Madam,

You report the distress felt by the residents of Tywyn at the loss of yet another public service - the Royal Mail sorting office there (‘Anti-cuts group slams axing of sorting office’, last week’s Cambrian News).

Community leaders there rightly blame the ideology of ‘austerity’ which is a policy designed to make us pay back money we had to borrow from the rich to fund our health and education services.

We are told by the Tories that if we don’t pay back now (half the National Debt is owned by the rich here in the UK) ‘our grand-children’ will owe their grandchildren. I think not. Taxing the rich properly would, more likely, leave them indebted to us.

Privatisation inevitably results in levels of service and employment being driven by the profit motive rather than the public good. As the bus services across Gwynedd amply demonstrate.

Lack of real consultation on cuts is well exemplified by Gwynedd Council proposing hiking the student bus pass by £120 a year without having included the proposal in its Gwynedd Challenge survey. Fewer students for GCSEs and apprenticeships, less bus use, more student debt .The austerity agenda is one of cuts and privatisation. No belief in the virtues of self-help and rugged individualism can justify the deliberate creation and extension of poverty and desperation in our towns and countryside, nor justify the decimation of our public transport system here in north Wales.

Yours etc

Ian MacIntyre,Labour Party’s AM Candidate for Dwyfor Meirionnydd, Arthog Terrace

Arthog,