Fight our corner by being critical (From Kidderminster Shuttle)

Fight our corner by being critical

12:20pm Friday 21st January 2011 in Letters

IN his letter our MP, Mark Garnier, trots out his party’s line that the ConDem cuts are driven by necessity not ideology.

He puts the blame for the global banking meltdown on the previous government’s poor financial regulation. He conveniently forgets that, when this legislation was introduced, his party voted against it.

Mr Garnier is right about one thing, there have to be cuts over time to balance the budget. They do not have to be made as quickly or as deeply as the ConDems tell us.

Don’t take my word for it. David Blanchflower, a respected commentator and economics professor at Dartmouth College, New Hampshire and University of Stirling, says: “They [deep and immediate cuts] are not essential and there is a significant chance that this is the wrong path.”

But it is the sheer audacity of Mr Garnier’s main contention that the cuts are not ideological that beggar’s belief. If this is the case why is it more important to cut benefits than tax avoidance loopholes?

Why cut the Building for Schools programme and not the charitable status of public schools? Why cut Education Maintenance Allowance rather than impose a tax on bankers’ bonuses? And why introduce an increase in VAT when every extra penny taken by the government means so much more to someone on a middle or low income than it does millionaires?

Tory ideology means ‘small government’ and fewer frontline services and those of us on middle and lower incomes suffer most.

If Mr Garnier was really ‘fighting our corner’ he wouldn’t be writing letters full of mealy-mouthed platitudes; he would be openly criticising this government.

ROBERT IRELAND Secretary, Bewdley Branch Labour Party Northwood Lane Bewdley