THE attack on anti-cuts campaigner Jill Huish by the deputy chairman of the local Conservative Party (January 28) shows an incredible level of misunderstanding of local government finance and ignorance of what actually has gone on in Oxfordshire County Council.

The core reason why these cuts are being made is that although we live in an affluent country with the 5th largest economy in the world this Government has chosen to cut care services, of which local government is a part and waste vast amounts of money on replacing Trident nuclear missiles and dropping even more bombs in the Middle East.

It is not a ‘stupid’ question to ask why this is happening because there obviously is an alternative with the warmongering costing three times the amount of the social cuts.

Why do they let large multinationals avoid paying tax and let the rich prosper at the expense of everybody else?

That’s not a stupid question when billions go missing. The cut in the rates support grant from this Conservative Government means the Tories want to cut £361m from the Oxfordshire budget, more than a third of spending and a scale of devastation that will be catastrophic to the services for the most vulnerable in our community... the elderly, the sick, people with disabilities, the homeless, the poor, children Never before has the County Council even remotely introduced such cuts on a scale of suffering that is unimaginable.. The ‘consultation’ launched by the Tories on the theme that told us which vulnerable group we should bash the most was not just stupid, it was shameful.

I went to the cabinet meeting last Tuesday and asked them to resign their membership of the Tory party in disgust.

They refused. They were not elected to make these cuts, their constituents don’t want them to make these cuts and I am absolutely sure the people of Oxfordshire don’t want these cuts. However, they put their party loyalty before the people and voted them through. Mr Stafford says there is an absence of a credible alternative.

Where has he been for the last five years? Yes the Labour Party and the Lib Dem leaders meet in secret conclaves with the Tory county leader and agree that there is no alternative but every year the Greens put forward a fully costed and legal alternative budget that takes the sting out of the worst cuts.

This time we will save the children’s centres, put back the bus cuts and protect the homeless.

We will save the wellbeing centres and put back the cuts to the frail and elderly, special needs children and those in desperate need of dementia care. There has always been an alternative and the Greens have never been afraid of putting it forward.

DAVID WILLIAMS Leader of the Green Group Oxfordshire County Council London Road, Headington, Oxford