cuts

On the march
It was not a good time for the police to march through London to protest about 'the cuts'. The same week the revelations following the trial of men in Rochdale for 'grooming' under-age girls for sex included the fact that the police had known of this and other cases for at least ten years. They had, however, not taken any action for fear of being accused of being racist, or at least this is what we are told. The immediate post-trial reactions of many people, not just the police, followed the usual path. Blame shift and denial, outrage and fresh threats of racist accusations were the basis of this phase. But we start with former MP Ann Cryer, for many years seen by her own party, Labour, and the liberal left elite as a bit of a liability for her campaigns on, amongst other things, forced marriage in UK Asian society.

It is said that she passed on information to the police, but nothing was done. Other people researching the darker side of UK Asian culture, female genital mutilation for example, have had a similar tale to tell. Nothing happens, nothing is done, statistics are not known or not admitted to.

Big cuts coming!
Birmingham is starting to cut council jobs, it will be interesting to watch for a number of reasons. Tradition has that all cities in the UK are solid, first old, then Nulabour. Gordon Brown and the government have tried to suggest that the voter will turn and run from any party even thinking aloud about cutting 'services'. But is this so?

Birmingham stopped being solid Nulabour in 2004, this was the time of the original Nulabour vote rigging scandal, there have been others too. Also the voters are not stupid, they know that each and everyone of those Outreach Officers has to be paid for.

At the moment there is a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition running the city, it will be watched closely to see how it holds up when the cuts begin take effect. This coalition took over when council spending was thought of as being like breathing; it came naturally, there was no reason to stop! The current overspend is firmly in the area of Social Services.