The state and local government

http://www.nlgn.org.uk/public/2009/realising-total-place-moving-from-theory-into-practice/).

148 B. McPherson, ‘Exclusive: Can you really do more with less?’ PS Public Service.co.uk, 9 November 2009, my emphasis.

149 Local Government Association Labour Group, 2009, p. 19.

150 Labour Party, 2010, p. 65.

151 Whitfield, 2006, p. 147.

152 Ibid.

153 Ibid., pp. 150-151. This strategy is based on the extensive research and policy analysis Whitfield has undertaken at the European Services Strategy Unit for a wide range of public sector organisations, trade unions (at branch, regional national and international levels), community organisations and tenants federations on housing, planning and regeneration policies. See also the section on Whitefield’s ‘Marketisation Theory’ in Chapter 4 and the sections on Strategic service-delivery partnerships and recent developments in Barnet, Essex and Lambeth in Chapter 9; and

H. Wainwright and M. Little, 2009.

154 Whitfield, 2006, p. 147.

155 J. Haylett, ‘The fear factor’, Morning Star, 11 May 2009.

156 C. Jones, ‘Rocking the boat?’, Communist News & Views, October 2009, p. 1.

157 T. Knight, 1981, p. 16.

158 The upfront costs of the bailout – viz. the cost of the Bank Recapitalisation Fund, the Special Liquidity scheme and the cost of nationalising Northern Rock and Bradford and Bingley – are estimated by the IMF to be a minimum of £289 billion, possibly rising to £1,183 billion when all the Bank of England/HM Treasury loans and guarantees are included (Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, 2009, p. 32). Moreover, on the 28 October 2009, the European Union approved government plans to sell off the profitable parts of Northern Rock while retaining the loss-making parts in the public sector; and this decision is likely to trigger similar splits in the Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds. Conversely, Chair of the Commons Treasury Committee John McFall and a group of Labour MPs had opposed the split and called for the bank to be re-mutualised (L. Cocker, ‘Northern Rock: The breakup begins’, Morning Star, 29 October 2009).

159 Ibid., p. 35.

160 International Monetary Fund, 2009a, Table 1.8, p. 48.

161 R. Peston, 21 April 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/.

162 International Monetary Fund, 2009a, p. xvii.

163 A. Seager, 2009. ‘Bank injects another £50bn into economy’, The Guardian, 8 May 2009. Similarly, the US Federal Reserve revealed on 17 March 2009 that most of its biggest bailout – $85 billion for the insurance giant AIG – had gone to overseas beneficiaries: £11.9 billion to France’s Société Générale, £11.8 billion to Germany’s Duetsche Bank, £5 billion to the Swiss UBS and 8.5 billion to Barclays (The Guardian, 18 March 2009).

164 A. Seager, ‘Bank pumps in another £50bn to aid green shoots of recovery’, The Guardian, 7 August 2009.

165 6 November 2009.

166 HM Treasury (2009c)

167 L. Elliott and J. Treanor, ‘King Launches shot across Darling’s bow over City Regulation’, The Guardian, 18 June 2009; D. Smith and J. Davey, ‘Tory threat to break up banks “too big to fail”’, The Sunday Times, 19 July 2009.

168 A. Seager and J. Treanor, ‘King: banking fallout will last generation’, The Guardian, 21 October 2009.

169 J. Treanor, ‘Labour’s great bank sell-off could cost taxpayers another £40bn’, The Guardian, 2 November 2009.

170 W. Hutton, ‘Still big. Still unbeautiful’, The Guardian, 4 November 2009.

171 Quoted in P. Haste, ‘Billions for banks – dole for workers’, Morning Star, 4 November 2009.

172 A. Seager, ‘The lost generation: surge in joblessness hits young’, The Guardian, 13 August 2009.

173 A. Travis, ‘The jobless trap – fears grow for a generation locked out of work’, The Guardian, 13 August 2009.

174 Financial Services Authority, 2009, p. 67.

175 N. Pratley, ‘“New” FSA powers are hardly revolutionary’, The Guardian, 17 November 2009.

176 Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change, 2009, p. 5. This report is ‘dedicated to C. Wright Mills who studied unaccountable elites and defended democracy’ (ibid., p. 2).

