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11 Nov, 9 tweets, 3 min read
Big news today about Croydon Council issuing a Section 114 notice- effectively declaring itself bankrupt 🧵
bbc.co.uk/news/uk-englan…
Croydon is not the first council to go bust and it won’t be the last.

The first was Conservative Northamptonshire County Council in 2018
theguardian.com/society/2018/n…
It won’t be the last because councils have suffered huge austerity cuts to their funding from central govt (nb council tax doesn't cover much of the services councils provide).

Councils in England are, in 2020, spending £7.8bn a year less on key services than they did in 2010.
This austerity was a political choice
At the same time as cutting council budgets, the Tory Govt gave away £bns in tax cuts to the richest and corporations.
It meant huge cuts to social care, children’s services, libraries, weekly bin collections (remember those?), libraries, etc
These council cuts have not been evenly distributed either …

The UK’s most deprived metropolitan areas have shouldered the burden of austerity while some more prosperous counties have seen increases
theguardian.com/society/2019/n…
And that means Tory councils have suffered far smaller cuts than Labour ones. The average cut in spending power is 34% for a Labour council but only 24% for a Tory council according to Guardian analysis
theguardian.com/business/2020/…
But back to Croydon (both urban and Labour).

The council has lost 76% of its central government funding since 2010. It has been setup to fail.
That’s not to say mistakes have not been made in Croydon. This external auditors report shows they have.

But those mistakes have been made in the context of debilitating cuts.
croydon.gov.uk/democracy/budg…
See also this very good thread by ex-Croydon Advertiser and now @TBIJ journo @Gareth_Davies09

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More from @FisherAndrew79

Andrew Fisher Profile picture
9 Nov
Today marks the 55th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty in Britain*

The death penalty remains in dozens of countries around the world, including China, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and many US states. 🧵
*It was not repealed in Northern Ireland until 1973 (and not entirely removed from the statute books in the UK until 1998)
Please support the great human rights organisations campaigning to end the death penalty and stop executions, like @Reprieve
reprieve.org.uk
And @amnesty amnesty.org.uk/blogs/anti-dea…
Read 5 tweets
Andrew Fisher Profile picture
12 Oct
Johnson says number of cases and hospitalisations are higher now than when we went into full national lockdown in March ...

So why are all his measures watered down compared with the lockdown measures in March - even in the Tier 3 areas? 🧵
So why is non-essential retail still open, even in Tier 3 areas?

Why when workplaces are shut is furlough only at 67% instead of 80% in March?

Risks people going out to find 2nd jobs ... and those families slipping into poverty. Why no floor for low waged workers?
Why haven't universities been told to switch to online teaching only?

Many unis have a reading week in a couple of weeks when students often go home - does that risk spreading infection? Should they go home and stay home?
Read 7 tweets
Andrew Fisher Profile picture
12 Sep
Five years ago today Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader, after an amazing campaign.

By far the definitive book on that period (and up to and including the 2017 election) is @alexnunns 'The Candidate' which captures the energy and optimism perfectly
orbooks.com/catalog/candid…
We were at the QEII centre to hear the result. Jeremy went into the green room with John McDonnell to be told the result. They’d go on stage before it was officially announced. John said if we’ve won he’d wear his tie, and if not he wouldn’t … or was it the other way around?
It didn’t much matter because John came out beaming, despite desperately trying to suppress it. And you can see why. His decades-long comrade had won by a landslide

Quite an achievement for the 200-1 outsider, who only scraped onto the ballot
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Fisher Profile picture
3 Sep
Seeing lots of simplistic "tax rises suck demand out of the economy" nonsense on here - including from people who should know better 🧵 1/n
Do you know what does suck demand out of the economy?

People paying over half their income in rent
Debt repayments at high interest rates
Profiteering utilities and rail overcharging their customers Low wages
Benefit caps or freezes (i.e. deregulation and austerity) 2/n
Of course, *some* tax rises would suck demand out of the economy at this time – e.g. increasing the basic rate of income tax, increasing NI, or hiking Council Tax ...

(but I haven't noticed anyone suggesting these - except Sunak hiking NI for self-employed, which is dumb) 3/n
Read 6 tweets
Andrew Fisher Profile picture
14 May
Interesting comments by Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey in the Telegraph today ... 👀

Remember when @jeremycorbyn said "austerity is a political choice, not an economic necessity"? Well, it was true then and it's true now ... 🧵
🏦Bailey says, "We can help to spread over time the cost of this thing to society and that to me is important. We have choices there and we need to exercise those choices"
But it's not just the Bank of England converting to anti-austerity economics ...

The IoD's Chief Economist argues, "The best way to address the public debt burden is actually by boosting growth and productivity. For now, the Treasury can tap low interest rates to help fund this"
Read 4 tweets
Andrew Fisher Profile picture
12 Apr
The revelations from that dossier are only surprising for the level of vitriol ...

When we won (with a 59% 1st round mandate in 2015) there was no support to a new incoming team (instead there was hostility) and resources were withheld. It was clear then we were being undermined
It was miraculous that we survived until the 2017 election – let alone delivered a result that was the only time Labour had gained seats at an election since 1997 (and the largest increase in share of the vote between elections since 1945).
The report exposes that the most senior party staff – who are supposed to be neutral in internal elections – organised (badly, evidently) to oppose Corbyn winning in 2015 and in 2016 (and even held discussions about organising another coup in 2017 - codenamed Operation Cupcake!)
Read 8 tweets

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