WHY WE DO IT......

Last Tuesday I issued for the third successive year on behalf of IW Labour an alternative revenue budget for the IW Council. Once again this alternative is in the public domain well in advance of the Full Council meeting and offers a real alternative to what the Council Tories are proposing. Council finance officer have confirmed that it is a balanced and credible alternative and I hope that we once again get increased support this year.

The other opposition groups - Liberals and independents - have offered nothing so far, which would make it four successive years without anything substantive being offered from those quarters on budgetary matters.

I am asked each year, Why do you do it when you know it will lose ? Deborah and I do it because we feel that being an effective opposition matters in a democracy. Not for us the long sulk of the spurned (aka Island First).

We also do it because we have something to offer. We think offering an alternative budget strategy that does not hammer young people, vulnerable people, and tax payers, that does not maintain a spin machine at huge public expense, is worth doing - and it tells people that whilst Labour may get bad press nationally these days, at a local level there is a living, breathing, and thinking Labour presence that means business. The local Tories know that, which is why they fear us so much to make petty complaints

Having said that getting 6 votes out of 48 next Wednesday would be a success for us this year. It would be one more than last year and would not have depended on 24 non-cabinet Tory sheep steering it through. And you never know this year our Liberal friends might just realise that opposition is a serious business, particularly for those who have serious intentions for the future.