A new local campaign group has formed to rally opposition to planned Government cuts in public services. Called ‘Lancaster and Morecambe Against the Cuts‘, their first demonstration has been called for this Wednesday, 20th October at 6.00pm in Dalton Square outside Lancaster Town Hall, and all are invited to attend.
The demonstration is timed to coincide with the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review which is expected to announce further public spending cuts.
It is predicted that women will carry the burden of the current Con-Dem government’s plans to control the deficit, as women will be particularly hit by public sector job losses. Cuts in child tax benefit announced last week have already been analysed as considerably more punitive to single parent families than dual income families.
Accountancy firm PwC forecasts that the planned cuts would result in up to one million job losses, 108,000 in the North West, half of which would be in the private sector due to the impact on firms supplying the public sector.
The government’s trumpeted ‘Bonfire of the Quangos’ fell into disarray last week as it became apparent that plans to cut 200 quangos would result in greater public expenditure, not less, and involve considerable long-term infrastructural chaos as essential services are devolved to voluntary organisations which do not as yet exist.
The Anti-Cuts campaign group was formed at a special meeting at the Gregson earlier this month and is a coalition backed by the Lancaster and Morecambe TUC, community groups, public service users, students, pensioners and activists of all shades.
• For more info, visit the group’s Facebook page or web site at: www.lmatc.org.uk