Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

Commentators discuss spending cuts on the day the UK's trade unions are to vote on joint industrial action if the cuts are not scaled back.

Μύ

that ministers are getting scared about the reaction to the spending review:

"Only now are members of the coalition truly beginning to appreciate what they will face. Government is an education, especially for parties that were previously in opposition for a long time: 13 years in the case of the Conservatives and many decades in the case of their Lib Dem partners. Before they took office, a lot of the Tories entertained a blithe belief about spending. They didn't expect it to be easy to make cuts, but they rather thought that it might turn out to be not that awful either. In the pre-election period, members of David Cameron's senior team would privately argue that the state had become so bloated under Labour that they would find plenty of fat to cut before they hit bone. They believed quite a lot of the deficit could be mopped up through 'efficiency savings'.
Μύ
"Now they know better."

TUC general secretary that once cuts start to bite, the general public will react:

"That is why I look back to the poll-tax campaign for inspiration. That was the last great U-turn carried out by a Conservative prime minister. It went because the decent majority stood up and said that it was fundamentally unfair. MPs returned to Westminster to tell whips and ministers that their normally placid and safe seats were in uproar. There may have been disorder in central London, but that was an unwelcome distraction. The poll tax was abolished because Middle Britain said no."

Conservative MP that strikes would be a bad idea all round:

"Some public sector Union leaders want to use the 'cuts' to trigger a massive Union campaign allied to strikes. When a public sector union goes on strike it is striking against itself and the public. Strikes usually make things worse all round. Strikes encourage people to find other ways of doing what ever the strikers used to do. Strikes usually result in more job losses, not fewer."

that the unions' reactions to the cuts are "beyond parody" but the government needs to give a clearer argument for squeezing spending:

"The government is caught in an intellectual cul-de-sac. Its sole refrain is that these cuts are Labour's cuts and they are necessary. At the same time, the government defines the cuts debate in Labour's terms. It is wedded to the term 'progressive' and a mindset that spending is an indication of good government - hence the fact that it became embroiled in a spat with the IFS that was totally avoidable and then compounded its error by ruling out tax cuts for five years in an attempt to seem 'progressive'.
Μύ
"Government should be more than an accountant, balancing the books. It must break free of Labour's terms of debate and match Crow and Barber's 'Radicalism' with an explanation as to why radical public service reform will deliver more for less. Blaming Labour is not enough."

saying the government needs to boldly declare its ideology to stand up against special-interest groups' protests on cuts:

"The coalition's long-term health depends on getting across the impression that it has a positive plan for a different kind of state, one whose effectiveness will not be measured solely by the amount of money it spends.
Μύ
"New Labour spinners used to call this sort of thing a narrative, but Blair-Brown talk of public service reform largely turned out to be fiction. The coalition's comforting story has the merit of truth. There is a narrative, at least among that minority of ministers intellectually committed to the coalition: a reimagining of the balance between the state and society in favour of the latter."

Conservative MP [subscription required] that the cuts will put real pressure on the coalition but suggests a long term way of providing stablilty:

"So, as we approach the Comprehensive Spending Review and an era of painful cuts, what can fulfil the function of that platform of sturdy planks that turns two easily capsizable canoes into a robust raft?[...]
Μύ
"This autumn both David Cameron and Nick Clegg should ask their parties to approve a binding agreement to fight the 2015 general election as coalition partners[...]

"So, in Lib Dem seats (or those seats that would have been won by the Lib Dems if the forthcoming boundary changes had been in force last May), we Conservatives would not put up a candidate and would urge our supporters to vote Liberal Democrat. In those seats that would have been won by the Tories under the new boundaries, the Lib Dems would do the same."

Links in full

•
•
•
•
•
•