Wednesday 20 October 2010

STUC: today's deep and immediate cuts will have "devastating impact across Scotland"

20 Oct 2010


Demo Sat 23 Oct
Responding to the Spending Review announced by the Chancellor today, Grahame Smith, (Scottish Trades Union Congress) STUC General Secretary said:

“The deep and immediate cuts announced today by George Osborne will have a devastating impact on workers, communities and businesses across Scotland. It is disappointing if hardly surprising that he took the opportunity to repeat every myth and distortion on the origins and extent of the current economic crisis peddled by this administration.

“The cuts are not unavoidable and the coalitions programme is not fair and progressive. It is simply provocative to continually assert that ‘we are all in this together’. It is shocking that benefit recipients, the most vulnerable members of our society, are being forced to shoulder the steepest cuts, apparently in order to allow the Chancellor to seek to score a cheap political point.

“The spending plans announced today do nothing to address rising unemployment or to provide effective assistance to the unemployed. The Government argues that jobs growth in the private sector will more than compensate for the half a million jobs it predicts will be lost from the public sector over this spending review period. And yet, only this morning, the Bank of England has stated that ‘private sector remains very cautious about expanding the labour force’.

“At the There is a Better Way march and rally on Saturday in Edinburgh, the workers and communities of Scotland will send a very clear message to the Chancellor and his coalition colleagues that they will not accept these brazenly ideological cuts without a fight. The Government will do well to listen.”


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