Mike Kirby: Enough is enough: Seventy years of social
progress will be lost in a decade of destruction
As the ink dries
on the signatures of Diamond Dave and Alex I
on the Edinburgh Agreement
We gather to say to politicians
of all colours and persuasions
You’ve less than 100 weeks to sort it
To sort out your way of getting us out of the mire
which you’ve created
To sort out the sort of Scotland we want
Because the debate on the future of Scotland
will have a bearing on the life of everyone in Scotland
indeed the UK
The politics of national identity, Scottish or British,
are not our concern.
We are guided by the interests of our people,
by the sort of Scotland we want to,
and deserve to, live in.
This means
that for us
the constitutional arrangements are the end,
not the starting point, of the debate.
It’s not enough for those seeking our support
to propose that this or that power
should be exercised in Holyrood
or remain in Westminster.
They need to tell us
how they believe that power should be used,
and in whose interests.
And it’s a debate about Social Justice for All.
Ordinary
people are being asked to pay too high a price,
Key public services are under attack
and politicians need to be told
that “enough is enough”.
Trade union members, their families and friends,
know that the drastic spending cuts and attacks on
benefits
are hurting them
and are hurting the most vulnerable people in society.
The damage is also being passed down
whether from Westminster, Holyrood or individual public
authorities.
in the Scottish Government’s budget decisions,
affecting every service our members provide
their pay, jobs and pensions.
Unless policies change
the economy will not grow,
incomes will not rise,
and there will be almost no new jobs.
If the government keeps on with big spending cuts
and austerity
we face a lost decade.
Even on their own terms government policies are failing.
Government borrowing has had to increase
to £11.8billion more than the previous
and the deficit continued to 2017.
Even the economists who endorsed Osborne in 2010
are abandoning him.
In 2009, we were told that the Tories would protect
public services
“
We’re all in this together. Our determination
as compassionate Tories
is to protect the most vulnerable.”
The poor are all in it together
and the rich are holidaying in the south of France.
And if the government keeps on with big spending cuts
and austerity
we face a lost decade
and UK workers face a wage dive.
The three-year pay freeze has been unique in the public
sector,
and the cumulative effect of this
coupled with high inflation has meant that,
since 2009, pay for the public service workforce
has fallen by a massive 13% across the board.
In the meantime the cost of living has soared,
with the cost of basics such as food and energy
putting ever-increasing pressure on household budgets
that are already stretched to the limit.
Workers will have to wait another ten years
to get back to the level of income they enjoyed in
2009,
during which time they'll have lost an average of £8,500
in real terms
Workers are just a quarter of the way through the
UK's 12-year wage dive.
And the cuts we’ve faced so far,
are just a quarter of the way through,
30,00 jobs over the last few years of austerity measures.
Public spending will not get back to 2011 levels
for another 15 years, 2026.
At the recent Tory conference
George “Slasher” Osborne’s speech
was delivered with the same half-sneering curl of the
lips.
You’d think he’d realise
that most successful politicians
are those who manage to conceal the fact
that they’re being political.
But for him and his like
it is political, it’s ideological.
It’s nothing to do with economics.
It’s about seeking to destroy
the welfare state, the welfare systems,
which the social consensus of generations, over decades
has taken to build.
The contract between the state and the citizen.
The state that provides us with free health care,
personal care,
free education for children, collects the rubbish,
provides parks and libraries,
ensures that the goods I buy are safe,
maintains the roads, helps look after disabled and
elderly
gives our elderly free travel.
And I have heard Nick Clegg
announce decisively,
no ifs or buts,
that he is in favour of taking away Alan Sugar’s
free London bus pass.
So that the next time Sugar leaves
his Rolls Royce to get on a bus,
he’ll jolly well have to pay.
Nick Clegg said so. And to politicians at home,
when you talk of the politics of priorities,
and you seek to review the provisions and services,
remember to look at the other side of the equation,
the tax avoidance of the rich, the tax evasion of the
multinationals.
The state that provides for us,
maintains the social cohesion central to any civilised
society.
The state that provides when the private sector fails,
just as at the Olympics, G4S.
And in his conference speech
Diamond Dave Cameron praised
the Olympics, the royal family and the armed forces.
What a testimony to public spending.
And at the conference
in praise of the Disabled Olympics
he proudly tells us
that when looking at a disabled person
fewer people now notice the wheelchair.
That certainly seems to be the case with Atos staff
assessing their work capability.
Atos Healthcare private sector,
the company contracted by Department of Work and Pensions,
to carry out medical assessments of people claiming
benefits
which has appointed public services NHS Lanarkshire
a £22m contract,
to carry out assessments.
Public money,
for the state to contract work to a private company,
to outsource work back to the state. Good value for
money.
We know that those delivering public services
who are employed by community and voluntary sector
organisations
or private companies
remain committed to the public service ethos.
However, we also know
that commercial considerations make this more difficult.
Official data show
that profit-making care homes and domiciliary care
services
are less likely to meet minimum regulatory standards
on service quality.
Outsourcing contracts
and then imposing severe spending cuts on them.
Cuts are then passed on
through in the form of savage attacks on staff delivering
services,
with the service user at the end of the chain.
We see private equity companies
are speculating on care homes for the elderly,
Allianz Capital made 90% profit buying and selling
the Four Seasons chain of homes,
and Blackstone got a 400% return for Southern Cross.
Profit out of need and insecurity.
The cuts we are facing across the UK
are not about money but about politics.
A politics that hates public services
and loves to profit from privatisation.
A politics that sees a workforce engaged in caring
and educating
not as an achievement to be celebrated
but as a problem to be tackled.
But we shout loudly
Why should the jobs and services go
if the need still exists?”
Seventy years of social progress
will be lost
in a decade of destruction
But there is a Better Future that Works.
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October Glasgow- For A Future That Works
