Link to this page: https://www.socialistparty.org.uk/articles/20566

Posted on 19 April 2015 at 14:53 GMT

Cardiff: Only TUSC can be trusted to save services

"You are the first person who has made any sense in this election," said one council worker at our stall, after we explained we're building the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) because none of the existing parties in power can be trusted to end austerity and fight the cuts.

We organised a protest against the latest cuts planned for the Youth Service in Cardiff on the Saturday after the TUSC party political broadcast aired.

140 youth workers were sacked by the Labour council last April, but that's just the beginning of the cuts for this service. Under the radar, plans are being hatched to all but dismantle it. In July, street-based youth workers will have their hours slashed. Many youth centres are barely open already, with some having lost a majority of their full-time staff, but in six months time, once the election is safely out of the way, the Labour council plans to close half of them completely.

We are losing our youth service because we do not have representatives who are willing to stand up and fight the cuts. A PCS union member who had stopped by to sign our petition said she thought the TUSC broadcast was "the only one full of genuine people", and she's right!

The reason why the present parties in power are either openly embracing austerity or opposing it in words until the slightest pressure is put on them, is because none of them are rooted in the communities and organisations of ordinary working-class people - those who are at the sharp end of the cuts.

TUSC supporters understand that to change direction, we can't trust the existing mass parties to act for us: We've got to do the job ourselves and build a new party.