Monday 20 September 2010

Public Taking News Of Cuts…Surprisingly Well!

Julian Glover reports from a meeting of the think tank Reform in Cannock to gauge reaction to the proposed cuts:
There was no enthusiasm, and no outrage. Nobody shouted. Nobody interrupted the panel of local worthies. In a room of about 120 Cannock people, not one called for spending levels to be sustained, or thought this possible. Instead, there was an anaesthetised acceptance of impending pain.
I guess they won’t be sitting down in the motorway, then, Bob…
Cannock once trusted new Labour and got its reward. Spending shot up so fast that one can't help suspecting some of it will be easier to cut than critics say. Education spending in Staffordshire this year is £805m, or £4,078 per pupil – 63% up on the level of 2003 to 2004. In just three years, South Staffordshire Primary Care Trust's resources-limit has risen from £663m to £888m: up 44%.
At Friday's meeting I heard nothing suggesting people thought all this money well spent.
And there’s the rub.

If they’ve seen no benefit from this largesse (other than taxpayer-funded hectoring and nagging), why should they then object when it’s taken away?

After all, the disconnect between what the voters want and what the council want couldn’t be starker, as evidenced by this:
…how will the local council manage to save 35% over the next three years? Stephen Brown, its chief executive, warned it could be reduced to "cutting the grass and emptying the bins. That would be a tragedy".
Would it? Not for me.

That’s what I pay my council tax for, not for anti-smoking task forces and five-a-day co-ordinators!
Only half his spending is discretionary, so cuts will fall most heavily on those things the council has chosen to do: employment advice, leisure and culture, he suggested.
Those are all things that the council should never have got involved in in the first place
There's raw meat here for Labour. But raging against cuts would have found little echo in Cannock last Friday. There was a resigned sense that the government is right about the money having run out – and I felt that a soap-box rant against spending restraint would have been met by an impatient "sure; but it's coming, so how best can we handle it?".
It seems the voters are far, far more savvy than the progressives think. They’ve had enough.
In Cannock, the loudest applause was for Sheila Brown, an impressive self-taught social entrepreneur, of the sort Cameron's team worship. She has built the Newlife Foundation for Disabled Children, based in Cannock, into a national charity. Cuts would hurt, she agreed, but society would respond. "We need to re-establish who is truly vulnerable. Benefits are too complicated. Sometimes its easier to sit on a sofa. It's not that people are lazy, just that the system is structured wrong."
Oh, heresy! Oh, calamity! Oh…

Oh:
The people I met in Cannock seemed to agree.
Heh! Welcome to the shrinking of the state…


6 comments:

James Higham said...

That would be a tragedy".

Would it? Not for me.

Nor for me either nor for the vast majority, I'd warrant.

Ian F4 said...

BBC tonight are showing a Panorama on public sector workers who earn more than the PM, this includes council leaders.

Check out the accompanying website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11333472

And make sure you check out the Local Government section, be warned, make sure you are sitting down.

I think I've just found out where to make some cuts.

Jiks said...

Couldn't agree more with what both you and James said.

JuliaM said...

"...nor for the vast majority, I'd warrant."

Indeed. Ask any councillor what they get the most complaints about. It won't be lack of diversity outreach co-ordinators, that's for sure...

"I think I've just found out where to make some cuts."

This tired old cliche that they must pay the big bucks to get the best is surly a busted flush by now. Best at what?

Lining their own pockets, it seems...

moriarty said...

Welcome to the shrinking of the state…

Unfortunately, I really don't think Cameron capable of doing this, even without the Libdem albatross around his neck.

Not that it isn't what he'd really like you understand, I just don't think he has the balls to try it.

Furor Teutonicus said...

There was no enthusiasm, and no outrage. Nobody shouted. Nobody interrupted the panel of local worthies. In a room of about 120 Cannock people, not one called for spending levels to be sustained, or thought this possible. Instead, there was an anaesthetised acceptance of impending pain.

Not because the public, by now, realise that resistance is futile, perchance?

There was never much dissent at the annual meeting of the Soviet socialist Republics either.

In fact the Westminster dicatorship has you all EXACTLY where it wanted you to be.