More in fear than in hope...just

With public spending cuts now firmly on the table from both party leaders, disabled trade union leader Gareth Davies finds himself in an unusual position as he ponders the post-election world

At one time it was all so simple. Come election time, if you were in favour of cuts in public spending you voted Conservative. If you weren’t you voted Labour, and if you couldn’t decide either way you went Lib Dem.

Not that, as a disabled trade union official, Gareth Davies’s political alignment is ever much in doubt. As General Secretary of the National League of the Blind and Disabled – now integrated into Community, one of the new uber-unions, his Labour allegiance holds firm.

But it’s precisely because of his substantive position that he now finds himself facing a rather unusual dilemma.

With both Prime Minister Gordon Brown (speaking to the TUC) and Tory leader David Cameron talking openly about spending cuts as part of their pre-election agendas, Davies is having to face up to a harsh reality.

“Something like a trillion and a quarter pounds was used to bail out the banks. Obviously we’d like to think they’d get that money back by the sale of shares, but that can’t be guaranteed, so you’ve an enormous deficit. And that’s the case whichever party gets elected.”

It’s rare to find a trade unionist being so stoical about the possibility of spending cuts in the public sector. After all, the people likely to be hardest hit by cuts to social welfare budgets are likely to be those in the constituency he represents and, of which he’s part.

And indeed, he does say that we should take warning from the on-going legacy of previous attempts to trim social welfare spending.

“They’re now talking about two million people on Incapacity Benefit. That happened as a direct result of government trying to reduce the amount it spent on unemployment benefit.”

The prospect of a Conservative election victory at present fills Davies with fear of the unknown rather than fear of what might happen.

“I’ve yet to see anything of any great substance out of Cameron”, he says.

“He’s proposing some savings from things like cuts to ministers’ salaries. But I’m still waiting for concrete proposals from the Tories.”

Davies is also sceptical about the possibilities of savings resulting from changes to disability benefits such as those laid out in the recent government green paper.

“They’re talking about taking away Attendance Allowance and ‘other disability benefits’. We’re hoping that the Tories wouldn’t go too wild on that and frankly the Labour Government hasn’t got time to do it.”

Summing up whether he’s fearful or hopeful for the future regardless of the election outcome, Davies remains ultimately phlegmatic.

“I’m fearful because of the dire straits that we’re in. But I’m not panicking…yet.”