need for wales councils to make any cuts its just the huge amounts of money wasted.

scrap the welsh language over 150 million saved scrap the WAG 400 million saved and spend it where it should be spent I cannot understand why cameron gets the blame for labours waste . £350,000 yes £350,000 was spent reprinting ballot papers in welsh for police elections what a shocking waste.

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Mervyn James says...
9:33pm Mon 14 Jan 13

Here we go, here we go, here we go, it's like a permanently stuck record... Did you know supporting the welsh language is the reason we are backing France in Mali too.... DOH !!! (well, they blame everything else on it).

Yma rydym yn mynd, dyma ni, yma rydym yn mynd, mae fel cofnod yn sownd yn barhaol ... Oeddech chi'n gwybod cefnogi'r iaith Gymraeg yw'r rheswm rydym yn cefnogi'r Ffrainc yn Mali hefyd .... DOH!!! (yn dda, maent yn beio popeth arall arno).

I'm using my access.....

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scraptheWAG says...
11:20pm Mon 14 Jan 13

turning street lights of in newport shutting care homes but have 100 mill to subsidise a tv station that nobody watches. utter madness

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Llanmartinangel says...
8:12am Tue 15 Jan 13

scraptheWAG wrote:
turning street lights of in newport shutting care homes but have 100 mill to subsidise a tv station that nobody watches. utter madness
Sorry Mervyn but that's a very valid point. S4C broadcasts park football on a Saturday afternoon with commentary in Welsh. No-one watches it. Madness is the only word I can think of.

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NickWebb says...
9:43am Tue 15 Jan 13

The UK Government do NOT set the local government budget for Welsh authorities, nor have they done so since 1999.

A block grant which covers all devolved policy areas based on the Barnett formula is passed from the UK Government to the Welsh Government without ring fencing. As such it is up to the Welsh Government how much they provide for local government.

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Mervyn James says...
10:43am Tue 15 Jan 13

I fail to see how it is primarily to blame for these cuts in musical funding. It appears some will take any and every opportunity to broadcast hate rhetoric and welsh language user rights.

As regards to football, take it from me NOT having to listen to commentary in sport is a blessing. The sport is the thing, not the waffle. You don't need commentators unless you are blind.

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Vikky says...
11:09am Tue 15 Jan 13

Of course the local Tory councillors oppose these cuts!
We have a Labour run Welsh Government, people seem to forget this. It is not decided by the Conservative/Lib Dem Government since devolution.

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Llanmartinangel says...
1:34pm Tue 15 Jan 13

Mervyn James wrote:
I fail to see how it is primarily to blame for these cuts in musical funding. It appears some will take any and every opportunity to broadcast hate rhetoric and welsh language user rights.

As regards to football, take it from me NOT having to listen to commentary in sport is a blessing. The sport is the thing, not the waffle. You don't need commentators unless you are blind.
As ever, an object lesson in missing the point. A major priority for WAG is huge spending on Welsh for the benefit of a shrinking minority. Given that even socialists can't spend the same money twice (although some seem to be deluded in this regard), that means something else suffers. And then it becomes the fault of UK government somehow. How? Also, it isn't the commentary in Welsh that's the issue Mervyn, it's the fact that for some opaque dogma, some cretin has decided it be broadcast at all.

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Mervyn James says...
7:15pm Tue 15 Jan 13

'Labour should fight the cuts' erm... that is the letter title, it said nothing about welsh. There was no point to raise regrading the language issue, it is ANY excuse to raise it it seems with some responders. If you read the Argus today, you would see MORE local children are in fact learning welsh... It's not broadcast to all, as I am aware ONE channel is dedicated to it. There are reputed to be at least 500 others the non-welsh speaker can look at,and even 8 in Wales via the BBC alone, as well as ITV channels, methinks some protest over much, and I question why ?

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Llanmartinangel says...
7:35am Wed 16 Jan 13

Let me make it simple then. If you do not cut little Johnny's free music lesson then you must cut something else to pay for it (that's the bit about not being able to spend money twice). So, given that WAGs budget is a finite number (they can't borrow) and not all powers are devolved, then you have to choose where in Wales it could be cut from. Health? Hmmm, given the already declining standards here that's not smart. But given that Welsh is a sacred cow with a ring-fenced (huge) budget you don't approve of taking it from there. Where then?

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