David Cameron hasn’t the faintest idea how deep his cuts go. This letter proves it

[muriel_volestrangler]

Cameron complains that he is “disappointed” by the council’s proposals “to make significant cuts to frontline services – from elderly day centres, to libraries, to museums. This is in addition to the unwelcome and counter-productive proposals to close children’s centres across the county.” Why, he asks, has Oxfordshire not focused instead on “making back-office savings”? Why hasn’t it sold off its surplus property? After all, there has been only “a slight fall in government grants in cash terms”. Couldn’t the county “generate savings in a more creative manner”?

Explaining the issue gently, as if to a slow learner, the council leader, Ian Hudspeth, points out that the council has already culled its back-office functions, slashing 40% of its most senior staff and 2,800 jobs in total, with the result that it now spends less on these roles than most other counties. He explains that he has already flogged all the property he can lay hands on, but would like to remind the prime minister that using the income from these sales to pay for the council’s running costs “is neither legal, nor sustainable in the long-term since they are one-off receipts”.

As for Cameron’s claim about government grants, Hudspeth comments: “I cannot accept your description of a drop in funding of £72m or 37% as a ‘slight fall’.”

Again and again, he exposes the figures the prime minister uses as wildly wrong. For example, Cameron claims that the cumulative cuts in the county since 2010 amount to £204m. But that is not the cumulative figure; it is the annual figure. Since 2010, the county has had to save £626m. It has done so while taking on new responsibilities, and while the population of elderly people and the numbers of children in the social care system have boomed. Now there is nothing left to cut except frontline services.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/11/david-cameron-letter-cuts-oxfordshire

And, as Monbiot points out, that's a Conservative council, in a well-off area. They're not actively trying to make Cameron look bad.

[T_i_B]

1. Maybe what you have to ask....

...is what The Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government has been telling the Prime Minister about what they are up to with regards to the council that serves his constituency?

I appreciate that it can be easy for us on the outside to point fingers, but he is the MP for Witney, and a lot of this stuff relates to the stuff that you really want your MP to be doing to represent your area.

[Denzil_DC]

2. I don't think Mr Cameron is a "detail" man.

You know, details like what's actually going on on the ground in his own constituency.

Maybe that's why he habitually shies away from debates if at all possible.

On the other hand, maybe that's letting him off the hook.

His whole vision coming into his first term was his "Big Society", which meant an ideological drive to slash state social provision on the grounds that a lot of it consisted of silly luxuries anyway, or functions that volunteerism and charities would be able to cater for adequately, with everyone being given the opportunity to enjoy the warm glow of participation. The aftermath of the 2008-2009 financial crisis left the way wide open for the operation of the Shock Doctrine (and it has to be said that Labour paved the way to a certain extent).

He's Thatcher's child, after all, despite the oily finish. He hasn't started talking about reducing government to the point where it can be drowned in a bathtub, partly because of his PR training, but mainly because government as he wants it to operate can be a handy mechanism for channelling cash from the less well off to the ultra-rich.

[LeftishBrit]

3. This is about the county where I live..

And it is all very true. However, I think one has to point some of the finger at long-term incompetent leadership in the County Council, especially Hudspeth's predecessor Keith Mitchell. While Hudspeth is just a typical Tory, Mitchell was positively malicious against any group that didn't vote for him: 'oiks' and 'rabble' on the one hand; 'deficit denying leftie' students and lecturers on the other; and basically anyone at all living in the Labour-controlled City of Oxford. And the council at a certain stage was notoriously financially confused, losing track of large sums of money and then suddenly finding it again, etc. This was all going on even during Labour national governments and before the recession. However, there is no doubt that Cameron, Osborne and their cuts are making matters much, much worse.

[Denzil_DC]

4. Stolen from Twitter

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. Damn, that would be brilliant to see! (nt)