177 Quoted in D. Coysh, ‘Millions to reward fat-cat bank chief’, Morning Star, 18 August 2009.

178 International Monetary Fund, 2009b, para 27, p. 24.

179 Ibid., para 14, p. 10.

180 Ibid., para. 27, p. 24.

181 C. M. Reinhart and K.S. Rogoff, 2009, p. 1.

182 Ibid. See also C. M. Reinhart and K.S. Rogoff, 2008a and 2008b; S. Claessens et al 2008; and International Monetary Fund, 2009a.

183 Cited in D. Blanchflower, ‘And next for Britain, the semi-slump British economic history warns us to beware false dawns. Those calling for spending cuts have got it wrong – again’, The Guardian, 14 July 2009. David Blanchflower is a professor of economics at Dartmouth College and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He was a member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee from June 2006 to May 2009.

184 L. Elliott, ‘Britain's real jobless total “more than 3m” says new report’, The Observer, 18 October 2009.

185 Though ‘the claimant count underestimates the number of people looking for work and the Job Centre Plus vacancy count underestimates the number of vacancies available. Nevertheless, in broad terms the movements in the claimant to vacancy ratio indicates the condition of the labour market, both nationally and locally’ (Local Government Association, 2009d, p. 10).

186 Local Government Association, ‘Recession causes sharp drop in council income’, Press Release, 11 August 2009. They undertook a survey of Finance Directors across England between 15 May and 4 July 2009 about the financial impact of the slowdown. The number of authorities participating in the survey was 88 (a response rate of 25 per cent), of which 55 (63 per cent) were district authorities. The number of respondents answering the capital receipts question was 78; and 84 answered the interest on balances question. The tables in the technical note included with this press release show that in 2007/08 authorities received 5.5 billion from interest on balances and capital receipts. Using the results of this survey and assuming that other councils would be affected in the same way as the respondents, the LGA inferred that the combined budget for capital receipts and interest on balances in 2009/10 would fall £4 billion lower than budgets just two years earlier.

187 M. Conrad, ‘Slump in revenues “will exceed £4bn”’, LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter, 12 August 2009.

188 Local Government Association, 2009e, p. 8.

189 Ibid., p. 15.

190 Ibid., p. 17.

191 Ibid., p. 23.

192 K. Hopkins, ‘Full impact of recession yet to hit UK public sector, study claims’, The Guardian, 22 October 2009.

193 CIPD press release dated 25 January 2010, their emphases.

194 Blanchflower, 2009, op. cit.

195 Ibid.

196 N. Cohen, ‘Don't be fooled – the recession is far from over’, The Observer, 9 August 2009.

197 Ibid.

198 D. Smith, M. Goodman, B. Marlow and K. Walsh, ‘Hammering the City: The City, already facing 50% income tax and an exodus of non-doms, has been outraged by FSA chief Lord Turner’s comments on imposing a tax on transactions’, The Sunday Times, 30 August 2009.

199 P. Toynbee, ‘Brown, a tax convert? Hard to believe, but let’s hope so’, The Guardian, 10 November 2009.

200 P. Wintour, ‘Gordon Brown joins French and Germans in call for global crackdown on bank bonuses after days of stalling’, The Guardian, 4 September 2009, my emphasis.

201 L. Elliott, ‘“Massive sticking plaster” merely masks a deeper malaise’, The Guardian, 25 January 2010.

202 L. Elliott and J. Treanor, ‘Brown to push for “Tobin Tax” after Wall Street crackdown’, The Guardian, 23 January 2010.

203 I. Oakshott and D. Smith, ‘Do I look excited?’, The Sunday Times, 24 January 2010.

204 D. Smith and I. Dey, ‘“Don’t go it alone,” Darling tells America’, The Sunday Times, 24 January 2010.

205 Quoted in D. Smith and R. Watts, ‘Why bankers love the people’s recession’, The Sunday Times, 25 October 2009.

206 Ibid.

207 G. Younge, ‘We attacked the bankers, but took our eyes off the whole rotten system’, The Guardian, 26 October 2009.

208 W. Hutton, ‘The G20 has saved us, but it’s failing to rein in those who caused the crisis’, The Observer, 6 September 2009.

209 Ibid.

210 D. Rushe and I. Dey, ‘Survival of the Greediest: The 2009 Bonus Scandal’, The Sunday Times, 18 October 2009.

211 W. Hutton, ‘The G20 has saved us, but it’s failing to rein in those who caused the crisis’, The Observer, 6 September 2009.

