GIVEN the protracted and various strikes by council workers over the past few months, will the Unite senior convenor Mark Wood answer the following questions.
(1) It has been widely reported that he said “the union has vowed to work politically with Labour to, in effect, remove the current Conservative administration in Southampton at the 2012 local elections”. By definition this infers yet more strikes leading up to the local elections.
By what right has he to literally blackmail the voters in this way?
Does he not remember the appalling record of year on year council tax increases when Labour were last in office? (Or is Mark Wood one of those not affected by it). Amongst some of their more famous expenditure plans were that taxes went up over 100 per cent in ten years, they purchased the tug boat “Southampton” for a rediculously high price and all it was used for was to hold one staff Christmas party on board, (it then was left to rot in some backwater).
They put £300,000 of council taxpayers’ money into supporting the then ABP venture of attempting to develop Dibden Bay for an extension to the container industry and Dibden Bay is not even in the Southampton Unitary Authority area.
(2) Apart from such an obvious political move, for what reason on this Earth would anyone wish to have Labour back in office given their cavalier attitude with council taxpayers’ money?
It was the voters who were totally fed up with the last lot who reinstated the Conservatives because of their reckless spending!
M CLEMENTS, Southampton.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here