Originally published @ 8:33 am, Tue 21st Dec 2010
On the day that David Cameron was invited to switch on the new Olympic stadium's lights, £120m of the £170m spending for schools sports partnerships is restored. No doubt, there's a hit somewhere else, but the ConDems had to move, partly because of the commitments made to the Olympics movement and partly because outraged voters got a campaign started which top sportspeople and the Mirror joined in with. Even at the City Council meeting last Monday, we'd placed a question on the matter.
Protestors about EMA and tuition fees will draw strength from this. Those who point out parts of the changes which are a better deal for would-be university students are missing how the sheer scale of a proposed trebling of fees is perceived as too daunting.
These are only the most visible impact of the cuts. Cuts proposed for spending by local councils are very dramatic, but not yet tangible. Budgets with specific proposals will have to be published in February, and by then it will be crystal clear that a vision of a big society driven by volunteers (presumably above and beyond the extensive work already in place) needed more money, not less.
People who say the ConDems have been winning the argument about spending (beyond the dramatic fall in popular support for the Lib Dems in general and Nick Clegg in particular) overlook that the public quite like a lot of the services that have been provided and that the ConDems won the election without a mandate for dramatic cuts. Voters who think about it will see the fallacy of following Ireland's slash to save, which only led to the need to slash again 18 months later. How will people react to a hike in VAT in January?
It's true that the hardest hit of the ConDem policies will be the receivers of benefits, the most targeted of whom are targeted cos the ConDems know they don't vote. But Vince Cable can't even hold the discipline when talking to constituents (who turned out to be Daily Telegraph reporters) - http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/dec/21/vince-cable-could-end-coalition . He even joins in with notions that the winter fuel allowance is under threat. The free-market, anti-Europeans within the Conservatives will again be demanding compensation for such humiliation.
There will be more occurrences of problems like those in the second snap of cold weather in a month that could have been averted if previous recommendations had been followed, rather than compromised in the need for cuts.
There have been some dramatic swings to Labour in local government by-elections and Lib Dem activists on the ground are just miserable. Even though run on an out-of-date register, the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election might become an even stronger sign that the ConDems will not be able to sustain support.
After the May elections, it might be possible, just possible, that Conservatives and Liberal Democrats will decide it's better to hang apart than hang together.
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