212 Ibid.

213 K. Allen, ‘City rents set to soar as banks drop threats to leave the UK’, The Guardian, 6 January 2010.

214 P. Inman and T. Webb, ‘Bankers told: join the real world on pay’, The Guardian, 4 December 2009.

215 P. Boone and S. Johnson, ‘Waiting for the next Lehman’, The Sunday Times, 13 September 2009.

216 Morning Star, 3 December 2009.

217 G. Balakrishnan, 2009, p. 6.

218 Ibid., p. 7.

219 Ibid., p. 18.

220 Ibid., p. 26.

221 Gramsci, 1999a, p. 400.

222 A. R. Griffiths, 2009b, p. 1.

223 Ibid.

224 Ibid., p. 2.

225 L. Elliott, ‘Painful death of the American dream’, The Guardian, 2 November 2009.

226 L. Elliott and H. Stewart, ‘Dubai crisis raises fears of financial meltdown’, The Guardian, 27 November 2009.

227 J. Treanor, P. Inman and J. Finch, ‘Banks quizzed over exposure to Dubai crisis: Large losses feared at HSBC and RBS as City watchdog seeks urgent assurances’, The Guardian, 28 November 2009.

228 HM Treasury, 2009d, Table A10, p. 162.

229 For instance, some of the biggest companies in the country constructed complex pay schemes to allow senior boardroom bosses to pay a tax rate of 18 per cent instead of the 50 per cent top rate. Many re-classified executives' income as capital gains, which attract a lower tax rate. Most pay schemes for FTSE 100 executives are currently based on awards of shares or options that are linked to performance criteria over three to five years. The income tax is paid when the shares or options actually "vest" (when the executive gains control of them). But the new schemes are based on a system known as restrictive stock. They shift most of the tax liability to a capital gain on any profits made at the end of the three- to five-year period when the shares vest. Darling announced in December 2009 that the tax would become effective immediately, last until the end of the current tax year in early April 2010, and be paid by banks on bonuses over £25,000 (J. Treanor, ‘Companies risk ministers’ fury by trying to avoid 50% tax’, The Guardian 29 December 2009).

230 J. Treanor, ‘Bonus time in City as banks pay out £40bn’, The Guardian, 9 January 2010.

231The Guardian, 24 December 2009.

232 UCU and Unison, 2010, p. 4.

233 ‘7,000 jobs at risk from training cuts’, Morning Star, 6-7 February 2010.

234 G. Tetlow, public spending, presentation by the IFS, 10 December 2009, my emphasis.

235 C. Smith, ‘Council cuts 150 jobs as squeeze hits home’, LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter 19 December 2009.

236 M. Conrad, ‘Birmingham staff await employment policy review’, LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter 19 January 2010.

237 Ibid.

238 M. Conrad and C. Smith, ‘Exclusive: Treasury bypassed in hunt for new funding’, LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter, 14 January 2010.

239 D. Fortson, ‘Whitehall plans to privatise quarter of public’ sector’, The Sunday Times, 13 December 2009.

240 P. Inman, ‘Banks fear for their recovery’, The Guardian,11 January 2010.

241 See, for example, G. Turner, 2008 and 2009, J. Jones, 2009a and 2009b, LRC, September 2009 and G. Turner et al, December 2009, which contains seven LEAP Red papers on the cuts. (Graham Turner on Britain’s macroeconomic situation; Gerry Gold on whether we need a finance sector; Jerry Jones on reviving Britain’s manufacturing industry; Andrew Fisher on the cost of asset sales and the private sector; Richard Murphy on the cost of public sector cuts; Dave Wetzel on why the UK needs a land value tax; and John McDonnell on an alternative to cuts). LEAP was set up in 2005 by the Labour Representation Committee ‘working with the Socialist Campaign Group and the New Left Unions…to challenge the economic hegemony of our age’ (http://www.l-r-c.org.uk/policy/leap/). Graham Turner and Jerry Jones are both members of LEAP and were among the few economists to forecast the financial crisis.

242 For example, the number of people in England and Wales becoming insolvent rose to a record 35, 242 in the third quarter of 2009 (The Guardian, 7 November 2009).

