In heated exchanges in the Commons today Labour's former home secretary David Blunkett said:
It is inevitable that if you cut external funding to authorities based on the fact that they received it specifically because of their levels of deprivation ... those in greatest need will inevitably take the biggest cuts.
The Communities Minister Bob Neill was drowned out by uproar from Labour benches as he replied:
Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt...
So there we have it. Admission that the poor are intended to be hurt most by cuts.
As I suspected all along.
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Well, there we have it from the horses mouth.
Someone in the Liberal Democrat Party with some sense left must have their hand hovering over the off switch on this ridiculous coalition?
The British people did not vote for this. The Tories have no mandate for the kind of cuts they are trumpeting and the Tories are riding roughshod over the election result.
In fairness to the fellow, you could have added that he also said:
“I hope you will recognise that if we are to have sustainable and quality local government services the first thing we want to do it to get this country’s economic mess sorted out.”
Somebody is going to affected by these cuts, some more than others, just as some people are more affected by tax increases than others.
@BenM
Oh come on, are you saying that the country voted for the government to carry on spending as if there is no tomorrow and merely increase the huge indebtedness we are already in.
Perhaps you could enlighten us with what the country voted for, particularly in respect of the economic situation.
“The British people did not vote for this. The Tories have no mandate for the kind of cuts they are trumpeting and the Tories are riding roughshod over the election result.”
It speaks volumes about Labour’s mismanagement of the country’s finances that with the government spending 50% of GDP and running a 15% deficit that Blunkett should feel he has to speak out on behalf of the most vulnerable. The present government is not cutting back an already meagre budget, but is switching off a spending programme that amounts to 133% of tax revenues.
The amount of spending cuts that was actually in point was less than 0.7% of the local authority revenue grants.
@JayPee
Yes and he’s chosen that the somebody should be the poor
I am being fair in pointing that out
@JayPee
They did not vote for cuts
Rightly so
See my blog on martin Wolf today
It would have been insanity to do so
@Alex
Every single claim you make is wrong
It is tax revenues that have collapsed, not spending increased
I suggest you answer the questions Martin Wolf raises
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/06/11/a-question-for-chancellor-osborne/
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/stats/tax_receipts/tax-receipts-and-taxpayers.pdf
Tax receipts are down £40 billion from their highest point – which arose largely because of al ready high government spending, but the deficit is not £40 billion but somewhere between £150 billion and £170 billion.
@Alex
Drivel
See here
http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/06/10/if-only-wed-used-accruals-accounting-thered-have-been-no-deficit/
Get your facts right
And then note the role of banks
Have you not noticed?
@Richard Murphy
“@Alex
Drivel”
Right I’ll tell HMRC there figures are wrong
“http://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2010/06/10/if-only-wed-used-accruals-accounting-thered-have-been-no-deficit/
Get your facts right”
Which is clearly wrong in its main presumption because net government debt has increased in absolute terms, and that only happens when the government spends more than it takes in tax revenues. Everybody except you agrees that the deficit is actually £150 billion per year.
@Alex
Hang on
You said tax revenues fell £40bn
They fell £79bn from 2008 to 2009
What you said was wrong
Hence my justified comment
Total HMRC receipts: 2007-8 £451 bn 2009-10 £409 bn
I make that £42 bn, which is a quarter of the deficit.
@Alex
Yes, and you utterly miss the point
I also note you ignore a year
The point is the plan – a structural deficit is planned
I was making he point it was not planned over spending – it was simply time delayed receipts
The plan data was what mattered therefore
You sued outcome data – which gives no intention of the plan
And of course after 2008 plans did not work as expected
Ergo – you do not make your case at all
You prove my point instead – the current deficit was not planned and is the result of crashed receipts
There was no planned deficit on an accruals basis (for all practical purposes – nit picking a few billion is just that and can only be done with those by no understanding of accounting) until they crashed
So sorry – you use data, but the wrong data for the wrong purpose
And that’s akin to answering the wrong question in an exam – and we all know what happens then