Published: 8 December, 2011

• The Tory-led government came in with bells and whistles promising to cut the deficit.

Instead we have been landed with a choked economy the result of which has been an escalating benefits bill to record levels.

Interest alone has gone up under the watch of this government from £27.2bn to £42.9bn.

And we discover that Vodafone – ranked 99th in the world and sixth in the UK with a £46.8bn turnover – gets away with paying £6bn less tax in a deal with the revenue, a reduction from £7bn, all because it channeled its business offshore.

The forgiven £6bn Vodafone tax bill is 375 times what Camden Council has had to cut from its adult social care budget which, on its own, stands at a towering £17million representing the largest share of cuts in Camden directly impacting on front-line care services.

We need to adopt tougher anti-avoidance tax laws, and we need to start from a point which admits that this and the financial crisis is a global problem which requires global solutions.

We need a government brave enough to start a worldwide collaboration creating a level playing field in global economics.

Tories are hell-bent on an ideological trajectory which will bleed the economy and push this country into an abyss of haves and have-nots.

Cllr Meric Apak
Labour, Kentish Town ward