Some people take issue with the Green’s position of opposing cuts. It is has been suggested that the cuts are a positive thing as they will result in a reduction of our unsustainable consumption. This ignores the fact that reducing consumption is a matter of changing our consumer culture rather than simply targeting a particular group of already vulnerable people and making them responsible for the difficulties we currently face.  The imposition of cuts is unlikely to impact on consumption overall since it is the more affluent who consume more, but it is likely to increase inequality and bring with it a host of associated problems. That cuts to services could be thought of as beneficial is testament to how powerful this dominant, hegemonic narrative has become in such a short space of time. Fortunately there are other voices and versions of what could/should happen, and the fact that there are demonstrates that the story-line, the ‘cuts are inevitable’ is just one version of how society should be organised. By claiming the ‘discourse of the cuts’ as a story I do not in anyway wish to negate that it will have real material effects. I just wish to point out that the stories we tell ourselves and each other, create our social world. This particular story, which has been normalised so quickly, will have devastating affects on many people’s day to day lived experience. But there is nothing inevitable about it, there are alternatives. See below:

From Caroline Lucas MP, Leader of the Green Party, Development House, 56-64 Leonard Street, London EC2A 4LT. 020 7549 0315.

Sir,

Re “Lib Dem council chiefs condemn cuts, Independent 10.2.11

“Deficit denier” is a very ugly term for those of us who have a positive and constructive viewpoint on managing the country’s financial and other problems.

We can make full acknowledgement of the deficit, and still identify different options for dealing with it. The response of ruthless cuts and austerity measures is an ideological choice made by the big three parties. For Labour and some Lib Dems to criticise the “pace and scale” of the cuts is still a pro-cuts, pro-austerity choice.

The Green Party, many unions and some economists have proposed an alternative choice. This would involve cracking down on tax avoidance and tax evasion, saving billions every year. It would involve the wealthiest people in society pay a fairer share. It would mean saving £100bn over thirty years by scrapping Trident and its proposed replacement. It would involve a windfall tax on bank profits as well as a heavy tax on bankers’ bonuses. It would mean reducing the deficit more slowly, and thus avoiding these savage cuts. It would mean smart switching of funds from high-carbon to carbon-reduction spending (for example away from motorway-building and into public transport), and other ways of generating funds such as a green investment bank. It would mean having enough cash to invest heavily in a Green New Deal – a major plan to kickstart the transformation to a post-carbon economy while creating a million new jobs and training places. And the new jobs would in turn bring in extra revenue to support public spending (whereas cuts will cost the country a million jobs).

Greens and many others who do not “deny the deficit” would prefer the government to make this ideological choice – based on fairness and sustainability – not the one based on destroying public services and punishing the poorest people in society.

Yours sincerely,

Caroline Lucas MP

Green Party Leader

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