243 Communist Party of Britain, 2008a, p. 3. Compass has also joined forces with campaigners, academics and economists to demand a windfall tax on the banks to fund a Green New Deal: but ‘the Treasury is resisting any move that might damage the health of the financial sector at a time when banks are still struggling to rebuild their balance sheets’ (‘State-owned RBS to give huge bonuses’, The Sunday Times, 18 October 2009).

244 D. MacAskill, ‘Now the axe will fall’, Morning Star, 19 May 2009.

245 J. Foster, 2009, pp. 37-38.

246 A. Roberts, ‘Grass roots claim victory’, Morning Star, 2 October 2009.

247 J. Haylett, ‘Is this the best Brown can do?’ Morning Star, 19 March 2009.

248 Office for National Statistics, 2010c, p. 2.

249 A. Seager, ‘Bank of England halts quantitative easing but warns that economic recovery will be slow’, The Guardian, 5 February 2010.

250 E. Moya and A. Seager, ‘Deficit fears as rise in US jobless figures spook world markets’, The Guardian, 5 February 2010.

251 A. Seager and P. Wintour, ‘“Never has an end to recession been so underwhelming”’, The Guardian, 27 January 2010.

252 Ibid.

253 L. Nousratpour, ‘Future still looks grim for jobless’, Morning Star, 27 January 2010.

254 P. Collinson, ‘Prices falls “could put housing rally in reverse”’, The Guardian, 14 November 2009.

255 Cited in J. Treanor and P. Wintour, ‘UK economy lies “on a bed of nitroclycerine” – top financier’, The Guardian, 27 January 2010.

256 Ibid.

257 A. Fisher, 2010, p. 12.

258 Ibid. Moreover, the Con-Dem government decided to honour the contracts for the FiReControl project and renege on its pledge to scrap this New Labour plan at the first opportunity (Morning Star, July 3-4, 2010).

259 Ibid.

260 W. Keegan, ' Born Again Thatcherites are preaching fiscal austerity to the unbelievers', The Observer, 4 July 2010.

261 Bank of International Settlements, 2010, Graph V.5, p. 68.

262 See note 125, my emphasis.

263 Ibid.

264 The Peoples Charter, 2009.

265 G. Gall, ‘Your charter for 10’, Morning Star, 19 March 2009. Gregor Gall is Professor of Industrial Relations at the University of Hertfordshire.

266 A People’s Charter for Democracy, 2008.

267 Gall, op. cit.

268 Ibid.

269 J. McDonnell, Early Day Motion 942 ‘The People’s Charter’ dated 2 March 2009.

270 See http://www.congressvoices.org/2009/32-peoples-charter.

271 J. Haylett, “Taking the charter to the people”, Morning Star, 22 September 2009.

272 J. Foster, ‘The fight to rescue Scotland’, Morning Star, 22 October 2009.

273 L. Nousratpour, ‘New Charter on the agenda 170 years on’, Morning Star, 4 November 2009 and K. Flett, ‘Armed tradition on the British left’, Morning Star, 4 November 2009.

274 M. Brierley, ‘Charter launched in Wales’, Morning Star, 5 November 2009.

275 J. Foster, ‘Trade union movement “must join forces with communities”’, Morning Star, 3 November 2008.

276 T. Morrison, 2009, p. 29.

277 Ibid., p. 28.

278 Ibid., p. 29.

279 http://www.croydonsos.org.uk/.

280 The Insider, ‘Trade unions continue to defend our public services’, Croydon Advertiser, 7 May 2010.

281 Croydon Advertiser, 16 July 2010.

282 R. Bagley, ‘Left alliance set to shake up EU elections’, Morning Star, 19 March 2009.

283 No2EU Yes to Democracy, 2009.

284 Ibid.

285 B. Denny and P. Katz, 2009, pp. 8-9.

286 BBC, 2004 and 2009b.

287 Ibid.

288 R. Griffiths, ‘Euro elections: The cause of far-right poll gains? It’s new Labour’. Morning Star, 13-14 June 2009.

289 BBC, 2009b.

290 G. Gall, ‘Sterling work by RMT: A union that’s defying the recession and going from strength to strength’, Morning Star, 30 June 2009.

291 J. Haylett, ‘The election is a winding road for the left’, Morning Star, 23-24 January 2010.Printable

292 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/elections/euro/09/flash/html/eu.stm.

