Courtesy of Peter McMillan

West Sussex Socialists

This article in The Socialist is by Sarah Welch, West Sussex Socialist Party

The link is here 

In 2019-20, the former chief executive of the Tory council in West Sussex received a £265,000 exit package. Financial statements for 2020-21 reveal three more large payouts.

The executive director for adults and health received £110,473. The former director for communities received £88,358. And another received £34,000.

In total, 43 exit deals cost the council £1.1m in 2020-21. The cost for 2019-20 was roughly the same for almost double the number of exit packages at 81.

There have been large payouts to recruitment agencies. Hamptons Resourcing received £173,400 and McLean Partnership received £249,423.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money just wasted.

We are waiting to hear what cuts are being made to our service, adult social care. We think it will be over £2 million. The council constantly tells us that it has no money, and has "difficult decisions to make".

In 2018, I was part of a campaign group fighting to keep my son's centre open. We attended one of the council committee meetings. When they adjourned for lunch and we walked through the dining area, we saw their five-star buffet, including waiter service and wine.

Our local paper, Chichester Observer, has pointed out that the only other West Sussex residents in receipt of free food are some school children dependent on their parents' benefit levels. They only receive £15 supermarket vouchers a week in school holidays.

The council's gluttony is an insult to the people who have just had their Universal Credit cut, and all those that have been forced to use food banks. It's yet another example of the greed and mismanagement at the top.

We need an end to cuts, and democratic workers' control to run the services that we all need.

Dodgy

The Tories should not be called ‘dodgy’ by Zarah Sultana. 

I withdraw the word ‘dodgy’, how about ‘suspect’/‘crooked’/‘shifty’/‘dicey’ or ‘knavish’?  Just call them ‘Tories.’ 

 

Remembrance Sunday

"Dulce et Decorum Est pro Patria Mori" was a phrase they taught public school boys. "It is sweet and fitting to die for your country." or better yet get your servants to go off and die on your behalf obviously.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge. 

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind. 

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . 

.
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning. 

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918
--

http://derekmcmillan.com/