The Green Alternative to the Cuts.mov

York Green Party releases the first of three videos today, featuring local candidates alongside Caroline Lucas, the UK's first Green MP.

This first video, entitled 'The Green Alternative to the Cuts', outlines why the projected cuts to public services are unnecessary.

York residents are deeply concerned by the budget cuts. There are job losses across the council and in York's libraries; cuts to preventative mental health care, youth services, careers advice services, and the Holocaust Memorial Fund.

The Council is also privatising social care, and raising its transport fee for adults with learning disabilities.

York Green Party has argued that approximately 50 of the planned job losses at the Council, and some of the most vital local services, could be saved by implementing a 'Cut Hours Not Jobs' policy. This would see all staff at the Council working two hours less per week, with a consequent loss in pay; it would also see reductions to the wages of the Council's highest earners. Such a policy would save the Council £5 million per year without losing any more staff, which is five times the amount projected by Labour's manifesto proposals for the budget.

Andy Chase, 1st choice Green candidate for Micklegate Ward, points out that this policy:

"could prevent some of the things that are going to be very, very damaging, such as the cuts in services for children and young people, and the outsourcing of care services"

The Greens were a very close second in Micklegate during the last local elections, with Andy Chase only 64 votes away from being elected in 2007.

Discussing the alternatives, Caroline Lucas states:

"You don't have to be that imaginative to think, 'Well, what about that Robin Hood Tax?' In the UK alone, you could raise £20 billion,' says Dr. Lucas, 'in other words a tiny tax on financial transactions, which wouldn't affect ordinary people but would affect big businesses that are doing those kinds of transactions.'

She adds that if the UK scrapped the planned Trident replacement then we could save £100 billion over 30 years. Dr. Lucas also argues that tax avoidance and tax evasion is costing billions of pounds that should be going to the UK Treasury.

She concludes by saying 'It's not the case that the money isn't there; it is the case that choices are being made about where we would take that money from."

Two more videos will be released during the same week.

On Wednesday 27th April, the York Greens will release 'Education: More than a Commodity', followed by 'Protecting York's Future' on Saturday 30th April.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• York Green Party
• Caroline Lucas
• Local Elections 2011
• Andy Chase
• Renton Productions

[luvaduck56]

This is a powerful and compelling video. It demonstrates how the Greens have viable alternatives to the devastating cuts to public services and voters can make a difference to the future of services to all York's citizens by voting Green on 5 May.