Ah, so now they want to save £5bn on benefit payments, to make up for the £2bn they don't get in taxes from the highest earners. Literally taking from the poor to give to the rich. You couldn't make this shit up.
And hammer the services that people rely upon. A few weeks ago by local MP was all over the local press triumphantly telling people that she'd secured a second GP practice for the town. The latest is that it now won't be happening as every project that's not already underway will be reviewed and most cancelled unless they can demonstrate economic growth as an outcome.
My local (Tory) council are also due to put forward an emergency budget that includes:
- Introducing new thresholds for Adult Social Care to reduce future users by up to 70%!
- Closing rural roads where alternatives are available to save on maintenance
- Reducing libraries from 51 to 9
- Closing the remaining Children's Centres
- Removing some school bus services or asking parents to pay for them
- Asking all departments to make 30% staffing cuts
To give some context the council have been on a cost cutting programme since 2008. Despite that as of April 2022 they had a budget shortfall of £8m/year (not actually a lot as the budget is over £300m/year). They now have a projected budget shortfall of £140m/year by 2026.
From people I used to work with it will get voted through but with a lot of disgruntlement. The Children's Social Care and SEND costs will take up the majority of funding for the first time as neither can be cut (statutory services) whilst both spiral in demand when other services are cut.
Of course, if you're of the background where you don't use these services then you won't care. They seem to have protected bin collections as a sacred cow but, if it was me, I'd have said we're doing monthly bin collections to get the attention of *everyone* in the area.