Council elections are "referendum" against cuts says candidate planning council comeback

Former Scottish National Party councillor Willie Homer is standing in the Cumbernauld East Ward on the council elections in May 5.

Mr Homer said: “People will already be receiving leaflets from candidates looking for their votes. You can be pretty certain that none of them will be looking for your endorsement to make more cuts to local services. Yet if their record is anything to go by that is exactly what they will do. Cuts are being driven by the Tories but what are political parties in control of Scottish Councils doing to build resistance rather than being a transmission belt for Tory austerity?”

He claims that services have been hollowed out by cuts and it isn’t good enough for Scotland’s main parties to point the finger of blame at each other and let Tories off the hook.

“The Tories have no mandate in Scotland but financially they drive a cuts agenda that is too often acquiesced to by Scotland’s main parties. This is particularly the case in North Lanarkshire where the Council’s Labour leadership has shamefully relied on the Tories to pass their cuts budgets over recent years.

“This can’t go on and instead, whatever the political shade of the Council after May is, they should be calling together groups like Trade Unions, community groups and those campaigning against cuts from across the authority to consider how best to resist another five years of continued cuts to our key services. If elected that is what I will be calling for.”

North Lanarkshire Conservative leader Councillor Sandy Watson commented: “The SNP/Green Scottish Government receives ever increasing annual sums from Westminster but is not passing these onto councils. Local councils in Scotland are being starved of funds and, in fact, North Lanarkshire has had a cut of over £300 million from the Scottish Government over the last 10 years.

“For the Scottish Socialist Party to attempt to blame the Conservatives for the difficulties local councils have is way off beam, and the facts of the matter prove that”.