I WAS proud to be involved in two inspiring events in York on Tuesday (The Press, February 23).

Green Party leader Caroline Lucas MP spoke passionately to party members and candidates on the alternatives to cuts – keeping tax income in the economy by investing in a million green jobs and protecting decent levels of social care and health services, while also taxing the banks and the City and tackling high-level tax evasion.

All speakers at the broad-based York Stop The Cuts public meeting later that evening emphasised that these cuts are not inevitable.

The last thing we need in the face of recession is to take yet more jobs and money out of the economy. After all, the deficit is lower than it has been during most years in the 20th century.

Historically, the poll tax and more recently the u-turn on the Forestry Commission sell-off show that governments bent on ideological cuts, as these cuts are, do respond to widespread public pressure.

A million people on the TUC’s March For The Alternative in London on March 26 will show that these cuts are not acceptable. To reserve coach tickets email yorkrighttowork@gmail.com

Denise Craghill, Green Party Candidate for Guildhall Ward, Broadway West, York.