293 V. Grossman, ‘Rightwards shift with a Left flavour’, Morning Star, 29 September 2009.

294 K. Connolly, ‘Party wins votes by standing out from crowd’, The Guardian, 18 September 2009. Die Linke (the Left Party) was established in 2005 by Oskar Lafontaine – the former Prime Minister of Saarland and President of the German Bundesrat – when he left the SPD. The Left Party then merged with the PDS, the successor to the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED) in the German Democratic Republic (O. Lafontaine, 2009, p. 5).

295 ZDF TV, http://www.zdf.de/ZDFmediathek/content/842880?inPopup=true.

296 See S. Milne, ‘If Labour loses, it will be the fruit of its fatal Faustian pact’, The Guardian, 1 October 2009.

297 J. Booth, 2009, pp. 139-140.

298 B. Benfield, ‘Glasgow starts cuts fightback’, Morning Star, 25 January 2010. Moreover, Ernst & Young Scottish Item Club predicts growth of 0.8 per cent in 2010, 0.2 per cent lower than the UK estimate, and that around 30,000 public sector jobs will be cut in Scotland over the next four years. According to the report, the volume of Scottish manufactured exports has fallen 30 per cent in the past decade. Its analysis also showed that the public sector contributed to more than 30 per cent of Scotland's GDP growth over the past decade, compared with 20 per cent in the rest of the UK, with the coming "squeeze" likely to have a "disproportionate" impact on Scotland's economic recovery (Z. Wood, ‘Scotland will be harder hit by public sector cuts’, The Guardian, 7 June 2010).

299 M. Conrad, ‘Scots councils budget cuts will hit services’, LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter 1 February 2010.

300 J. Millington, ‘Unions say no to budget’, Morning Star, 5 January 2010.

301 Morning Star, June 27-28 2009; The Guardian, 27 June 2009. Though, as Gegor Gall notes, the 51 redundant Lindsey contract workers were only offered four week’s work, representing the “natural” end to the project they were working on (Morning Star, 1 July 2009).

302 Interview with Rob Williams, Morning Star, 11 June 2009.

303 G. Pickersgill, 2010, p. 24.

304 Quoted in T. Macalister, ‘Global trend for sit-ins and occupations as mass redundancies continue’, The Guardian, 24 July 2009.

305 See, for example, the letter in The Guardian, 25 July 2009, signed by Phil Thornhill Campaign Against Climate Change, Jonathan Neale Campaign Against Climate Change, Leo Murray Plane Stupid, Kevin Smith Platform, Raymond Morell Senior convenor, Unite aerospace sector, Peter Gilliard Chair, London Committee, Unite Amicus section.

306 J. Neale, 2009, p. 10, p. 14. This pamphlet is a report by the Campaign against Climate Change trade union group to the Communication Workers Union, Public and Commercial Services union, the Transport Salaried Staff Association and the University and College Union. Contributors included Chris Baugh, PCS, Manuel Cortes, TSSA, Ben Fine, SOAS, Alan Freeman, Heterodox Economics, Nick Grant, NUT, Sian Jones, CWU, Graham Peterson, UCU, Mark Smith and Ian Terry, Vestas Workers Committee, Derek Wall, Green Party and Dexter Whitfield, Centre for Public Services.

307 Ibid., p. 36.

308 Ibid., p. 8.

309 Ibid., p. 42.

310 Ibid., p. 39.

311 The Labour Government's Unemployment Insurance Bill introduced in November 1929 – despite the Labour Party's promise at the May 1929 General Election that it would raise them – did not increase the allowance for men and children (R. Miliband, 1964, pp. 164-165).

312 Gainsbury, S. (2009) ‘DH is told 137,000 NHS posts must go in next five years’, Health Service Journal, 3 September.

313 CBI, 2009a.

314 CBI, 2009b, p. 18.

315 P. Toynbee, ‘Beware the zealots selling miracle cures of privatisation’, The Guardian, 20 October 2009.

316 Quoted in A. Jones, ‘CBI calls on the government to accelerate cuts’, The Guardian, 19 October 2009.

317 Haldenby et al, 2009, p. 5. Reform director Andrew Haldenby is the former head of the Conservative Research Department's political section.

