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'Liverpool 47' councillors in TUSC challenge

This year's TUSC parliamentary and local election challenge in Liverpool will be spearheaded by former members of the 1983-87 Labour Council who defied Margaret Thatcher's government, built 5,000 homes and created thousands of jobs and apprenticeships in the city.

Tony Mulhearn, former councillor and president of Liverpool District Labour Party, will stand in Liverpool Riverside constituency in opposition to the austerity policies of sitting Labour MP Louise Ellman.

Also standing in local ward seats will be former 'Liverpool 47' councillors Harry Smith and Alan Fogg, who will provide inspiration to fresh new layers of candidates standing for the first time in this election

Enough is enough

In Liverpool, TUSC supporters are contending the majority of the local ward seats and three out of the six parliamentary seats. TUSC candidates are also standing in Knowsley, St Helens, Halton, and the Wirral. In Warrington South, former Labour councillor Kevin Bennett will stand for TUSC as Parliamentary candidate.

After five years of austerity budgets from Labour councils on Merseyside, the time has come to say "enough is enough". The recent announcement of the financial crisis at Liverpool Women's Hospital, highlighted the previous Labour government's NHS privatisation and PFI policies.

Merseyside TUSC supporters will now play a leading role in the "Save the Women's Hospital" campaign and have been involved in campaigns against library and Sure Start centre closures over the past few months.

The tradition of socialist councillors in Liverpool who took on a Tory government in the Eighties, and built a campaign which mobilised 50,000 on the streets, is now being continued with today's generation of fighters.

The policies of the Liverpool 47 are just as relevant today as they were in the eighties: to defend working class people against brutal cuts and put forward socialist ideas which offer hope for all working class people.

Liverpool: A City That Dared To Fight, by Peter Taaffe and Tony Mulhearn

Available from www.leftbooks.co.uk

Don't miss the TUSC election broadcast on 17 April on BBC2 at 5.55pm, ITV at 6.25pm, BBC1 at 6.55pm, and Channel 4 at 7.55pm

See the BBC's report of the TUSC manifesto launch at bbc.co.uk/news/election-2015-32254035

The Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) is an electoral alliance involving the RMT transport union, the Socialist Party, other socialist groups and leading members of other trade unions. This May TUSC is standing 135 candidates in the general election and 619 in the local elections.