Vote TUSC this Thursday against all cuts!

This Thursday you can vote for an anti cuts candidate across the country. A vote for TUSC is not a wasted vote. Every vote we get is a vote against cuts from all parties.

Total number of TUSC council candidates: 132
Councils in which TUSC candidates are contesting a seat: 38
In addition there is the TUSC list of 17 candidates for the Greater London Assembly, and the TUSC candidate for the mayor of Liverpool, Tony Mulhearn.
This compares well with last year’s elections. Then there were a total of 174 candidates, standing in 50 councils, who contested the local elections under the TUSC umbrella. However, in 2011 there were elections in 279 councils (all in England) with 9,396 seats to be filled. So last year TUSC fielded a candidate in 18% of the councils where there were elections and contested 2% of the seats.
This year there are elections in just 128 councils in England, with 2,407 seats to be filled. In England TUSC are standing 118 candidates (5% of the seats) in 34 of the local authorities where there are elections (27%). In Wales there are 14 TUSC candidates (out of the 1,224 seats vacant) in four of the 22 Welsh councils with elections.
In Scotland, all 32 councils are up for election, with 1,222 seats (proportionally elected in multi-member wards). There are 38 candidates standing in nine Scottish councils as the Scottish Anti-Cuts Coalition – a name registered by TUSC and made available to candidates in Scotland, in accordance with the TUSC mandate to enable trade unionists and anti-cuts campaigners to contest elections without having to appear on the ballot paper as ‘Independent’ or with no ‘party description’.
Aswell as this we have a sitting Cllr Dave Nellist who in coventry is standing under the banenr socialist alternative who needs your votes too he has a fantastic record of standing up for ordinary people and deserves your votes.

You may still think labour stand for you and won’t be as harsh like the Tories but reality has shown this is just not the case any longer.

The old phrase we got to vote labour to keep the Tories out is not washing so much now. It has been shown when labour have got control of councils they have voted for cuts just like the Tories. There is very little difference any longer

So why not vote TUSC then if labour Tories and lib dems all would be voting for cuts.

TUSC candidates would not vote for cuts under any circumstances we’d reject rises in council taxes and reject outsourcing and privatisation.

TUSC cllr’s would represent ordinary people and not put their own interests ahead of the working class they would demonstrate this by only taking the average wage of a skilled worker in their area they would not financially benefit from the position like other parties elected representatives do.

As I have blogged about previously there is no need for any cuts and the cuts are simply to make the working class pay for a crisis not of the making.
I’d urge everyone who can vote TUSC to do so but not only vote TUSC join the socialist party and join the fight back against austerity the fight for a change of society which we are starting to build.

Do not take labours word when they say they care for you and your vote matters to them it doesn’t all that matters to them is to get elected to continue pocketing a nice salary. For them it’s a career move for TUSC candidates it’s about defending ordinary people from the attacks of the Tories under capitalism.

The deeper this crisis gets under capitalism as it will do the more people will look for an alternative. TUSC will be there offering that and we will be standing more broadly year on year.

This year the RMT union backed by Bob crow is officially backing TUSC in the local elections and the mayoral election in Liverpool where our comrade Tony Mulhearn is standing and has a good chance we feel.

I think last year people wanted to give the lib dems a kicking and did that I think now we may find a difference with the cuts really starting to take affect people may be willing to take that step now to move away from labour and vote for something different. It is a hard inertia to break those traditional labour voters to see that their vote isn’t helping and is voting for cuts to changing to vote for us is a tough job but during this election I have spoken to many who are considering switching. Whether they ultimately will or not when they get into the ballot box will be the test from last year. Last year we got a fantastic response on the doorsteps and our vote was poor but this year we have had a similar response but we can’t tell if people will come out and vote for us.
It is difficult to tell what that objective shift in consciousness will be what will get those who may never have voted and don’t normally vote would come out in support of a socialist alternative. Our ideas are having an echo but whether it’ll translate into votes it is hard to tell at this stage. But it is important we do stand though and don’t just give labour the credibility of appearing anti cuts as they are not and we are doing well to point this out. Still more needs to be done to convince people of labours record and how they will vote for cuts and ultimately no different from Tories in terms of policy. Whether it’s a Tory or a labour cllr making your cuts matters little to people on the sharp end of cuts. But people will want to see an alternative increasingly so. A change is coming please be part of it on Thursday and vote TUSC where you can.