318 Quoted in P. Haste, ‘Unions attack plan to sack 1m workers’, Morning Star, 9 December 2009.

319 Ibid.

320 P. Wintour, ‘Tory leaders plan 10% spending cuts and benefits set by councils’, The Guardian, 5 August 2009.

321 Ibid.

322 P. Wintour, ‘Tories may give councils power to set benefits’, The Guardian, 28 January 2010.

323 See N. Bateman, letter in The Guardian, 6 August 2009.

324 Quoted in M. Chittenden and J. Grimston, ‘Councils to cash in on parking fees’, The Sunday Times, 9 August 2009.

325 R. Bagley, ‘Brown's £16bn assets firesale’, Morning Star, 13 October 2009.

326 ‘Editorial’, Morning Star, 13 October 2009.

327 C. Smith, ‘The pay row between council workers and employers has deepened after the announcement of a pay freeze from April’, Localgov.uk Newsletter, 20 January 2010.

328 C. Smith and M. Hobley, ‘Council leaders’ fury at local government sell off plans’, Localgov.uk Newsletter, 13 October 2009.

329 Ibid.

330 T. Webb, ‘VT prepares for an outsourcing boom, with defence and schools up for grabs’, The Guardian, 18 November 2009.

331 See http://l-r-c.org.uk/news/story/general-election-campaign-2-weeks-to-go/.

332 Ibid.

333P. Haste, ‘PCS pushes for representation’, Morning Star, 21 May 2010. The proposal had already been backed by 64 per cent of branches in a national consultation (ibid.) following the decision by Emaildelegates at their 2009 Conference.

334 R. Griffiths, ‘Crisis engulfing working-class representation’, The Morning Star, 7-8 November 2009. See also R. Griffiths, 2009a, which analyses who the ruling class are; what their strategy is likely to be after the recession; the need for unity to defeat their offensive; and the lessons to be drawn ‘to improve our understanding of capitalism and clarify our strategy for challenging and overthrowing it’ (p. 18).

335 R. Griffiths, ‘Cutback Britain: United we stand’, Morning Star, 31 December 2009. Email

336 Conservative Party, 2010, p. 38.

337 Quoted in J. Freedland, 'Comment', The Guardian, 21 July 2010.

338 Quoted in E. Davey, ‘Barnet and Lambeth turn to Easyjet and John Lewis’, BBC News 29 April 2010.

339 Ibid., my emphasis. Recent developments in Lambeth are also discussed in the final section of Chapter 9.

340 Quoted in R. Bagley, 'It's every man for himself in Cameron's "Big Society"', Morning Star, 20 July 2010.

341 Ibid.

342 K. Flett, letter, The Guardian, 21 July 2010.

343 N. McInroy, letter, The Guardian, 21 July 2010.

344 I. Austen, 'Voluntary groups have funds axed', The Croydon Advertiser, 16 July 2010.

345 Quoted in The Croydon Advertiser, 16 July 2010.

346 S. Milne ‘Breaking the electoral mould may not have a happy ending’, The Guardian, 22 April 2010. See also note 16.

347 Cabinet Office, 2010, p. 15. Including David Law’s and Danny Alexander’s demand that ‘the Tories’ £6 billion of cuts should be implemented this year, although they had campaigned against cuts in the election’ (P. Toynbee. ‘David Laws’ life goal was to cast people out of work’, The Guardian, 1 June 2010).

348 S. Milne, ‘No new era, but the sound of an elite sharpening its axe’, The Guardian, 13 May 2010.

349 R. Woods, ‘Rise of the executive MP’, The Sunday Times, 16 May 2010

350 H. Jameson ‘One-third of cuts directed at local government’, LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter, 10 June 2010.

351 P. Wintour, The Guardian, 29 May 2010, who also points out that when David Laws ‘first stood as a Lib Dem, the Lib Dem leader Paddy Ashdown thought he was a Tory mole’. Laws – a millionaire ex-banker – became a vice-president of JP Morgan in his 20s and then managing director of Barclays de Zoete Wedd before entering Westminster: and was also co-editor with Paul Marshall of the neoliberal Orange Book (2004) in which he called for the rejection of “soggy socialism” and a private health insurance system instead of the NHS.

352 J. Wight, ‘Ruling-class venality is laid bare yet again’, Morning Star, 1 June 2010. Though Laws is now facing a police fraud investigation (The Sunday Times, 4 July 2010).

353 ‘Under the plans, budgetary sinners (‘deemed to be persistently in breach of EU fiscal guidelines’) could see their grants from the EU suspended...and...Chancellor Merkel of Germany wants to amend the Lisbon treaty to force offending countries to forfeit their voting rights’ (I. Traynor, ‘Osborne in talks over EU scrutiny of budget’, The Guardian, 12 June 2010).

