I pledge to reverse museum closures if elected Mayor

5th February, 2011

I was pleased to be  invited to speak at the trade union rally against the Tory led government cuts yesterday. I was disappointed that I was the only Councillor present.

Speaker after speaker made it clear that the cuts are unnecessary and are putting in danger vital public services that people rely on.

As a Labour Councillor I am opposed to these cuts, well I would be wouldn’t I, I hear you say. But the facts speak for themselves. We should start to look at the amount of uncollected tax – £20bn since 2004, Tax avoidance £25bn and worse of all tax evasion £70bn. This last figure represents illegal tax dodging and is a criminal offence. The Tory led government should be doing something about this and not cutting public services throwing people on the dole. Couple these measures with repaying the debt over a longer period and not renewing Trident and we would have money to invest in industry, jobs and cities like Leicester. As a country we do not have the biggest debt in Europe, we are about 12th. George Osborne and David Cameron talk as if we are the worst in the world. Their rhetoric is trying to get us to believe these cuts are inevitable. They are not.

This is why I am opposed to the Museum Closures, the Day Centre Closures – including Douglas Bader House – and the scrapping of meals on wheels, here in Leicester. These cuts are wrong and we need to keep the pressure on the government to give us back the money for these services. Locally I will argue for alternatives to be found as we successfully did to stop the privatisation of DeMontfort Hall and our leisure centres.

I will make two commitments:

• To continue to oppose these cuts at a local and national level
• To reverse the museum and day centre closures and restore the meals on wheels service if I become the Elected Mayor of Leicester.