NO AMOUNT of lies told by politicians will change the fact that poorer and/or fewer public services in Carmarthenshire are a direct result of budgetary decisions reached in London.
For the last nine and a half years, the Party pulling the budgetary strings has been the Conservatives. Choices made by the Conservative Party in Westminster to cut welfare benefits, target the most vulnerable in society to bear the burden of austerity, strip out funding for public services, to reduce access to criminal justice through cuts to the police and courts – underpin many of the issues affecting Carmarthenshire. If you look around Carmarthenshire and see the number of people dependent on food banks, people in work reliant on charity for food, you must realise how much their use has climbed in the last decade.
Austerity was a political choice made by the Conservative Party. It placed the burden for baling out banks on those with the least. The bankers kept their money, the people with least to give ended up giving the most. Even George Osborne acknowledges – now – Labour wasn’t responsible for the financial crisis.
When you’re angry at the Council, at the Health Board, the persistent ‘they’ who never listen ‘to the likes of you and me’, you should be angry at the people ultimately responsible. Central Government has been very good at shuffling the blame for cuts down the line – but it is ultimately responsible. No jiggery-pokery with spending promises that just reshuffle the same old money or apply only to England will change that.
One Conservative PM called a referendum to hold his party together; a second tried to reach a deal that appeased the head-bangers in her party and failed accordingly; the current PM – one of the head-bangers who blocked Brexit in favour of moving the UK to Narnia – is a proven serial liar and blustering bully whose idea of research is reading back issues of The Beezer.
This column isn’t about Brexit. Quite frankly, most minds are made up on the issue in a way that tolerates no rational debate. For all the difference one fat fox will make to his readers’ thinking on that subject, he may as well pee in the sea at Pembrey.
All Cadno can do is state the facts: every industry which contributes to Carmarthenshire’s economy will be affected adversely by tariffs between the UK and the EU. And the magic lifebelt to help relieve the fall will be a City Deal funded directly and indirectly by EU funding.
But Cadno wants to turn to those of you who either have not decided HOW to vote or those who have decided NOT to vote.
To the first of those, Cadno says the following: take a good look around you. If you are happy with what you see, you know where you can stick your cross. If you are unhappy that Carmarthenshire has become measurably poorer and worse off in the same period, you won’t want more of the same. Not unless you’re some sort of masochist.
To those who have decided not to vote: if you can’t be bothered you waive the right to complain afterwards.
Whatever happens, you couldn’t be bothered to try and influence it beforehand, so stop chirping with the benefit of ignorant hindsight. There is certain nobility in going to a polling station and spoiling your vote or writing in ‘none of the above’. If enough of you do it, even by casting a spoiled ballot your voice will be noticed. It takes ten minutes to vote. It’s better than five years of moaning when you couldn’t make the effort to write the letter ‘x’ on a scrap of paper.
Voting is a right and it is also a duty.
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