354 M. Conrad, ‘PM accused of “chilling attack” on public sector’, LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter, 7 June 2010.

355 L. Elliott, ‘Political tricks and the Canada delusion’, The Guardian, 8 June 2010.

356 Quoted in P. Inman and P. Wintour, ‘Cuts will push jobless to 3m’, The Guardian, 10 June 2010.

357 Ibid.

358 TUC, 2010a, p. 8.

359 Quoted in P. Inman and P. Wintour, 'Cuts will push jobless to 3m', The Guardian, 10 June 2010.

360 Quoted in L. Elliott, 'Budget will cost 1.3m jobs – Treasury', The Guardian, 30 June 2010.

361 Ibid.

362 P. Wintour, 'Battle breaks out over leaked jobless figures', The Guardian, 1 July 2010.

363 Quoted in L. Elliott, ‘CBI calls for reduced taxes on rich and big spending cuts’, The Guardian, 10 June 2010.

364 W. Stone, 'Delegates warn against government changes to LGPS', Morning Star, 17 June 2010; P. Haste, 'Stop the pensions scaremongering', Morning Star, 16 June 2010. George Osborne's June 2010 budget switched the basis for calculating increases in public sector pensions to cover inflation from the retail price index (RPI), which was 5.1 per cent in May 2010, to the consumer price index (CPI), which was only 3.4 per cent; and imposed a pay freeze in the public sector. Therefore, according to public sector union Prospect, these two measures could result in a £20,000 lifetime loss for a civil servant earning £20,000 a year, assuming they built up 40 years of service ( R. Sutherland, 'Osborne's budget ruse land public sector staff with £20,000 pension loss', The Observer, 4 July 2010).

365 CBI, 2010, p. 11.

366 P. Haste, 'Con-Dems plot to rip up strike ballot rules', Morning Star, 6 July 2010.

367 P. Curtis, 'Job schemes to go as coalition shelves projects worth £10.5bn', The Guardian, 18 June 2010.

368 H. Ticktin, 2010, p. 183. For example, 'Mr Osborne said the austerity measures were "unavoidable" and were the result of years of largesse under the previous Labour government' (M. Conrad, 'June Budget: Osborne sets out "unavoidable" austerity measures', LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter, 22 June 2010).

369 Ibid., pp. 183-184.

370 R. Bagley, 'Budget 2010: What's in the Box', Morning Star, 23 June 2010. Email

371 HM Treasury, 2010, p. 15, paragraph 1.15.

372 Ibid., p. 17, paragraph 1.40.

373 Ibid., p. 66, paragraph A.13.

374 T. Clark, 'We're all in it, but the poor take the biggest hit', The Guardian, 24 June 2010, Chart 3 'Osborne's squeeze on the poor'.

375 A. Asthana, 'Osborne's budget cuts will "hit Britain's poorest families six times harder than the richest"', The Observer, 27 June 2010.

376 Quoted in A. Stratton, 'Women will bear brunt of budget cuts, says Yvette Cooper', The Guardian, 5 July 2010.

377 Ibid. The figures do not include the impact of measures such as the £640 million council tax freeze, the abolition of the child trust fund and indirect taxes such as VAT. Though they do include the effect of cutting the health in pregnancy grant and the Sure Start maternity grant.

