Salford’s directly-elected mayor Ian Stewart has said austerity measures made by the coalition government have been ‘too fast, too hard’ and ‘too deep’.
Speaking at the local elections, Stewart blasted the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government for making around £100million in cuts over the last two years.
He said if they continue to make heavy cuts they will make a ‘bigger mess of the national economy’.
“The austerity measures of national government are important here,” Stewart told MM.
“I accept that any government in power would have to make austerity measures, but I think the coalition are going too fast, too hard, too deep with the cuts.
“Salford was an industrial city in decline, but its people pulled it up by its bootstraps and regenerated it. The best antidote to poverty and deprivation is work with decent wages.
“We’re good at doing that here, but current government policy stops us investing in creating jobs with decent wages, so you have a ‘Catch 22’ situation.”
However, Salford’s directly-elected mayor has questioned whether his own party is doing enough to win over voters.
Stewart told MM: “The question for Labour is, are we as a party doing well enough to win a general election?
“We’ve got a lot of hard work to do, particularly in areas like Salford where people think it’s the council making the cuts when we’re not.”
Stewart said if the Conservative-Lib Dem government was not taking money away from Salford, the Labour council would not be making any cuts.
“In fact, in Salford we have a proud history of having better facilities and services than other places in the country,” he told MM. “That’s what we think the people of Salford deserve.
“Three or four years ago, the annual budget that the council had to work with was over £300 million.
“In the last two years the government has taken £97 million of that away.
“We know that you cannot run a household budget if your income is reduced by a third, without changes. A council is exactly the same.”
He said the government has already told the council they will be taking a further £81million over the next two years.
“That means that by the time my term as mayor finishes, the government will have taken away from the people of Salford two thirds of the annual government grant to Salford,” he told MM.
“That’s why I’ve been honest with the people here – warning them the government’s cuts would mean that the vulnerable people in the city would be affected adversely.
“Our job is to try to protect the most vulnerable, and the truth is we can’t protect everybody. So to protect the most vulnerable, some people who need services will end up losing out.
“We’re heartbroken about that. Some of our own families are suffering.”
Stewart said if the proposed cuts go ahead then the current situation for many vulnerable people in the area will simply get more dire.
“If the government continues going the same way it is going, and makes a bigger mess of the national economy, it’ll get worse still,” he told MM.
“That’s not scaremongering, that’s an economic fact in my view.”
Going into the elections, Labour had a major stronghold in Salford, holding 52 seats on the council, with the Conservatives holding the remaining eight.
Despite Salford having a strong Labour backing in the area, Stewart expressed his disappointment at the poor turn-out for the local elections.
“If we have turnouts like this in a general election, then we’re in real trouble as a country,” he told MM.
“It’s not uncommon in places like Salford in local elections to have very low turnouts, so it’s not a bad turnout, though it could have been better.
“To be blunt, if people don’t vote then they don’t have a great shout when things are decided by politicians they don’t like.
“If they’ve voted for the politicians and they don’t like it then they can vote the politicians out at the next election.”
Labour’s foothold in the area remains unchallenged, after the announcement that they had retained 17 of the contested council seats, with the Conservative retaining three.
Stewart said the people of Salford recognise the hard work he and his party have been doing consistently in the area.
He said: “We’re working hard for the people of Salford, and that’s why we keep getting re-elected year after year because the people of the city have given us the acknowledgement through the ballot box – they believe that we’re sincere.
“If the people of this country realise that they can make a difference by voting, I strongly urge them to vote Labour at the next general election.”
Image courtesy of Mike Taylor, witht thanks.
