Vote for the no cuts alternative with TUSC this week in by elections

This week there are a few important by elections in England on the 15th of November. These elections are far more important than the police and crime commissioner elections being staged on the same day very few people are interested in another layer of bureaucracy and very few people will be voting I suspect. But an election people should vote in will be this Thursday in Manchester central, Corby and Bristol for the position of mayor. TUSC is standing in all of these elections and is backing the DPAC candidate for Corby on a no cuts platform. These elections will be interesting to see how TUSC is developing between elections. Many people say we still don’t know enough about TUSC well talk on the ground suggests we are getting a good response and are hopefully of a decent vote come Thursday. We do not expect to win but the fact we are standing and laying down a marker for future struggles raises the banner of TUSC and that no to all cuts alternative which no other candidate can offer. Our candidates are Tom Baldwin in Bristol running for mayor a young youth activist who has done a lot of work working with young people and has made some solid pledges already if elected to only take the average wage of a skilled worker of Bristol I think this could have a echo given the recent scandal of Dennis Mcshane who has had to resign from his seat in Rotherham for fiddling his expenses, TUSC incidentally will be standing in that by election too whenever it is called. Asked what he would do first if and when elected Tom was quoted as saying “Reverse the programme of care home closures in Bristol”. Our second candidate is Alex Davidson standing in Manchester Central Alex is a good solid trade unionist and is representative of PCS in the North West and fights every day for his members in the PCS and public sector workers. Alex has been very critical of the report released in the last few weeks by Michael Heseltine Alex said recently “Heseltine is infamous throughout the labour movement for his role in the 1980s Thatcher government. He oversaw an assault on social housing when environment minister, and was the man responsible for the final massacre of the coal industry as president of the Board of Trade in the early. Heseltine's recent report stated that the government "does not have a strategy for growth and wealth creation", reflecting a growing panic among the ruling class. The recent, heavily doctored 'growth' figures confirm that the government is desperately casting around for some 'good news'. Heseltine's report recommends that the government uses £49 billion to "stimulate growth in the regions". He also recommends that the government act as a stimulator for growth. This echoes much of what Chancellor George Osborne himself said about the "march of the makers" to replace lost jobs in the public sector. In reality, manufacturing has continued its long-term decline throughout the Con-Dems' two years in power. Areas like Manchester have never recovered from the deindustrialisation carried out by Thatcher and Heseltine's government. The current government has no commitment to saving skilled manufacturing jobs, as shown by their attitude to mass layoffs proposed by Ford in Southampton and Dagenham. Disgracefully, the Heseltine report was embraced by the Trades Union Congress and the New Labour front bench. If New Labour was serious about tackling the economic crisis, they would adopt the policy that has been embraced by unions like the Fire Brigades Union: nationalisation of the banks and the use of those resources to fund a meaningful programme of public works, such as the building of social housing and the upgrading of transport infrastructure. But Labour will not put forward anything like this. That is why I am standing in the Manchester Central by-election. As a Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidate, I am supported by trade union militants who recognise that the working class needs their own party with a socialist programme - not one that embraces an anti-working class Tory Lord. “ This blog wish’s all TUSC and anti cuts candidates luck and look forward to helping the building of a mass party of the working class with socialist principles and policies to match in the coming years. for more information on TUSC check out www.tusc.org.uk