Lambeth Save Our Services and workers from the local libraries turned up to lobby a Lambeth wide meeting of the Labour Party on Saturday morning.
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| Protesters lobby Labour Party meeting in Lambeth 20/11/10 (credit Keith Spencer) |
The meeting was called to hear head of the council Steve Reed tell Labour Party members that they had to carry out cuts. Lambeth SOS handed out an open letter to those attending the meeting calling for them to resist all the cuts and fight the government.
Here is a pic from the lobby and below the Lambeth SOS statement put to the meeting.
Dear Labour Party Member,
In the invite to this meeting Steve Reed described the devastation to our borough which will occur if cuts go ahead.
“The Government have announced their spending plans for the next four years. The news for our communities in Lambeth is devastating. We stand to lose almost a third of the council budget that pays for key public services like caring for the old, sick, vulnerable and disabled people, street cleaning, libraries, parks, school support, play, youth services, child safeguarding, HIV services, homelessness, skills training and careers advice to name just a few. Other cuts hammer the poor and the vulnerable, including a cap on housing benefit that could drive the poor out of inner London, rent rises of over 300% for new tenants, the end of secure tenancies, and a cut of 64% in funding to improve sub-standard council homes. Schools also take a big hit with our rebuilding and refurbishment programme slashed by 60% despite a growing shortage of school places across London . “
There have not been cuts on anything like this scale since before the Second World War. We know that the ConDem government made a choice to impose these cuts on our communities. This is an ideological attack, an attempt to dismantle our welfare state. In a crisis causes by profit greed and unregulated banking, the poor are being made to pay.
The numbers speak for themselves:
• Benefit cuts over the next 4 years: £18 billion
• Cuts in education and local services: £16 billion
• Bank profits for this year alone: £28 billion
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But just as the ConDem government have a choice so does this Labour Council. Our council, elected by the people of Lambeth to protect them from a Tory government, should use their position and their platforms to build an anti-cuts movement.
You have been invited today to discuss the council’s budget. Tell your councillors:
• Don’t make social cuts now!
• Councils are large organisations with complex finances which give them leeway.
• Bring the ALMO back in house! Saving money on a separate board and creating duplicating teams.
• Cut top management pay
• Cut councillors' expenses
• Sack the consultants
• Use reserves, juggle accounts to move spending items from one financial year to the next, borrow (although there are legal limits on councils borrowing, there may still be loopholes)
• Pass a No Cuts budget and mobilise the unions, community organisations and residents to fight for more money from the government
Build the anti cuts movement!
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> Mobilise council workers, council tenants, trade unions and local communities to fight the cuts. Cutting management pay and financial juggling aren’t an answer to the central government cuts but they can buy us time to build a movement to fight back.
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> United action against the cuts!
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> Aim to build united local action against the cuts in Lambeth - councillors refusing to budget within central government limits, council workers striking, council tenants rent-striking, residents withholding council tax, demonstrations - with the demand that central government restores the money for local services.
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> Support Lambeth Living Unison workers' strike ballot and reverse the cuts.
> If all Labour councils took this stand, then the ConDem government would have to retreat very quickly. If even a sizeable few did, then the government would be in big trouble. This government has no democratic mandate for what they plan to do.
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> Labour councillors should join Save Our Services the local anti- cuts campaign. Don’t tell the people of Lambeth there is no alternative, join us to discuss what we can do to stop the cuts.
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Join us at our next meeting:
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Vida Walsh Centre, 2nd December 6.30
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