Source > Brighton and Hove News
By : Tristram Burden
16 May 2022 12:30 BST
From buffets for mayors at food banks to cutting 90,000 civil service jobs to save on revenue, the Tories are out of touch and out of ideas on how to solve the cost-of-living crisis. And voters agree.
Rottingdean Coastal, long a safe Tory seat, recently returned its first ever Labour councillor.
And last week Peacehaven West elected a Labour councillor to Lewes District Council, despite Lewes MP Maria Caulfield pleading door to door, with gangs of Conservative activists, to vote Tory, in a traditionally safe Tory seat.
Voters know which party will cut their bills, improve their wellbeing and deliver the country from a spiral of low wages, high debt, cold winters and empty fridges.
Since the coalition government introduced austerity in 2010, local councils have been starved of the funds they need to keep public services running smoothly.
State spending on children, on police and housing fell dramatically over the past decade. And we only have the Tories to blame.
With libraries closing and youth clubs shutting in record numbers, the England I returned to in 2019 was not the one I’d left in 2009. And then the pandemic hit.
Improving our quality of life is not rocket science. We need higher wages, more affordable housing and a government willing to put money where it counts.
Not just into pockets of its already wealthy donors and the companies and corporations they run. Not into contracts and procurement for companies who pay little to no domestic tax, spend nothing on investment and everything on share buy-backs and shareholder payouts.
Labour has always been the party that understands what people need to make the good life. Voters recognised that in 1945, 1950, 1964, 1966, 1974, 1997, 2001 and 2005. They’re recognising it again.
The Tory government returned in 2017 had to spend £1.5 billion to secure the support of Northern Ireland’s DUP, even while declaring there isn’t a magic money tree.
The people are calling their bluff. We can’t afford any more Conservative incompetence. And the public knows it.
Tristram Burden is the secretary of the Queen’s Park branch of the Labour Party.
Bank of England Boris Johnson Charity Sector Children Comment Piece Conservative Government Cost of Living Crime Economics Energy Food Food Banks food prices Fuel Health Housing Hunger Industrial Action inequality Inflation Labour Party Living Wage London Martin Lewis Mental Health Michael Gove Minimum Wage Opinion Piece Pensions Poverty protest protests Rent Rishi Sunak RMT sunak Supermarkets Trade Unionism TUC Universal Credit Video Wages Wales Work Young People
