Cuts and Privatisation: Still on Edinburgh’s Agenda in 2012
In November 2011, the City of Edinburgh Council took the decision not privatise environmental services (that’s waste and recycling, street cleaning, and parks maintenance), following pressure from a local grassroots campaign. I’ve been involved in the campaign from the early stages and it has been amazing to see how a little bit of public scrutiny [...]
Why privatisation is wrong – from a parent of a child with special needs.
This post is published as a series of blogs about privatisation and in support of the ‘Week of Auctions organised by an alliance of anti-cuts groups across the UK. The following is a personal perspective on disability & local authority services. By Kathy Wedell This government wants local authority services to be opened up to [...]
Privatisation and the SNP
While Alex Salmond received a hero’s welcome at the SNP conference in Inverness last weekend, controversy has been brewing back in Edinburgh. On Thursday, the City of Edinburgh Council – led by a coalition of the Liberal Democrats and SNP – will be taking the first of a series of votes on whether council services [...]
Adrian Ramsay conference speech: “we are proud of the NHS”
This was the speech Green Party deputy leader Adrian Ramsay gave to the Green Party conference in Sheffield I’m delighted we’re meeting here in Sheffield. Did you know that Green Councillors have held seats in this city centre ward for seven years now? Yesterday I was given a tour of the area and visited two [...]
Why We Have A Welfare State
David Cameron thinks that the only way to save our public services is by harnessing the opposing forces of volunteerism and capitalism. I’d like to think that history proves him wrong, because, if a combination of philanthropy and market forces could deliver the best deal for our society, nobody would have ever thought we needed [...]
The Cost of Efficiency Savings
Of all the dirty tactics that the Conservatives have deployed since coming to power, using the localism agenda as a cover for massive austerity measures has to be one of the dirtiest. Local authorities, which provide the public services that so many people use on a day-to-day basis – social care, housing, schools – have [...]
Save Our Services: East Edinburgh Edition
Sometimes, something happens that restores your faith in activism, and humanity in general. This week, I had one of those moments at a public meeting for Save Our Services East Edinburgh. I’ve been to a lot of meetings since the Coalition government came to power, and not all of them have been terribly interesting or [...]
8 things about Britain’s debt
1) How big is it? We have had a higher debt: GDP ratio for 200 out of the last 250 years – historically, our debt is very small compared to the size of our economy (ie how rich we are). We also have one of the lowest debt: GDP ratios in the western world. 2) [...]
For our grandparents, our children, and our friends
This post first appeared on the blog Why Trafalgar? The history of Britain is a history of struggle. The institutions which to us feel permenant are nothing of the sort. They had to be fought for. They had to be won. In 1910, the Tories brought down the governnment in an attempt to stop the [...]
Caroline’s Speech: we are ready to fight these cuts
Lucas slams cuts and privitisation Caroline Lucas has addressed Green Party spring conference today by slamming the government over spending cuts and privatisation. Calling the Green Party “the true opposition to the Conservatives”, she highlighted the complicity of the Liberal Democrats with the government’s cuts, and the previous Labour government’s support for the same policies. [...]
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