Sarah King, the new Chair of Reading & District Labour Party, called on Party members to join a demonstration outside the Civic Offices before Tuesday’s Council meeting to highlight the serious risks posed to public services in Reading by George Osborne's budget and the ConDem Coalition running Reading Borough Council.
“While the banks return to business as usual,” she says, “we took part in this demonstration to ensure the voices of the most vulnerable groups in our society, working households, children and young people and others who depend on public services are heard. And at the Council Labour Councillors pressed the ConDem coalition to come clean about the cuts they are planning here in Reading.
“At Labour’s AGM, party members and Councillors made it clear that our most important priorities are defending our public services and standing up for public sector workers, many of whom are worried too about the implications of the cuts for the vulnerable people they serve. The demonstration on Tuesday was a first great opportunity for us to send out this message to the ConDem coalition and ensure the people of Reading know we will continue to represent them in the hard times that lie ahead.”
Labour Leader Jo Lovelock adds: “We spent most of the Council meeting demanding answers from the ConDem Cabinet as to what cuts they were going to make, what guarantees they would give the elderly and disabled about community care, whether they would be open and transparent with the voluntary sector, and how they planned to respond to the much bigger cuts their ConDem Government is going to demand of them come the autumn. They had no answers, all they did was keep voting to end debates so they did not have to answer our questions. Proof if anything that with this lot in power locally as well as nationally local people are in for a really tough time.”
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