Why I'm Standing for TUSC - Rob P. Williams

Rob P. Williams is standing as one of the two Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition candidates for Sketty Ward in the May 2012 Swansea council elections.

Why have I become a TUSC candidate?

I was born in Swansea back in 1971 and have lived here all my life. There was a time when, like many working class people, I voted for the Labour Party. However over the thirteen years of the last Labour government it has dawned on many ordinary people that our support for Labour was a wasted vote.

When Thatcher was asked what her greatest achievement was she said, "New Labour", and she was right. The whole character of the Labour Party has shifted until there is barely a shade of difference between them and the Tories. As well as that, the democratic structures of the party has been broken to the point that there is little chance of it ever going back.

Where does that leave the ordinary working class person?

We have nobody to represent us. The main parties claim to represent us but they don't. They all would rather bend over backwards to the demands of the richest in society, to the bankers speculators and bondholders. We are constantly told that there is no alternative to the cuts and that there is no money left.

Well, this is what the rich and their lackeys in parliament want us to believe, but it is not true. There is over £750 billion in the corporate reserves of the biggest companies: they are swimming in money but refuse to invest because they don't expect enough of a return. According to the tax inspectors union PCS, there is over £123 billion in uncollected, avoided and evaded tax. What about the billions spent on futile wars and perhaps over £100 billion to be spent on nuclear weapons... I haven't even started on the bank bonuses yet!

All that wealth is there, but not one of the main parties (Con/Lib/Lab/Plaid) oppose the bankers solution of making the working class pay for the mess that they created. Why should we pay? They gambled and speculated away vast amounts of money in private deals for their own private profits, but they expect us to pick up their losses. At the same time the super-rich are wealthier than ever. This is nothing short of a scandal.

Schools closing, hospitals closing, old peoples homes closed, benefits cut, black and asian people scapegoated, public sector workers sacked, Remploy workers sacked... the list goes on and will continue to go on. The IFS say that 88% of the cuts are yet to be carried out!

You can guarantee, any of the main parties that end up leading Swansea council will put forward a budget of massive cuts; their councillors will dutifully march into the chamber and vote that budget of cuts through. It won't make a blind bit of difference to the people of Swansea whether they do it with a grin on their faces or a tear in their eye. The result will be the same.

The Labour party has no right whatsoever to expect the vote of working class people anymore. A vote for any of the main parties is a wasted vote as they will all do the same damage.

I am standing for the Trade Unionist and Socialist coalition (TUSC) to give the people of Swansea a chance to start building an alternative to cuts and to the broken capitalist system.

Vote TUSC. Fight ALL the cuts.