Writing on Twitter recently, the Labour leader of Manchester City Council Sir Richard Leese, said anti-cuts campaigners ‘want us to piss in the wind’. He was replying to a post asking Labour to take a stand against ConDem cuts. For residents of Greater Manchester, already the victims of Leese’s council cuts programme, the only surprise here is that anyone has illusions in his anti-working class party.
Since 2010 Manchester Labour council has implemented £170m in public service cuts. 2,000 council jobs have disappeared. Whole departments dealing with issues as serious as dementia, children’s centres and community groups have gone as have tens of millions of pounds of grants to charities and organisations supporting a range of vulnerable people, from women suffering domestic abuse to people with drug and alcohol addictions. Labour councillors have voted unanimously for this, including councillor Julie Reed who has now opportunistically joined the Save Levenshulme Baths campaign.
Now the council wants to cut a further £80m. 830 more jobs will be lost; there will be a 3.7% council tax rise and more cuts in rubbish collections. The public will even be charged for bonfire displays. Swimming pools and leisure centres will be shut in Miles Platting, Broadway, Levenshulme and Withington in 2013, and Chorlton in 2015. Six libraries will be shut or scaled back, in Miles Platting, New Moston, Burnage, Fallowfield and Northenden. Some of these areas are among the poorest in Britain.
of all residents working part-time in Oldham, Bolton and Manchester get less than the national living wage of £7.45 an hour. New statistics published by Greater Manchester Poverty Commission show that 20% of the region’s population now live in extreme poverty – over 600,000 people. The Falinge estate in Rochdale has been named as the most deprived area in England for five years straight. 72% of its residents are unemployed and three quarters are forced to survive on benefits. Second on the list is Langworthy in Salford; Harpurhey is tenth and six others make the top 50.
In five wards half of all children live in poverty: Moss Side, Hulme, Ancoats, Clayton and Riverside. 80% of them have unemployed parents. Greater Manchester has the highest rate of home repossession nationally. In the depths of a freezing winter, the average annual energy bill in the region is £1,100 per home. This affects poor people disproportionately. The Commission calculates that the programme of cuts will plunge more than half of Greater Manchester’s population into poverty – 1.6 million people.
Yet despite the harsh realities of daily life for many working class people, the Manchester Evening News tells us that we live in a ‘Boom Town’. The council’s Chief Executive is on a salary of £230,000 a year and rising. Richard Leese (on £50,000 a year in expenses) tweeted that the cuts ‘make me feel awful’, the standard line for Labour councillors. Anyone who believes them needs a reality check.
No cuts, full stop!
Louis Brehony and Martin Hope
Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! 231 February-March 2013
