Sustained attack

Seven months of refusing to listen and, I suspect for some, hoping the coalition would not disturb their comfort zone. Even so, loyalty to the ideology that has launched the most savage and sustained attack on the public sector in living memory is undiminished.

With only one or two honourable exceptions the question I recently asked has already been answered: the council is FOR the coalition and its cuts. And so too is MP Greg Barker, whose voting record belies his public face of concern.

The truth is the coalition has manufactured this crisis in the public sector. As Mark Serwotka, general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services’ Union, has said: “The reality is that there does not need to be a single penny taken away from any public service, or a single job lost.”

Councillors might like to think on that as another wave of Section 118 redundancy notices washes over the country this Christmastide.

We look for leadership from councillors, not collusion, for the fight back, not surrender. The council is doing nothing more nor less than bailing out the coalition.

There is now a very clear dividing line throughout the country between the ideologues and bit players of the coalition and the forces of reason and progress.

No predictions, but the council will not be the same after next May’s elections.

STEPHEN JACKSON

Second Avenue

Bexhill-on-Sea