please empty your brain below
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Very clever! Great start to the day.
NLW | 14.12.10 - 7:25 a.m. | #
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I was also going to comment on the consequences for employees. I know that one service to face massive cuts in many local areas is the Connexions youth service - many have been made redundant. This is particularly disturbing in the light of the Blairite impetus on emphasising HE / FE as a natural progression from high school, given that many lower-skilled occupations were being off-shored or disappearing because of technological advances. Also slashed is the education budget. Institutions have made cuts of between 10-30% across the board or in targetted areas. I understand that entire faculties have been wiped in some places. Added together this will mean fewer places for young people post school, probably more NEETS as a result and fewer people to assist these young people find work. We all know what happens when we mix youth, poverty and few options, because we saw it under Thatcher and because a decade and a bit of 'social exclusion' initiatives under Blair / Brown warned about it. Holistically it's a mess. But no doubt they will simply blame the young people concerned, or say that social services employees were slackers and had it coming, etc. Or everyone will have a nephew or daughter of a work colleague who found Connexions useless so who needs it anyway, etc.
Antipodean | 14.12.10 - 8:00 a.m. | #
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I'm old enough to remember this the first time round: Local government reform punished labour authorities under the tory government, then the labour party found they could use the same formula to punish tory authorities - i.e. make them spend according to government priorities. And the roundabout continues on its merry circular way.
Richard | Homepage | 14.12.10 - 8:35 a.m. | #
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Straitjacket. Sorry. Still, it effortlessly cuts a couple of letters.
Sarah | Homepage | 14.12.10 - 9:05 a.m. | #
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Living in a Tory area that has seen some of the tightest settlements ever over the last decade and a bit, my sympathy is limited.
As usual, rural "Tory" areas receive funding cuts when Labour are in power. When the Tories return to power, the axe must fall on things that are considered "nice" or "unnecessary", which invariably means spending on anything in the rural parts of southern England. You'll see poverty in pockets in the rural south to match anything you'll find in the poor urban north. How you address both, I'm not sure.
graybo | Homepage | 14.12.10 - 9:05 a.m. | #
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I'm with Graybo on this. In some areas in the south, the central funding provided, per person, is just over £100, whereas in others (eg Hackney) it is well over £1000.
If anyone wants to see how each area of the UK benefits from what is produced in London, East Anglia and the SE, you only need to look here.
The cuts have to come from somewhere. I'm unconvinced it will be mostly, or even mainly, from those who actually deliver services. For example, in Oxfordshire the library service is cutting its 17 managers to 6.
And, even with DG's cleverly cut text, it's still very readbale, isn't it?
It's time the people who live in areas where state handouts (ie paid for by those of us who pay tax) are the norm got off their backsides and did something about their situation. When I lived in an area without jobs to suit my skill-set, I moved. I know many other people who have done this over the years: some even living away from their families in the week.
When times are hard, people have to be more creative. Less moaning, more problem solving is required.
Blue Witch | Homepage | 14.12.10 - 9:30 a.m. | #
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Humorous, but not too enlightening. The numbers quoted are meaningless without an understanding of per capita expenditure.
| 14.12.10 - 12:01 p.m. | #
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Very clever.
CornishCockney | 14.12.10 - 3:36 p.m. | #
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"Less moaning, more problem solving is required".
Blimey, someone's lost their sense of irony :)
Gerald | 15.12.10 - 3:38 p.m. | #
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