Cuts widen the divide

Published: 1 April, 2011

• ISLINGTON Green Party and Green parties from across the country were among the hundreds of thousands marching against the cuts on Saturday. 

Greens know there really is an alternative, and unlike the other mainstream parties have a costed, positive and viable plan to enable the country to pay off its debts without harming those most in need of help from vital public services.

It is clear the coalition’s cuts are driven by ideology rather than economic necessity, and you don't have to be a “deficit denier” to see there is another way. 

Closing tax loopholes and preventing tax avoidance could alone raise billions of pounds, and would be welcomed by the public who recognise it as unfair that the wealthiest individuals and corporations avoid paying their full share. 

Greens would place a transaction tax on the banks and make cuts in the places where huge sums of public spending really are wasteful, such as the Trident missiles, illegal wars and excessive executive salaries in the public sector. 

We need to be generating jobs and tax income, not cutting them; our Green New Deal would do this and create a strong sector of Green industry.

It is simply untrue to say that cuts to frontline services are unavoidable, but Labour and the coalition’s records and policies speak for themselves.

Islington is a borough of deep inequalities, and the Green Party understands that this is harmful for everyone who lives here, whether richer, poorer or somewhere between. The cuts will simply make this situation worse. 

With Labour’s legacy being a divide wider than that left by Margaret Thatcher’s Tories and the coalition’s cuts clearly going to hit the poorest hardest, accelerating this deeply damaging trend, it is clear we need a real alternative. 

The Green Party does offer such an alternative and we will continue to campaign for this long after the banners and placards have been packed away.

CAROLINE ALLEN
Islington Green Party