Your letters on: Massive cuts will hit services - 20/08/10
I THOROUGHLY disagree with the Hoyles' letter in the Mercury on August 6.
Mr Croxson and Ms Richards seem to say we agree with the Hoyles because they don't like the PR paper.
What troubles me is the Hoyles' hopes of sacking a number of named posts and departmental staffs under those posts.
It troubles me because I'm certain the Hoyles don't know what those staff actually are doing.
In addition, they are impervious to the effect their letter must have on all those staff.
It is impossible to make massive cuts without affecting services. Everybody will go on paying more to get less.
At the same time, as central and local government services are handed free to the private sector, the costs to welfare rise.
Unemployment benefit, housing benefit, mortgages foreclosed, psychiatric illnesses – all will cost more as numbers on the dole rise.
The Government hopes to modernise society. What they are doing is disintegrating it.
R BRITTON
Millfield Road, Morton
I write to support the Hoyles in their fully justified accusation of waste by the South Kesteven District Council.
It seems, whatever political colour they claim, all the local politicians have caught the spend, spend, spend bug from the last government, and they don't seem to care if we, the tax payers, are facing higher bills, higher VAT or wage cuts.
The monthly glossy self congratulatory SK Today is a total waste of money, as are all the 'made up' new jobs, which total far more than the Hoyles list.
What we need instead is a full list of the district council's departments, the services they provide and the number of people each supports (with salaries), together with a box at the end giving tax payers a chance to vote for or against them, all in black and white on normal paper delivered to each household.
That way we can demand that local government do what they are supposed to do – provide essential services, not dream up new, esoteric ways of putting council tax up yet again.
The writing is plain for all (including councillors!) to see: Stop wasting our money and get on with the job you should do. If you don't, then you will soon be just an unpleasant note in a history book.
David Hall
St Medard's Close, Little Bytham
I AGREE with your correspondents that abolish-ing Inside Lincolnshire and SK Today would be no great loss. But neither would it save much money.
There's no way that the cuts demanded by the government can be made without decimating the front line services on which we all rely.
Of course public sector workers will defend their jobs. And in doing so they'll also be defending our services, and helping to save jobs in the private sector too, including in many small businesses where government employees spend much of their incomes. We are indeed all in this together, the government has put us in it. And we'll need to resist together to get out of it.
Using the deficit caused by the bankers' crisis as cover, the coalition and its big business friends want to demolish what remains of the post-war welfare state. In order to divide and rule, it's trying to get us all arguing about where cuts should be made, concealing the question whether cuts need be made at all.
If we gave up our weapons of mass destruction, brought the troops home from Afghanistan, and cut defence spending to the European average, if we increased taxes on the rich, whose wealth is still increasing, and collected some 100bn in unpaid, evaded and avoided taxes; if we imposed windfall taxes on the super-profits of the supermarkets and energy firms; if we did all these things we could trim the national deficit enough to avoid any cuts in public services.
We need to oppose the ruling coalition with a different sort of coalition of trade unions and community groups, of everybody who wants to protect universal and accountable public services.
DAVID GROVE
King's Mill Lane, Stamford
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