The alternative to the austerity consensus of the Westminster parties

There's a brilliant piece in the Guardian featuring Paul Krugman, attacking the Tories and Labour on their post election austerity budgets. How the distance in economics is so close between the two "major" parties. To quote from the article :

"Cameron is campaigning largely on a spurious claim to have ‘rescued’ the British economy – and promising, if he stays in power, to continue making substantial cuts in the years ahead.

“Labour, sad to say, are echoing that position. So both major parties are in effect promising a new round of austerity that might well hold back a recovery..."

It's a sad thing in a democracy that major issues like this aren't dominant in political debate. How we spend money, what the state chooses to spend and how it spends it. It is not this issue alone this is being ignored look at privatisation, Trident, foreign policy, the royal family, the House of Lords, Europe, tax dodging. When was the last time a politician brought up these subjects to debate, to offer choice to explain advantages and disadvantages? The answer sadly is democracy is too rare in this regard.

As for austerity itself, we must bear in mind like Trident and so much else. Labour, Tory and Lib Dems agree on the matter and share values in common. They may well want a cheaper system or a bigger  system, but they agree on the desire for a system.

The truth is post the election we will get more cuts if one of the three big parties Tory, Lab & LD,  takes power alone or in coalition with another.

On the ground the scale of the austerity drive will be fearsome.

The omens are not looking good, councils are cash strapped being at the sharp end of the Coalition’s austerity drive, but there not out of the woods yet, whether a Tory government alone or with Clegg's Liberals again or UKIP, or a Labour government propped up by someone else and/ or the Lib Dems. Whichever will bring more cuts.

I checked the Party manifestos of Labour, Lib Dem and Tory. None mentioned local government finance and what money's go out of the general taxation pot and out to communities... none also mentioned the referendum cap which is effectively, a public service cuts guarantee.

Things have been bad in Cornwall the public face off it is libraries on reduced hours and public toilets closing. Behind the scenes it's not enough money for social and care workers. Less and less road safety inspections. Less school repairs and maintenance than ever before. If we continue on this austerity trajectory all this problems will become much worse.

This election is more open than any before it. People have their ears open, a record number have political support and alliegence to parties outside of Labour, Tory and Lib Dems. You have to wonder if there was more choice in the established parties, if the crucial things the things that matter were actually discussed by those parties in a public manner? That policy might heaven forbid, flow from public to public servant. Rather than dictated in a speech!

The big 3 don't want to make this election about austerity they have fixed in their minds that more public services will be cut and yet more privatised. If you think this is wrong then you need to use your vote wisely against this continued austerity agenda.

Cornwall Council in the eye of the storm of austerity

A story is doing the rounds in the press, that a Cornwall Council officer expressed the opinion that services did not need to be gold plated and that the bare minimum would do. This is the latest in the government's austerity drive, four years in and the pressure continues to fall on the smallest authorities.

Back in May the Local Government Association was warning of the consequences of all of this pressure on local councils:

Research carried out by the Local Government Association (LGA) suggests that the impact of spending reductions will start to become increasingly visible over the next two years, as councils tackle a further £10 billion cut in Government funding.

In many areas where the well of efficiency savings has run dry, councils are on the verge of a tipping point where they will not have enough money to meet all their statutory responsibilities.

Government funding given to councils to run local services will have been cut by 40 per cent by May 2015. LGA modelling, which factors in reduced funding and rising demand for adult social care, shows that money available to provide popular services like running gyms, parks, libraries and youth centres is likely to shrink by 66 per cent by the end of the decade.

Councils reaching ‘end of road' 

The key point here is statutory services, with the twin pressures of huge government cuts and a council tax freeze in the last few years by Cornwall Council, non statutory services have been hit hard. Whereas before the Conservative/ Liberal Democrat government came to power, Cornwall Council no longer provides or has greatly reduced things like public toilets, town center cctv, weed spraying, litter cleaning, public transport, upkeep of parks and a whole host of other day to day things, as well of course as thousand of jobs gone. This is because none of these things are statutory duties i.e. there is no legal obligation for the local authority to provide them. But now we are in a situation where the funds will mean that Cornwall Councillors will be faced with the choices of how to interpret statue. Expect nuanced arguments that as the quoted officer has argued that the bare minimum is within the law and services especially worryingly of health and social care will be run down.

This process will intensify and intensify and as I blogged recently all of the Westminster parties are committed to austerity. Not one of the Labour, Tory or Lib Dem leaders has ever defended local government, has ever defended the frontline of public services, or ever stated that they would like to see local government funding cuts halted or even lessened. We are in the eye of the storm, next May it is inevitable that one of the austerity parties or a combination of them, will take power and again austerity and cutting of public services will dominate. The politics of the sloping shoulders will continue and cuts won't fall hardest on Whitehall and government departments but on already hard pressed local councils....

As a postscript if you think statues will protect frontline public services and will force either local authorities or government to properly fund services to a minimum standard, you may be right but do bear in mind the Department for Communities and Local Government is doing a wholesale review on the 1294+ statutory duties... 

Why is austerity and cuts to public services the consensus?

There's been stories going around for a while that Labour is to join, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives in the austerity agenda. Despite the obvious negative effects it has on public services, all of the established parties have signed up to it. In some senses they all had in 2010, but there still remained some economic differences between the big three. So the question I ask myself is why the anti cuts movement and the obvious public dislike of cuts to public services and public spending not materialised in either of the Westminster parties?

