Dave Edler
Respect Party
Milkstone & Deeplish Ward
I am the RESPECT candidate (endorsed by TUSC - The Trades Unionist & Socialist Coalition) for Milkstone & Deeplish. Although my legal name is Dawud Islam I am better known through my career as an actor, journalist and broadcaster as Dave Edler and that is the name that appears on the ballot paper. I currently broadcast daily on Tameside Radio covering sport and including a one hour show Dave's Diary on Friday evenings. I also present a Bollywood Music show 'Bollywood For Beginners'. I write for the Tameside Reporter and Glossop Chronicle and I am 51 years of age and married with no children.
OK that's the biographical stuff dealt with, so why am I standing in this election? It's certainly not because Labour don't have a good candidate. Sameena is a hard working local activist and under normal circumstances would make an excellent local councillor, not least because we need more women in council chambers. However, this is not a normal election. We find ourselves in the position where Labour has abandoned the very people that it is supposed to be standing up for. Rochdale, a town with a 300% increase in food bank usage in the past year, is facing another round of cuts totalling £50 million. The Labour run council say that they are implementing these cuts with a 'heavy heart' and blaming the government. They say they have no choice. But they are not telling the truth. The council has reserves that it could use to offset against the latest round of cuts and instead campaign to build resistance to austerity ahead of a hoped for change of government next year. This would be a popular policy that would garner mass working class support but they will not do it. This is because they know there will be more of the same whoever wins the 2015 general election. Ed Balls has, disgracefully, already committed to match or even go further than the current austerity plans of Gideon Osborne. There will be no respite. There are plenty of good people in the Rochdale CLP but none of them have the guts to vote against the cuts though many privately want to. They know that if they do they will face the same fate as that suffered by the Labour councillors in Hull that dared to vote against the party whip and who were then first suspended and later expelled from the party. All the other 5 candidates in this election will vote through the cuts. Indeed the UKIP candidate will argue for even more savage cutbacks alongside a massive tax reduction for the rich when the party introduces a standard rate of income tax.
If you vote for me you vote for a major collaboration between two of the main parties of the left, RESPECT and TUSC. Working together is the way forwards for those of us that want to see a genuine alternative to the unnecessary politics of austerity. I am also active in Ken Loach's new Left Unity party. By collaborating the left can build bridges and offer a genuine alternative. I am also heavily involved in Manchester Peoples Assembly and support any other organisations fighting for fairness. People in Milkstone & Deeplish ward are amongst some of the poorest in Britain and contributed nothing towards the financial crisis caused by the recklessness of the bankers. However whilst the latter enjoy huge bonuses for their failures the people of Rochdale suffer in silence as the cost of living crisis makes them have to choose between heating or eating. It doesn't have to be like this. RESPECT and TUSC say no to ALL cuts. If you elect me as your councillor I will put forward a vastly different argument to the politics of austerity and will vote against ALL attempts to impose further financial constraints on the people of Rochdale. As the former Deputy Leader of RESPECT I have worked closely with George Galloway MP over the past 2 years in building a strategy against the neo liberal agenda. I know that he has great respect (no pun intended) for the people of Rochdale and was delighted with my candidacy. In the event of my election he has promised to do all he can to support me in my efforts to fight austerity in Rochdale.
Dawud Islam (Dave Edler)
07715 629525
