The morning after Osborne’s exercise in ‘fairness’ it is still murky as to how the Coalition’s strategy will impact upon youth work and public services as a whole. Having been a manager back in the early 90’s when the squeeze on local government spending led to devastating in cuts in Wigan I fear the worst.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/21/local-government-cuts-budget-hole
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/21/teenagers-spending-cuts-warning
However this is no time to be defeatist. Resistance will grow and needs to be informed by alternative ways of viewing the situation we face.
Credit: Lennart Preiss/AP
Thus find below the SAGE Working Paper, Countering the Cuts : The Class Politics of Austerity, written by Alex Nunn of the School of Applied Global Ethics at Leeds.
Abstract:
The new Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government in the UK is pursuing a class
politics of austerity through a proposed radical reduction in public spending. This paper
questions the assumptions underlying the logic of austerity and reveals it to be based on class
politics designed to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich. It also suggests that the crisis
which is being used as a catalyst for reform is actually a product of the particular form of
capitalism pursued in the UK since the 1970s. Instead of promoting policies to reinstate that
particular failed model of capitalist development, the government should instead pursue a
radical alternative based on principles of social and environmental sustainability.
Countering the Cuts : The Class Politics of Austerity
And, if you can , try to catch The Politics Show on BBC1 this Sunday, October 24 at 12.00 noon. Doug Nicholls, National Secretary, Community Youth Workers Not for Profit Sector, UNITE, is appearing in a panel discussion on the potential consequences of the cuts. Nostalgically it appears that the show is coming from the youth centre facing closure, where Doug grew up.
IN DEFENCE OF YOUTH WORK 
Once again analysis and a way forward ? You don`t want to do it like that ! You should have done this – whilst i might agree I can`t actually change the direction of choice for the rich when they have already chose it unless i think and act outside the box !
OK The French are demonstrating about increased retirement age, The Greeks demonstrated about Austerity measures, The English/British sat on their arses and moaned about the cuts.
Whats to be done ?
Encourage evryone you know, meet, write for/to, meet potentially via the internet to think and act outside the box ! Turn the FEAR into overturning the inevitable !
Here in Chesterfield, this week, a group have overturned a company`s plan to build an incineration plant because they did their homework and proved that the company was not worthy, on health and safety grounds, of setting up another plant.
Internationalise – there has never been a better time – the internet can be used to communicate with people all over the world experiencing the same austerity measures but resisting in all sorts of ways !
The poor have a daily struggle against austerity and they have to find ways round it, through it, over it, fight it, rather than accept it !
We need to learn and practice that there is more than one way to skin a cat – it is only a phrase !
How many ways can you think and do to skin austerity/capitalism ?
Our cat understands what you mean, mate! And I recognise what you are saying about the Nunn analysis. Calling on the capitalist state to be more globally ethical is not that convincing.
Certainly we need to be acting and a start would be getting together at conference. See you there.