We got an idea of what the austerity drive will mean for the first time yesterday as the coalition Government signalled billions of pounds of cuts to hospitals, libraries, leisure projects and roads.
Free swimming for the over-60s and under-16s is to be abolished. A Stonehenge visitor centre is not to go ahead saving £25 million. The £7 billion programme to replace the fleet of Sea King search-and-rescue helicopters is suspended. More than £1 billion for the young unemployed is to be cut and an £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters cancelled. A long-planned hospital in Stockton-on-Tees will not be built.
So there you go in the same week that we are squabbling about who should go to a garden party with the Queen, £1 billion to help young people into work is being cut. That begs the question how is the coalition going to get jobs for all these people and get them off JSA?
Danny Alexander (late of the Scotland Office) detailed an unheralded announcement to the Commons. He said that the Treasury was cutting 12 projects worth £2 billion and suspending a dozen more worth £8.5 billion. In addition, he said that he had found a £1 billion hole in the public finances, where Labour had committed the Government to programmes financed by non-existent under spending, which brought the total necessary savings to £11.5 billion.
Yesterday’s cuts are but a foretaste of what will follow next week when George Osborne will use his Budget to announce by how many tens of billions he intends to reduce spending.
Mr Alexander’s axe fell three times on Sheffield, potentially costing the constituency of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, more than £100 million. Along with the Forgemasters loan, which had been intended to support the nuclear industry, a £13 million industrial park was cancelled and £12 million plans to modernise the city’s shopping centre suspended. So nuclear power stations and weapons yes; ancillary investment for the nuclear industry no. That should make for safe new power stations or are we going to buy that all in from Iran or North Korea?
Well there you go as usual its garden parties and royal junkets yes; help for unemployed young people no. Hundreds of new Lords yes; new hospitals no. Nuclear weapons that we will never use yes: search and rescue helicopters no.
If this is only a drop in the ocean to what we can expect next week and then you add in tax hikes as well I would not be surprise if the legendary patience of the British people snapped rather like it did over the poll tax and civil disobedience was the result.
Free swimming for the over-60s and under-16s is to be abolished. A Stonehenge visitor centre is not to go ahead saving £25 million. The £7 billion programme to replace the fleet of Sea King search-and-rescue helicopters is suspended. More than £1 billion for the young unemployed is to be cut and an £80 million loan to Sheffield Forgemasters cancelled. A long-planned hospital in Stockton-on-Tees will not be built.
So there you go in the same week that we are squabbling about who should go to a garden party with the Queen, £1 billion to help young people into work is being cut. That begs the question how is the coalition going to get jobs for all these people and get them off JSA?
Danny Alexander (late of the Scotland Office) detailed an unheralded announcement to the Commons. He said that the Treasury was cutting 12 projects worth £2 billion and suspending a dozen more worth £8.5 billion. In addition, he said that he had found a £1 billion hole in the public finances, where Labour had committed the Government to programmes financed by non-existent under spending, which brought the total necessary savings to £11.5 billion.
Yesterday’s cuts are but a foretaste of what will follow next week when George Osborne will use his Budget to announce by how many tens of billions he intends to reduce spending.
Mr Alexander’s axe fell three times on Sheffield, potentially costing the constituency of Nick Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, more than £100 million. Along with the Forgemasters loan, which had been intended to support the nuclear industry, a £13 million industrial park was cancelled and £12 million plans to modernise the city’s shopping centre suspended. So nuclear power stations and weapons yes; ancillary investment for the nuclear industry no. That should make for safe new power stations or are we going to buy that all in from Iran or North Korea?
Well there you go as usual its garden parties and royal junkets yes; help for unemployed young people no. Hundreds of new Lords yes; new hospitals no. Nuclear weapons that we will never use yes: search and rescue helicopters no.
If this is only a drop in the ocean to what we can expect next week and then you add in tax hikes as well I would not be surprise if the legendary patience of the British people snapped rather like it did over the poll tax and civil disobedience was the result.
