by Peter Watt

Cuts, cuts cuts. Across the country, local parties are campaigning to defend libraries, schools and jobs at hospitals. Every cut announced nationally and locally is condemned and the heartlessness of the government blamed.  In fact, to listen to Labour at the moment you would think that the only thing that people are talking about is cuts to public services. But I’m not sure that that is right. In fact, I think it may be a very dangerous assumption to make.

Sure, if you ask people do they agree with closing or their local library, children’s centre or whatever they will say “no”. But that doesn’t mean that they oppose “the cuts” in general. As Atul Hatwal powerfully pointed out on Uncut last week:

“The net result of six months of battle on the economy has been literally nothing. No change whatsoever in the 23% majority who view the government’s approach to cutting the deficit as necessary”. (more…)