More welfare cuts to come

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Only a day after announcing savage welfare cuts Osborne was back to announce more. As the FT notes:

George Osborne has heralded a fresh onslaught on Britain’s £200bn welfare bill, in an attempt to prevent his deficit reduction plan inflicting serious damage on the underlying economy.

Amid warnings that Mr Osborne’s Budget implied spending cuts of up to one-third on areas such as transport, energy, universities and business support, the chancellor said that new welfare cuts would take some of the strain.

Ministers warn that they may have to tear up some untargeted welfare promises — such as the £4bn spent on subsidising bus travel, winter fuel and television licences for older people — even though they are enshrined in the coalition agreement.

One minister said that such a move was “almost certain” if the government was to avoid ripping Britain’s economic fabric in an autumn of cuts.

The chancellor told the BBC that he could soften the impact of departmental spending cuts if “over the coming couple of months we can find further savings in the welfare budget”.

The hatred of the poor at the heart of the ConDem programme is now apparent, even to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The Guardian reports:

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the chancellor and Nick Clegg could only assert that the better off were the big losers from the austerity move by including reforms announced by Labour, such as the changes to pension contributions.

In other words, the Osborne budget favoured the rich — as was apparent to anyone who listened to it.

It’s the shape of things to come. The ConDems plan increasing inequality in the UK — which was also Thatcher’s legacy.


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