Should we believe Cameron’s friends?
In a moment of New Labour-bashing whimsy, Cameron seemed to justify the spending cuts by condemning the opposition’s original plan as ‘not good enough.’ To ratify his assertion, he quickly reeled off a list of organisations who apparently think the same: Bank of England, CBI, OECD, and the IMF.
I can’t help but feel that Cameron’s argument is nothing short of an extravaganza of disingenuousness, and the infuriation I felt as a result was only compounded by the fact that it went completely unchallenged.
So let’s do this.
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Nick Robinson attacks anti-war placard
via Mehdi Hasan.
Imagine if that was some right-wing placard (‘stop immigration!’) – the Daily Mail would go postal about his supposed left-wing bias.
Quite funny watching Robinson get so annoyed though. This happened yesterday.
Our great housing scandal gets worse
The Comprehensive Spending Review spelled some extremely bad news in the housing sector. It’s a review that will cause hardship for many and homelessness for thousands.
It’s not simply that Osbourne scaled back the plans of building new affordable homes by 30%, there has been a general assault on rights and benefits that will lead to misery and homelessness.
The ending of Secure Tenancies for council house tenants is the end of an era. The post-war settlement that created affordable homes for working people was a massive attack upon one of the great divides in society – decent housing.
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How the cuts will destroy lives of people like Sue Marsh, and encourage divorce
Hidden in the mass of detail rushed out yesterday was a key change that will cause untold misery and destroy lives.
You think I’m exaggerating? Here’s one example where it is happening already, and it makes me angry.
First, the explanation. George Osborne said that the Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) would be limited for a year. This used to be called Incapacity Benefit.
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Boris to raise London fares by 74% in Jan
Yesterday Transport for London quietly announced that they will be raising prices on public transport significantly – by as much as 74% in one case.
Here is a chart on how current Travelcard options will change in price.
| Price now | in January | % change | |
| Zone 1-2 offpeak | £5.60 | £6.60 | 17.8% |
| Zone 1-2 peak | £7.20 | £8 | 11.1% |
| Zone 1-4 offpeak | £6.30 | £7.30 | 15.8% |
| Zone 1-4 peak | £10 | £10 | 0 |
| Zone 1-6 offpeak | £7.50 | £8 | 6.6% |
| Zone 1-6 peak | £14.80 | £15 | 1.3% |
But that isn’t the worst of it. Products like the Zones 2-6 One Day Travelcard will be permanently withdrawn.
This means travellers will have to buy a 1-6 Zone Travelcard instead – meaning a jump from £8.60 to £15 during peak times. That’s an increase of 74%. Off-peak, it’s a rise from £5.10 to £8.00 – a jump of 57%.
There will also be a 50% rise in the Child One Day Travelcard, going from £2 to £3.
Once again – Boris will hit London’s hardest up with his transport fares rises, as he did last year.
And yet it’s very likely the London press will ignore all this and crow about how Boris ‘saved’ Crossrail.
And why are these prices rising? As Adam Bienkov points out:
Approximately one-third of TfL’s funding comes from a direct grant from the Department for Transport (DfT).
Following the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), TfL’s overall grant funding from the DfT has been reduced by £2.17bn in total over the four years covered by the CSR, or 21% in real terms in 2014/15, when compared to the base year of 2010/11.
In other words Boris’ budget was cut more savagely than most other departments.
Cuts were fair, Clegg tells Libdems
Nick Clegg sought to reassure Liberal Democrats worried by the depth of the cuts as he insisted that the party’s values were written through the spending plans “like the message in a stick of rock”.
In a letter to party members yesterday, the Liberal Democrat leader said: “We have had to make some very difficult choices. But the review is one that promotes fairness, underpins growth, reduces carbon emissions and localises power.”
Some politicians were reassured by George Osborne’s assertion that the average 19 per cent cut in spending by non-protected government departments was less than Labour had envisaged. But worries about some of the measures – such as cuts to child benefit and housing benefit – still surfaced among the party’s MPs and activists.
Benjamin Ramm, editor of the Liberal magazine, said: “These cuts are as swift and savage as many Lib Dems feared and I know of no party member who will campaign to defend them.”
Why cuts in real spending could be double the projections
By how much will public spending fall in real terms?
The Treasury puts the fall in departmental and administration budgets at 8.3% in real terms between 2010-11 and 2014-15: see table A5 here (pdf). This could be too optimistic.
It implies that prices rise by 9% in the next four years – 2.2% a year.
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Labour proved right on cancer: 1wk target gone
In April this year a front-page Sunday Times story kicked off a row about cancer diagnosis times.
The paper reported:
Cards addressed to sufferers by name warn that a Labour guarantee to see a cancer specialist within two weeks would be scrapped by the Tories. Labour claims the Conservatives would also do away with the right to be treated within 18 weeks.
At the time Cameron went ballistic and demanded Labour apologise for putting out ‘scaremongering’ leaflets.
The Sunday Times quoted Andrew Lansley saying:
For Labour’s campaign to deliberately distress or scare sufferers from breast cancer is shameful. Because we are going to increase the NHS budget in real terms and cut bureaucracy and waste, we will have the capacity to ensure that cancer patients are seen sooner than they are at the moment and to meet the quality standards that they expect.
Turns out Labour were right to warn NHS users after all.
As @gregbeales points out: Page 43 of spending review doc – government abandons 1-week wait guarantee for cancer tests.
This is what the report says:
To ensure spending is focused on priorities, some programmes announced by the previous government but not yet implemented will not be taken forward.
This includes free prescriptions for people with long term conditions, the right to one-to-one nursing for cancer patients and the target of a one week wait for cancer diagnostics.
So will the Conservatives apologise now for another u-turn on a key promise just before the election?
Update Paul Waugh confirms:
Yup, looks like it’s been dumped. DoH sources say the one week cancer wait guarantee has been “dropped on account of lack of sufficient clinical evidence to support it”.
“Patients should be seen as soon as it’s necessary, for some that will be sooner than a week,” they say.
Update: Got this slightly mixed up, like others. It seems that the one-week wait was never the subject of controversy in the leaflets. That was the two week guarantee under contention. Thanks to commenters who pointed that out.
Budget admits poorest will be hit hardest
Today George Osborne said:
We are all in this together and all must make a contribution.
Fairness means creating a welfare system that helps the vulnerable, supports people into work, and is also affordable for the working families who pay for it from their taxes.
Except that the CSR report itself contradicts this.
Sky News points out that a chart on page 98 of the official document reveals the bottom 10% of earners will lose the most money from the cuts.
Even taken with the impact of June’s Budget measures, only the very richest bear more of the brunt than the poorest.
Burdz Eye View blogger points out how spending aimed at some of the most marginalised in society is being cut drastically, only to save “paltry” sums.
Update:
Demos point to another graph, also in the budget report, that shows the poorest will be hit hardest by the changes in welfare.
The CSR – key reactions
I’m tracking interesting reactions from people, organisations and bloggers as they come in. Please feel free to add your links below.
ORGANISATIONS
From Crisis, charity for single homeless people:
Before the comprehensive spending review the coalition government made a clear pledge – that the cuts would be fair. That pledge has been broken. It is the poorest and most vulnerable adults who will suffer the most from the cuts announced today.
They face the prospect of a 50% reduction in the funding for social and affordable housing, less stability if they do manage to get hold of a home and fewer opportunities to gain the skills and education they need to help themselves.
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