THE choices we make in the next general election will have consequences for the economy and every one of our public services – whether they are devolved or not. At this election people will make a choice about the next UK Government. That choice on the things that will directly affect every level of government and every community that we represent.

This is true for much more than the popular media topic of healthcare. The ambition – if you can defend calling it such – to reduce spending on public services to 35 per cent of GDP will require colossal cuts and take spending levels down to comparable levels not seen since the 1930s according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The honest truth is that this will translate into significantly reduced and different public services that we will be able to provide. The effects on local government will directly affect every service, including schools, and every other service that relies on public funding like arts, cultural and leisure facilities. The current squeeze will seem like a gentle easing off in comparison.

The general election choice will have short and long term consequences. Such a fundamental re-imagining of the state will shape our society for generations to come. It will affect levels of poverty – in and out of work poverty as well as child poverty – and equality in a country that already has one of the most unequal societies in the developed world. These choices will shape the relationships we have with our fellow citizens; the quality of life we expect, the help and welfare we can expect from our country when we fall on hard times or become ill and shape the future that we will hope for our children.

It is not an exaggeration to say that what we are being offered by the Conservatives is a clear ideological attempt to reduce the influence of the state. We have already witnessed cuts to less ‘essential’ services but the biggest cuts are yet to come. Given a mandate the Tories will cut deep, with the IFS saying that 50 per cent of cuts are still on their way. This will result in a big change in operations with main departments of government facing cuts of 40 per cent. This will affect everything from infrastructure spending, to social housing, to policing and much more.

If people want to sign up for that choice for a radically reduced state with radically different public services able to do a significantly smaller number of things, that’s the choice people can make. I don’t think that’s the right choice for our country and I hope that people use the opportunity to take part in the election. This is about much more than voter registration and participation. The next election will decide for a long time to come what kind of country we can expect Wales to be and what kind of future we can all expect right across the UK