Supporting Tony Mulhearn for Mayor in Liverpool a genuine working class fighter

This may as well as regional local elections and London assembly elections Liverpool and other cities will be electing their first ever mayors of their cities. Whilst as socialists we are not in favour of a mayor system in a Bonapartist regime.

But as Liverpool never held a referendum on whether to have one or not and over ruled the people of Liverpool as the Trade Unionists and Socialist Coalition we felt it would be right to stand and not give Joe Anderson the current leader of Labour run Liverpool city council, a free rerun on the position. To not challenge him on the cuts affecting the city of Liverpool would have been a tragedy.
Whilst Geoerge Galloway has been getting alot of attention recently due to his election win another class fighter with a proud record is looking to create a similar ripple in Liverpool this may.

Tony Mulhearn has entered the race to be Liverpool's first elected mayor. The veteran socialist and trade unionist, former District Labor Party president and one of the leaders of the socialist council in 1983-87, has announced he is seeking nomination to stand.
Tony said:
I intend to provide the real anti-cuts alternative to council leader Joe Anderson's vision of savage cuts today and pie-in-the-sky promises for the distant future.
Tony is standing on a clear anti-cuts platform, as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC).
TUSC is backed by union leaders such as Bob Crow, general secretary of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union and Chris Baugh, assistant general secretary of the PCS. It is also backed by the Socialist Party of which Tony is a member.
Tony explained:
There is no need for these cuts. There is a £120 billion tax gap of evaded, avoided and uncollected tax.
The UK holds £850 billion in banking assets. There is some £170 billion lying in the banks uninvited.
The bankers continue to gorge themselves with obscene bonuses. Then there is the latest smash-and-grab raid orchestrated by George Osborne against our pensioners to fund tax cuts for his millionaire friends.
The money is there and none of these cuts need to be made. Liverpool's public services face obliteration unless and until we stand up to this government and demand they return the £120 million they have stolen from our city's funding so far.
The elected mayor will hold greater powers than currently held by the council leader.
Tony added:
If elected I would use all the powers at my disposal to fight for everyone suffering under this relentless assault masterminded by the Con-Dem government and unfortunately carried out by my Labour and Lib Dem opponents and their associates in the council chamber.
• I will seek to take back in-house the vital council services that have been handed out to the privateers.
• I will propose the immediate lifting of threats to services for our children and young people and some of the most vulnerable people in our city, contained in the latest council budget.
• I will propose the reversal of all the cuts made.
• I will seek to use any new funds coming into the city to support our young people at college who are suffering the loss of their Education Maintenance Allowance, and to create real jobs.
• I will demand that Liverpool's councilors abandon their policy of implementing the cuts demanded by the Con-Dem millionaires' government which represents the bankers, hedge fund managers and others who leach on society.
• I will call for a broad city-wide campaign to defend our libraries, our hospitals, nurses etc. The NHS is now at grave risk from a government determined to open it up to private health companies whose first priority will be to maximize profits for shareholders.
Tony is not standing alone. Candidates from TUSC are seeking nomination for council.
Tony said:
I am proud to urge support for trade unionists, young people and socialists who intend standing for the council as part of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition.
All the parties in the council chamber have shamefully voted to carry out eye-watering cuts decided in Whitehall and Westminster by the bankers' best friends.
I and my colleagues in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition say the bankers brought on this crisis, let them pay for it!

Just like in the 80’s Tony has declared like all other TUSC candidates if elected he will only take the wage of a average skilled worker. Not profiting from a elected position he will look to be a voice of workers on the inside giving ordinary people a voice and exposing the corrupt system of capitalism .

Finally, Tony issued a challenge to his former Labour colleague Joe Anderson and the other candidates:
Let us debate the issues in front of the public, in April, in a city centre venue open to all and free of charge.
To all those who can get involved in Toni’s election campaign, you are invited to a campaign meeting to be held in the Liverpool pub (upstairs), James Street, Liverpool on Wednesday, 4 April 2012 at 7.15pm
Tony Mulhearn can be contacted for comment on 07939 098 455, or via his campaign team Alec 07411 362 448 and Dave 07969 511 796
TUSC website: www.tusc.org.uk

The Liverpool 47, forgotten by many but not by militants

Whilst many last week would have been glag to see Ed Miliband attacking Militant in the 80's over their role in the city of Liverpool struggles and thought he was right to do so i do not agree. I think the moveemnt that was around at the time which provoked some of the most vicious slanders on militant members at the time has to be remembered. Many of the great labour movement moments in history are rmembered and used to inspire new workers today but the lies and the smears the right wing in the labour movement and the official labour party of today and since the 80's has meant many workers fear looking into the struggles of the Liverpool city council back then.

