Councillor John Marjoram attended the annual National Green Councillors’ Conference in Liverpool. At the event last weekend, he was elected as Vice Chair of the Association of Green Councils.
Although buoyed up by the election of more Green Councillors – now numbering over 150 around the country, the election of a Green MEP in the South West and a national membership increase of 23% since the beginning of the year, the Conference was in a realistic mood.
John Marjoram said: “In this country we are faced by continuing public service cuts supported by the three main political Parties, allowing inequality to go unchecked. The five richest families in this country are wealthier than 20% of the entire population – that is 12.6 million people, many of them using food banks! What an absolute, criminal disgrace.”
Speakers at the Conference included local Trade Union reps together with the one of the chairs of the LGA (Local Government Association), who painted a gloomy picture for Local Authorities. Members at the conference started working on the draft manifesto for the General Election, calling to bring back funding for Local Authorities to 2010 levels so as to save vital services that have already been cut, and to devolve more real power from Central Government to local communities. Stroud would no doubt benefit from such changes.
Notes
Inequality statistics taken from http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/a-tale-of-two-britains-inequality-in-the-uk-314152