Dr Nick Read

Et tu, Vincent; the unkindest cut of all!

Cuts will hit poor 10 times harder than rich – report.   This was the headline in this morning Guardian.  Well, of course they will!  It’s common sense, if the government makes cuts in public spending, it’s the poor,  many of whom are single parents and pensioners, who will suffer most.  They’ll suffer most because they do not have reserve capacity and so they desperately need the extra that benefits provide.   The rich have got their own private sources of funds and while they might miss out on a foreign holiday or delay buying a new car, they will not experience real hardship.  

Last night’s Any questions was broadcast from Sheffield High School on the borders of Nick Clegg’s constituency.  The panel agreed that Sheffield, which is still recovering from the collapse of steel and mining industries in the eighties, will suffer more than most cities from the cuts.   Fourteen miles to the south and west in the picturesque vales of Derbyshire around the Chatsworth Estate, there will be scarce a scratch.  Indeed, this morning as I ran past the Carleton Gate, a notice advertised £1000 reward for information leading to the recovery of a precious African Grey Parrot on long term medication.  It’s a different world down here.  But I still get an embarrassing cheque for winter fuel allowance, free bus travel and reductions on the train!   

I voted for this government.  I wanted to get away from the adversarial bickering of party politics and have a real mature consensus.  I reasoned that there wasn’t much to choose between the parties and when it came down to it.  Surely, men and women of slightly different persuasions would be able to work together for the good of the country.  And that, by and large seems to be happening, but I and millions of others hadn’t quite realised how draconian the cuts might be. 

Just this last week, George Osborne announced that he wanted to cut an extra 4 billion off the welfare budget (over and above the 11 billion planned) by making it much harder for people to remain on unemployment benefit long term,  VAT has been increased, Vince Cable announced that Royal Mail delivery services could be sold off with many thousands of job losses, and front line services in the police may go with £40,000 job losses.   Funding for schools is to be reduced, and unversities do not have the capacity to accept students who would otherwise get in.  This year, even students with four A’s are having to sign on.   And yet, there is no sign of the increased investment that might allow the economy to generate funds and avoid a catastrophic rise in uneployment and poverty.  Such cuts tear at the seams of the social fabric and threaten the release of criminal behaviour and civil unrest.  And yet they’re slashing front line jobs in the police force as well. 

Is this joined up government?  Are ministers talking to each other?  Who’s in charge of publicity anyway?  It doesn’t make sense.     

What does the government expect?  That workers will be phlegmatic about it and say, ‘yes, we’ll do our bit for the country’.  They might have done this 70 years ago with the bombs falling and ‘Winnie’ in charge.   But now?  I fear that  as the cuts go deeper, people will get so angry they will take matters into their own hands.  I fear this oncoming winter of discontent will be every bit as bad as 1979 and Maggie’s no longer in the wings with a rescue package.  Gordon Brown must feel vindicated, although his policy of tax and spend risked economic collapse by driving interest rates up.  

There is a limit to how long government can continue to bleat; ‘It’s the last lot who created the mess.  We’re just trying to clear it up and it’s going to be tough for us all.’  No it’s not; it’s going to be tougher on the poorest among us and the last lot still say they would have done it so differently.  But is that so much Ed Balls?