The mantra 'not going illegal' seems to be the catch-all excuse for implementing the most savage cuts in Liverpool's history. [the Liverpool 47 group and the Socialist Party - Eds.] have argued for a needs budget not an illegal budget. This means using every legal device to defend jobs and services - using council reserves, taking privatised services back in-house.

Such action would need to be linked to a mass anti-cuts campaign involving trade unions, community organisations and council workers on a clear policy of compelling the Con-Dem government to abandon its punitive policies, with an appeal to other local authorities to do the same.

Jobs, wages and services are being cut while the income of CEOs increased hugely last year; the culprits for the crisis, the bankers, continue to gorge themselves on obscene bonuses; Cameron's advisers say the NHS should be up for grabs to the private health companies.

This outrageous situation cries out for courageous leadership committed to defending workers and those least able to defend themselves.

As for the argument that the conditions for mass struggle don't exist: history shows that, where leadership is given, support will be forthcoming as the Liverpool 47 showed in the 80s, as did Tom Mann in 1911 in Poplar.

Liverpool city council's struggle in 1983-87 for more funding from the Thatcher government was an inspiration to workers,
AFTER 20 years of slashing jobs, of privatising and cutting services, Liverpool's ruling parties - New Labour and the Liberal Democrats, with almost identical free-market policies, have decided to inflict a catastrophe on the local authority workforce.

1,500 will lose their jobs, the already high number of families without a wage-earner will grow. Despite Labour council leader Joe Anderson's pledge to protect the poor, public services will suffer and already are suffering.

Labour is the majority party but a key component of Anderson's strategy to deal with the cuts is to form an alliance with the arch-proponents of privatisation and cuts, the Lib Dems.

In 1987 the House of Lords backed Thatcher's district auditor's decision to remove the 47 fighting Liverpool Labour councillors from office undemocratically i might add. Since then, the city council's workforce has been reduced from 30,000 to fewer than 10,000.

The spectacle of a Labour leader going into an alliance with the local Lib Dems, a party which is part of a national coalition with the millionaire Tory cabinet, shows catastrophic abdication of leadership by a Labour party which was elected by the city's working families to protect them from the Tory onslaught.

Council leader Joe Anderson detailed how the council intends to make £91 million of savings over the coming year. It aims to cut half its senior management posts, saving £4.5 million, and to reduce budgets for children's services and adult social care.

It 'hopes' it can reduce predicted job losses from 1,500 to about 1,200. Anderson claimed the council had tried to protect frontline services but the scale of the cuts meant that 'real pain' would be felt in some communities.

Funding for voluntary groups has been cut by £18 million, almost 50%. The council says savings in this area were necessary to protect 'life and death' essential services to the most vulnerable.

'There is no alternative' claims the Labour leader. But there is always an alternative to supine capitulation and that is to fight - to form a coalition with the organised labour movement and community organisations, instead of a coalition with the capitalist parties and their allies.

This fighting policy, following the example of the Liverpool 47 councillors, would show Cameron's Tories they have a battle on their hands. In 1983, the incoming Labour council inherited a catastrophic financial situation.

The outgoing Liberal-Tory alliance deliberately under-spent throughout the 1970s to try to maintain electoral support; in one year they actually cut household rates.

They wooed their natural Tory-voting base by increasing rents, terminating the house-building programme and shedding thousands of jobs, plus making cuts in other sectors.
Much like today where the chancellor has announced council tax will be frozen for another year further putting pressure on councils to put through cuts to compensate for the loss of extra council tax.

Liberal council leader Trevor Jones could claim he presided over the lowest rate increases in Liverpool's history and was knighted by Thatcher for services rendered.

An angry Liverpool working class kicked out this Liberal-Tory alliance and returned Labour to power in 1983 on a clear, fighting socialist programme. The brave 47 Liverpool Labour councillors refused to cut jobs and services and defied Thatcher, mobilising support from the council workforce and from local people.

They won an extra £60 million from the government in 1984 and gained six new nurseries, and five colleges. Over 5,000 council houses were built.

