Comment: Spending review is a vicious ideological attack
Once the disastrous impact of the spending review becomes clear, the public outcry will be huge.
By Tony Woodley
Yesterday, the Coalition tore into our public services, hacking into the health, education and council services that hold this country together.
The sight of George Osborne being congratulated by David Cameron and Nick Clegg, cheered on by Tories and Lib Dem MPs, will have revolted anyone who has a care for the sick and vulnerable in this country, and will terrify people who live beyond the Westminster village.
As the true extent of these cuts – not the £81 billion Osborne is cowardly hiding behind but actually a colossal £145 billion – is revealed, anger will build.
It won’t be the leafy stockbroker belt that feels this pain – it will be my members trying to raise their families in the communities of the country that this government has just set about destroying. The Coalition has no mandate for the assassination of our services – and for those that voted LibDem, this is nothing short of a betrayal.
Osborne and Cameron’s claim that they have no choice is a bare-faced lie. They have talked this country down from the moment they took office when the truth is that we are not facing the economic Armageddon they are scaring people with.
Like a pair of Halloween ghouls, they have frightened people so they can force through a vicious, ideological attack on social provision because they don’t believe it matters in a civilised society.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A government for everyone in this country would strain every sinew to prevent pain this deep with a strategy that delivers a fair and progressive taxation policy.
The pathetically low on levy on banks – 0.04% – is just another slap in the face for working people. They suffer for the mess these banks made while those that caused it literally laugh all the way to the banks. And how will throwing millions onto the dole and a life on benefits close the deficit?
Believe me, when the penny drops and people they realise that the schools, hospitals and social services they built and paid for through hard graft and taxes are being destroyed by a political elite, rage will boil.
Tony Woodley is joint general secretary of Unite.
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