Tories are creating a 'smaller, less tolerant Britain'

The Tory-Lib Dem government is creating "a smaller Britain, a less tolerant country," UNISON told Labour delegates in Liverpool today. Speaking at the equalities debate, on the final day of the party's conference, Labour Link delegate Pat May said that the fight against inequality, racism and prejudice was a fight for public services."Without our Black members and migrant worker members, public services would grind to a halt," she said. Ms May spoke of the union's fight against the BNP and of the Hope Not Hate campaign. But she added that "the politics of demonising and scapegoating" migrant workers and other minorities for the problems caused by employers and the financial crisis "is not restricted to the far right. It has entered the mainstream."Shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper told delegates that equality had been debated on every day of the conference. She spoke in particular of the hardships felt by women under the current government, "being hit twice as hard as men by the government tax and benefit changes" as well as by the "double discrimination" of sexism and ageism. Ms Cooper told delegates that when deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman and others confronted David Cameron with the problems being faced by women, "his response was not 'sorry', but 'calm down'."He will learn that women across the country are not going to calm down, but will get angrier and angrier, louder and louder."Also referring to the prominence of the NHS on the conference agenda this week, she added: "We know that whatever our background, the NHS is the most important institutional embodiment of fairness and equality in our society."