Time has not diminished the achievements of the 47, nor undermined the importance of the struggle. The record of the 47 remains stubbornly intact.

Today Joe Anderson, however, tells council workers that the 47 were responsible for Labour's decline in the city. That is a complete falsehood.

The 47 received magnificent support from the council workforce and the wider trade union movement and at the ballot box. If some leadership was shown in this present crisis then the council could win that support again.

Anderson and Co say: 'We have no choice.' But there is a choice. The mass movement built by the 47 did not drop from the sky.

It was developed with the Liverpool District Labour Party (DLP) hammering out a clear policy which included: opposition to cuts, no rent increases, cancelling redundancies, creating jobs, expanding social services, campaigning to retrieve the millions which the Thatcher government had cut from the city's grants, and linking this programme to the need for a socialist society.

This drew the local authority trade unions, the Labour Party Young Socialists, the women's organisations and others into the decision-making process through the DLP.

At that time the DLP democratically determined council policy and Labour councillors were constitutionally bound to carry it out! A 'trade union and labour movement organising committee' was created, representing all sections of the working class with the 47 providing the cutting edge.

This committee organised the mass rallies and demonstrations which were so important in the Liverpool campaign. This body also participated in the electoral campaign which delivered the highest Labour votes since 1945.

There were many high points of the campaign: one was on 7 March 1985, when a mini-general strike involving 30,000 council workers and 10,000 dockers, plus other sections of workers took place with a demonstration of some 50,000 marching through Liverpool opposing the Thatcher government's policies.

That mass campaign was born out of the social conditions in Liverpool, which had seen 65% of its industrial base collapse in the decade before the 47 were elected.

Mass participation in the movement was also the antidote to the hostile forces of capitalism: the Murdoch/Maxwell Press, ITV and the BBC, the local press, the pulpit, with Labour Party leader Neil Kinnock and the national trade union bureaucrats underpinning the establishment's crazed campaign against the 47.

Joe Anderson and other labour party councillors recent 'demonstration' against the cuts may confuse sections of the population for a while and temporarily deflect hostility away from him and his allies.

But as the cuts bite there will be greater focus on Labour's role locally, with a corresponding call for a fighting leadership basing themselves on the policy, programme and campaigning activity of the 47.


A strategy to beat the cuts
IN AN open letter last December, a group of the 47 suggested to Liverpool's present-day Labour leader Joe Anderson and his allies that they follow the example of the 1983-87 Militant-inspired council and set a 'needs budget'.

This would protect temporarily council workers' jobs and services provided or supported by the council. Joe Anderson's response was to tell us to live in 'the real world' and accept that nothing could be done other than for him to carry out the cuts while crying bucketfuls of tears! But our letter raised important questions such as a strategy to oppose the Con-Dem onslaught.

"The first step should be to use the council's budget reserve, reported in the Liverpool Echo as £80 million, to maintain current funding levels in areas which the Con-Dem alliance is cutting.

"This would buy time for more decisive measures to defeat the cuts. Then, as we did in 1983-87, you should work out how much is required to fund existing council services in 2011 and pass a budget in line with inflation.

"This would no doubt produce a shortfall in the council's income. The amount of the shortfall could be identified, say £50 million.

"A campaign could then be launched to oppose the cuts with the specific demand that £50 million be restored to Liverpool city council as a means of defending jobs and services.

"You could call for all local authorities to embrace the same strategy and for support from the local authority trade unions and the wider labour movement, in concert with community organisations which are planning to resist any cuts in their own localities.

"If Liverpool makes a courageous stand, this could act as a beacon to other local authorities and campaigning organisations to join the campaign. If a number of the main local authorities adopted this strategy of refusing to cut jobs and services to compensate for Tory cuts, backed up by a campaign of mass demonstrations and industrial action, the Tories would be compelled to retreat.

"We call on the Labour group to totally reject the cuts and to join, not with the Lib Dems, but with the trade union and labour movement in defending the mass of Liverpool's working people."


SO please dont let the inspiration and the spirit of the Liverpool 47 die. Dont listen to the lies. Do as i did and read up on the struggle myself independently of any influence and decided for myself the truth and what really went on. Adopting a marxist strategy on the cuts that all cuts should be opposed to defend workers and working class people is the only way to go in my view. There is no excuse for Labour councillors who if they wish to warrant the name Labour councillors not to follow this route of the 47.