The effects of austerity are profound and it is obvious the most needy are the worst effected. Some of the prime examples in Cornwall include the shutting down of vital respite centers in Redruth and Truro, the closure of cottage hospitals like Poltair in Penzance (and perhaps soon St Michael's in Hayle too). The ending of council tax support in Cornwall meaning council tax benefit is greatly reduced, compounding the government's bedroom tax policies. But it's not only the most vulnerable individuals but also the most hard pressed of institutions, schools have a massive backlog of infrastructure and maintenance and the most obvious example is the much needed works at Helston school. Roads that at the start of this government were in need of repair are now in a worse state, although a lot of this has been due to the bad weather (which it would probably be unfair to blame on the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats.) There is also a myriad of other things that have greatly effected individuals, redundancies, pay freezes, government raids of people's pensions. Cuts to public transport effected the people that live and work in the rural areas the hardest. I don't imagine everything would have been perfect if a government had taken power in 2010 and pledged to stimulate the economy with spending and safeguarded front-line spending. But it is clear things would be different, how would our roads look with the budgets necessary to keep up them of a good standard? What would our town centers be like with public toilets? and the list carries on....

My criticism of austerity has been the same as it has always been, not only the destruction of public services but also the raised prominence of figures in columns, above everything else. Take this passage taken from the Telegraph from Labour's Ed Balls for example:

The shadow cabinet have been told to design policies within the overall spending limits that the Coalition will announce later this month. He said Labour must prepare to operate within “very tough spending plans from this year's spending review”, adding: “They will be our starting point.”

“We will plan, we will expect in 2015-16 that we will inherit the current spending plans that the Chancellor sets out and we will work within them,” Mr Balls said.

“For us to come along now and say we will plan to spend more in 2015-16 would be completely irresponsible.”

It is all about fiscal discipline, there is little consideration for how this will effect public services and what kind of society this ideology will bring. To my mind it focusses on the details so much that the bigger picture is completely lost. I don't mean to overly criticise Labour in this blog they are only doing what the Tories and the Lib Dems have been doing in government for the last 4 years. But I'm sure the coalition would happily endorse the shadow chancellor's sentiments and the only furrowed brows in Westminster will be how to present exactly the same economic policies without giving the game away. I can well imagine meetings between the parties and long acrimonious arguments over who will take the mantle of the Popular Front of Judea and who the Judean People's Front.

This comes as no great surprise to many, the big three (+the small one UKIP), believe in the neoliberalism dogma. Debates over the fundamentals of economics, socialism, capitalism, Keynesian, industrialisation and even privatisation versus nationalisation are not ones heard in Westminster, they are largely now the concern of economic historians and activists outside of the mainstream of UK politics. No doubt there are nuanced arguments within neo-liberalism between Labour, Conservative and the Lib Dems, like how much deregulation is enough? How much should private business dictate working conditions? Should it be Serco or G4S that take over this or that public service? But much like Labour's rather weak opposition of 'the cuts are too far too fast' it's a minor criticism. It approaches the subject from the same angle, the general thrust is agreed and the debate is on minor tweaks. This neo-liberal consensus continues with similar policies on austerity.

This is now a situation we find ourselves in and it is a situation that will continue for the foreseeable future. Local government has been at the forefront of cuts as it is at the forefront of delivering services and this has had a real effect. But it will continue to do so, no one from the major parties has ever campaigned for the cuts to councils to be abated. Sure individual decisions have been questioned, but there's been no uproar at Westminster for cuts to local government to be stopped or for money to be found for specific services.

I don't quite know what to do about this situation and what activists and others can do. Whether they be on the left, in an anti cuts movement or just people that want decent 21st century public services. There's some interesting thoughts from Mike Sagar-Fenton on the subject in a column titled: Close Cornwall down and defeat government greed. A must read which advocates local Councillors telling government politely to stop. Which in a roundabout way echoes Mebyon Kernow's earlier call for Coalition Councillors to resign over cuts. Send a message to the governing parties that they will not be members of parties that are destroying the fundamental services of Cornwall Council. But the fundamental problem in both cases, in my opinion, is that these councillors are signed up to their respective party's policies. That they either don't want to criticise their parties or they are fearful to do so. As we saw with the case of Deborah Hopkin's summary dismissal from the Labour party that critique of the economic order will not be tolerated, I know her's is a special case as the tweets were intemperate and in some cases offensive, but not really wrong in matter of fact and principle. But still it goes to show that local representatives are there to tow the party line and stay 'on message' and for the moment that line is tied firmly to austerity.  

Coastguard Emergency Towing Vessels no risk assessment so far!

Many of my regular readers (if there are any) will see that I have great concern about cuts to the Coastguard service both here in Cornwall and generally. (my earlier post on the subject) It is also of great concern that the government plans to scrap the Emergency Towing Vessels around the UK coast, the Cornish based vessel being the Anglian Princess, pictured above. Which I blogged about at the end of last year, (the post explains more about the vessel and it's role). The Celitc League has been campaining on this issue and it emerges from a letter sent to them from the MCA that there has as yet no risk assesment of the impact of the loss of these vital tugs. Read the Celtic League's press release here: ETV RISK ASSESSMENT.

It just seems that like the cuts to the Coastguard stations the government has decided to cuts services and then is tailoring assessments and consultations to fit these forgone conclusions. It can't be stressed enough that in emergency services like the Coastguard, the needs and demands of the lifesaving service should be paramount not an afterthought. As the Cornish Lib Dem blogger Alex Folkes, rightly pointed out, cuts to emergency tugs could lead to another Penlee disaster his blog here, those familiar with those tragic events will know that the stricken MV Union Star refused a commerical tug to rescue her for fear of the high cost and thus leading to the infamous tragedy. The government needs to reassess how they approach these cuts and needs to realise that cuts to the Coastguard and the ETV's should be given more significance than numbers in columns.