LABOUR DEMANDED CUTS DURING UK ELECTIONS

At UK Government level Labour fought the 2010 election on making "deeper and tougher" cuts than Margaret Thatcher.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher

Guardian: Alistair Darling admitted tonight that Labour's planned cuts in public spending will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s, as the country's leading experts on tax and spending warned that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain" to repair the black hole in the state's finances.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies said hefty tax rises and Whitehall spending cuts of 25% were in prospect during the six-year squeeze lasting until 2017 that would follow the chancellor's "treading water" budget yesterday.

Asked by the BBC tonight how his plans compared with Thatcher's attempts to slim the size of the state, Darling replied: "They will be deeper and tougher – where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

These cuts would have begun at UK level and filtered down to local level.

The SNP are proposing giving slightly more money to Scottish councils but are expecting them to effectively freeze their expenditure in consequence. This is not easy for councils and it might have been easier for the SNP to say, "we'll allow councils to raise more cash if they want."

However it is probably logical in the current climate as under the Tories pressure will certainly come down upon the total Scottish Government budget. If the SNP can prove that all the Scottish councils are making the best use of their allocation of public spending then they can make a better case for maintenance of the current Scottish block grant post-Barnett formula.

Labour want to raise local taxes, cutting the amount of money the public have in their pocket, to keep council services at roughly the same level. Yet they were saying during the elections "cuts must be made" and the SNP were being selfish in asking Britain to protect the Scottish budget.

So where would Labour's cuts have come from? Wouldn't a Labour Government have been squeezing public expenditure? I suggest they would and that if they needed to make an enormous 25% cut in spending they would have aimed some of that at the SNP Government.

The SNP are forcing the Scottish councils to be careful with their finances but are still offering a decent grant to them all in difficult times.

If Labour were serious about wanting to make "deeper and tougher" cuts than Margaret Thatcher" they cannot pretend now that they do not support encouraging better use of public money. Well they can but it is utterly hypocritical and I don't expect the public to swallow it.