Local authorities face much higher cuts than Pickles claimed
Eric Pickles has masked the true cuts to local government budgets by using a total inflated by council tax and NHS social care funding, reports Rosanna Singler.
Rosanna is an intern at Left Foot Forward and writes on all areas of policy and politics. She also works as a policy officer in the charity sector, focusing on early years policy. Her background is in welfare reform, having previously worked at Inclusion, a think tank focusing on welfare to work policy.
Eric Pickles has masked the true cuts to local government budgets by using a total inflated by council tax and NHS social care funding, reports Rosanna Singler.
Another week, another chameleon-like manouvre from the Liberal Democrats as the tuition fees crisis looks increasingly likely to be the party's poll tax moment. As Patrick Wintour writes in the Guardian, many Lib Dems have privately admitted their regret over signing the NUS pledge opposing tuition fees at the time of the election, arguing they did it under the encouragement of party HQ.
Comparing the funding of the Tories by one rich man to Labour's contributions from the unions whose funding comes from the contributions its 2 million members.
There are increasing signs that the BNP are resorting to more and more desperate measures to inflate what little influence they have. Lisa Nandy MP reports in the Tribune on the work of a small group of anonymous online bloggers who have gone to extraordinary lengths to whip up anti-Muslim feeling.
Vince Cable’s assertion that the Liberal Democrats are not guilty of reneging on their pre-election promises as they are simply honouring their commitment to the coalition agreement, will leave many wondering whether it is worth believing anything that the Lib Dems say - while in a revealing interview in the Total Politics December magazine, former Chief Secretary David Laws exposes just how much Nick Clegg's focus was, pre-election, on a hung parliament.