There were several speakers at the meeting including our candidate in this year's election, Andrew Skudder, who represented Horsham Labour party.
The meeting heard from a representative of the Brighton anti-cuts campaign which has already held several very well-attended public meetings and had a large protest march last week. He offered some good advice on bringing together the various groups of people who are trying to resist specific cuts.
The next speaker was from Unite the Union. He explained how Unite, apart from being the country's biggest union also has a large number of members in the public sector whose jobs are at risk, and explained some of the implications of the Comprehensive Spending Review.
Andrew was the final speaker before the open Q&A session. He stressed how the government cuts are not unavoidable as the ConDems insist but are entirely avoidable and unnecessary and will disproportionately affect those who are worse off - in Horsham we have already seen cuts to play schemes, day care centres and youth clubs.
He also pointed out that there is a great deal of spin, in which the media are complicit, always following the coalition line to refer to 'unavoidable cuts' and concluded that the anti-cuts coalition must see its main aim as being to counter these claims and explain that there is an alternative. When the government is letting Vodafone off £6billion of tax and letting people with deposits in Swiss banks avoid an estimated £40billion of tax EACH YEAR it is clear that any gaps in public finance could be met just by collecting the tax which is due.
Horsham Labour party supports the anti-cuts coalition and will be encouraging members to turn out when protests are arranged so that everybody can see that we are not all accepting the government assertions, and that we think there is an alternative. Where possible we will also provide information here on any forthcoming events organised by the anti-cuts coalition.