A Mayor Who Blows Millions

In Leicester we’ve spent £4 million on the Richard III centre, with a grand total of 14 jobs created… for which 400 people applied. Our illustrious mayor finds this “fascinating” and reckons this is down to it being an “interesting place to work”, according to the Leicester Mercury. Well, maybe it will be… The new Red Hot Buffet, on the other hand, had 2000 applications for 80 job spots, so that must be utterly mind-blowing!

I’m so glad that the £4 million has been spent on this fascinating workplace (and the £7 million being spent on decorative baubles for Jubilee Square) wasn’t squandered on pointless rubbish like the recently closed homeless shelters, or staff for children’s homes, or the adult care budget, or the meals on wheels service, or the adventure playgrounds, or the SureStart centres, or the local libraries, or the Highfields Centre, or the racial equality centre, or the local ambulance service, or any of the other things our Labour Party mayor has chopped.

Seriously though, our mayor has lost the plot, and so has the council who back him. With the best will in the world to the Richard III history buffs, 400 people didn’t apply for those spots because of some deeply held desire to sit in a perspex box and flog tickets to a visitor centre. They applied because of the hellish JSA (Jobseekers Allowance)  treadmill that forces people to apply over and over for jobs that just aren’t there.

And as for the money, I don’t have any particular problem with the concept of fancy baubles for the centre. But I DO have a problem with a mayor that puts through cut after cut, crying “austerity!” on the one hand, while pleasuring his ego with the other via a series of absurd vanity projects.

If anyone reading this agrees with me, there is an alternative — it’s TUSC, the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition. TUSC councillors and MPs won’t put through cuts. TUSC won’t prioritise vanity projects ahead of essential services. TUSC won’t compromise or cave in to the unnecessary ConDem/Labour austerity agenda. What TUSC will do, however, is represent the interest of everyday people and fight tooth and nail on your behalf.

Come to our meeting on Monday (7th July), at 7pm, in the Leicester Town Hall. Join in and get involved.