Writing on the Telegraph website yesterday, Toby Young accused the TUC of “a ceaseless barrage of propaganda” about the cuts. Nicola Smith explains why he is wrong.
Writing on the Telegraph website yesterday, Toby Young accused the TUC of “a ceaseless barrage of propaganda” about the cuts.
Apparently the continual stream of media coverage given to our misleading views led half a million private and public sector workers, pensioners and children to choose to demonstrate in central London in Saturday under the misguided understanding, propagated by the TUC, that their services and jobs are at severe risk.
‘Cuts, what cuts?’ asks Young – all of those worried about the devastating impacts these negligible spending reductions will have (and our polling shows it’s not just half a million marchers but over half the country) are simply ‘useful idiots’.
It is tempting to suggest that there is only one idiot here. Denying that Britain is about to face the sharpest cuts in public spending in decades is simply wrong.
The IFS, hardly known for being producers of misleading propaganda, have stated that:
“The cuts to total public spending… are, after economy-wide inflation, set to be the deepest since World War II and the cuts to spending on public services will be the deepest since the four years beginning in April 1975.”
Reducing spending, while the population and its needs continue to grow, will have real impacts. The poorest will be hit hardest, unemployment will rise and services will suffer. And it won’t only be the public sector that is hit – with 38p in the pound of public spending going directly to private sector companies workers and businesses across the economy will, as the FT sets out, feel the impact.
But Young is keen to downplay the consequences that the cuts may have. He writes:
“As Stephen Glover pointed out in Saturday’s Daily Mail, public expenditure in 2009-10 was £669 billion. In 2014-15, after these “savage” cuts have been imposed, it’s projected to be £764 – or £647 billion in real terms. That’s a cut of three per cent. That’s right – three per cent.”
This claim appears to be slightly at odds with the cuts to services set out in the CSR (page 10) – which makes clear that departmental spending is set to fall by 8.3 per cent overall (in real terms by 2014/15) with some budgets including the Home Office (23 per cent), Communities and Local Government (27 per cent) and Justice (23 per cent) facing significantly above average reductions.
And in the context of regular real terms rises in service spending over the last decade these cuts will inevitably be significant, with higher than forecast inflation, as the IFS again pointed out last week, also holding the potential to make the picture even worse – last week the Telegraph reported that as a result of the rising cost of living the NHS faces the tightest settlement since the 1950s.
While benefit spending may rise in real terms over the next few years this is a consequence of a growing and ageing population (social security expenditure includes expenditure on the state pension), rising rents (leading to rises in Housing Benefit) and rising unemployment.
Let’s not pretend that the welfare system isn’t about to become extremely mean – CPI linked benefit rises, large cuts in Housing Benefit, a three-year freeze in Child Benefit, no more health in pregnancy grants for new mothers and a 20 per cent reduction in funding available to support disabled adults are only a few of the measures that will lead a significant reduction in state provided welfare in the UK.
Spending cuts are already starting to hit. Any children born since January will no longer receive a Child Trust Fund. From next week any out of work mother who has a new baby will not receive a £500 maternity grant. Close to half a million families will see the amount they receive to help them with the costs of childcare fall.
Public sector workers across the country will see, in the face of inflation that is pushing 5 per cent, their pay frozen. Thousands of voluntary sector groups will find their funding is cut. Support for people with learning disabilities, grants to help with home insulation, children’s centres, lollipop patrols, ESOL funding and domestic violence services are only a few of the hundreds of services already hit by cuts and documented on the TUC’s cuts watch.
Voices from across the political spectrum are entitled to their views on whether public spending should or should not be cut so far or so fast, on whether the balance of spending cuts to tax rises is right and on the role that growth can play in deficit reduction. But to deny that the cuts are actually taking place is wrong.
Young doesn’t stop there. He is also of the view that the TUC’s ‘misleading’ information was responsible for the actions of a few hundred violent hooligans who choose to engage in their own violent protest at the same time as the TUC march – apparently our policy arguments have inspired their actions.
I doubt there are many who agree with this view – the violence was completely separate from the TUC event. As the Metropolitan Police have stated, the behaviour of this minority “could not have been more markedly different” to that of those involved in the main event. The Met have also praised our organisation, our close cooperation with them throughout the event’s planning and the “overwhelmingly peaceful” march we staged.
With over 1,000 stewards, many hundreds of senior stewards (all of whom had been provided with detailed briefing and access to pre-march training), activities on hand for children and an event plan that allowed for the orderly dispersion of hundreds of thousands of people from central London, the organisation of the march was a clear success.
To claim the actions of a small group of violent trouble makers are the responsibility of the TUC is unfair – the only way to prevent their action would have been not to hold a protest at all, and given Toby Young’s strong support of individual freedoms I find it hard to believe that he’d be in favour of this democratic right being removed.
24 Responses to “Toby Young is wrong about the cuts and wrong about the march”
Ryan
You have neglected to outline one of the key discrepancies between overall 3% cuts to total government expenditure and actual spending on services/departments – namely, increasing debt interest repayments. These would be going up much more quickly if a) borrowing was higher, b) interest rates were higher given an incredible deficit reduction plan. Why no mention of this?
unemployedhack
He also once said there was no downward mobility because there was no upward mobility. He said, “The reason there’s no room at the top – or in the middle – is because no one’s going anywhere.” As I rot on the dole for the first time in many years – unemployed as a result of the cuts he says aren’t happening – I can only conclude he must literally be living on a different planet to the rest of us. Or drinking heavily.
Ryan
Overall expenditure is barely changing, but departmental cuts need to be made. Why? Because the cost of servicing our national debt is going up because we are adding to it at a monumental rate. This cost would be going up more quickly if a) borrowing was higher under Labour plan, b) interest rates were higher. Thus deeper cuts wd have to be made in future to balance the budget. Why does nobody on here acknowledge this?
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