378 This model is as per the analysis provided in the June Budget (Table A2, page 64). It therefore assumes families are not entitled to the 30-hour element, that calculations are based on a family with one child over the age of one, with no entitlement to baby, childcare or disability elements. These figures include all other tax credit changes in the Budget – including the increase in child tax credit. Working families earning £8,920 or lower will lose less than £1,025 as the threshold for withdrawal of tax credits is £6,420. The fall from 30,000 to 25,000 is also lower, as a result of government plans to withdraw the second income taper for tax credits. This means that should a family in the scenario set out in the Budget table A2 earn £26,122 in 2012-13 they will no longer qualify for any tax credits (although in different scenarios they will be entitled to additional tax credit elements - and in these instances families with in-year income changes will lose the full £1,025 as a result of the disregard). But according to the scenario set out in the Budget table A2 families earning between £25,000 and £26,122 will therefore experience a smaller reduction as a result of the income disregard policy. The illustrative figure for families on £10,000 relates to families who experience a drop in income of more than £2,500 a year and still qualify for the 30 hour tax credit element. No statistics on the number of families experiencing an in-year change in their tax credit award are published by HMRC, and as yet the Treasury has been unable to provide the TUC with figures. It is however possible to estimate how the Budget has been costed. The maximum that a family will lose as a result of this change is £1,025. Dividing the estimated Budget savings for 2012-13 by this amount gives a total of 536,585 families. Given that some families will lose less than £1,025 (as set out above), the actual number will be larger - but 536,585 gives a lower estimate of the number of families that the government expects be affected. HMRC statistics show that 50 per cent of working families in receipt of tax credits earn less than £20,000 (and by 2012-13 reductions the government's proposed reductions in entitlements for higher earnings families will inevitably mean that this figure is higher). Presuming that the same distribution applies to families who see an in-year income fall in their tax credit award, this would mean that at least 250,000 families earning below £20,000 could be affected. It's also important to recognise that few families affected will be high earners – as the Budget sets out from 2012-13 basic tax credit entitlements will no longer be payable to families earning over £26,122 a year (although families in different circumstances from those set out in the Budget may continue to receive payments if they earn above this amount).

379 NHF, 'Housing benefit caps put 750,000 at risk of losing their home in London and south east', press statement 23 July 2010.

380 H. Jameson, 'Part-time staff to have pay frozen', LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter, 14 July 2010.

381 LocalGov.co.uk Newsletter, 22 June 2010.

382 M. Burke, 2010, p. 1.

383 Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, 2010, p. 2 and Figure 1, p. 3.

384 Deloitte, 2010, p. 2.

385 Ibid., p. 3.

386 Ibid., pp. 3-5. Deloitte's twelfth quarterly survey of CFOs was carried out from 11-25 June 2010. The 125 participants were from 32 FTSE 100 and 44 FTSE 250 companies. The rest were CFOs of other UK listed companies, large private companies and UK subsidiaries of major companies listed overseas. The combined market value of the 93 UK listed companies surveyed is £446 billion or approximately 28 per cent of the UK quoted equity market (p. 2).

387 J. Kollewe, 'Survey shows recovery in services slowing as cuts raise fears of double-dip recession, The Guardian, 6 July 2010.

388 P. Curtis, 'School building programme scrapped in latest round of cuts', The Guardian, 6 July 2010.

389 H. Duncan, 'School rebuilding cuts slash RM Group shares', London Evening Standard, 6 July 2010, R. Wachman, 'Austerity hits private sector as contractors brace for £25bn of cuts', The Guardian, 7 July 2010.

390 Quoted in R. Watts, 'Business left in lurch by austerity cuts', The Sunday Times, 11 July 2010.

391 Construction Industries Association press release, 22 June 2010.

392 See note 55.

393 Quoted in R. Wachman, 'Austerity hits private sector as contractors brace for £25bn of cuts', The Guardian, 7 July 2010.

394 S. Jenkins, 'Osborne must hold his VAT hike to avert the double blip', The Guardian, 14 July 2010.

395 Institute of Directors, press release dated 13 July 2010.

396 See note 59. Osborne's economic illiteracy – described by Simon Hoggart as 'like a traditional doctor appearing in front of the BMA in order to explain why leeches are the best way to heal most illnesses' – was recently demonstrated at the Commons Treasury Committee when he was asked by the Tory Chair why the bottom 10 per cent of earners were hardest hit by the budget. Osborne started flannelling about students being in the lowest "decile" of earners, but not technically being poor. The Chair then asked whether it was fair that people earning between £16,000 and £38,000 a year were paying proportionally the least. Osborne said something more about students. The Chair then asked, as the budget included cuts in housing benefit and disability allowance, would they not affect lower income groups? Finally he asked Osborne to come back with amended charts to show the actual effects of his cuts: which, as Hoggart concluded, was 'the equivalent of a don marking an essay "non satis" and demanding it be written again' (S. Hoggart, 'The supercilious in pursuit of the smug', The Guardian, 16 July 2010).

397 Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation, 2010, p. 4 and Figure 2, p. 5.

398 Burke, 2010, p. 5, my emphasis. Alan Budd, head of the new Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), resigned on 6 July 2010 following 'the OBR's uncalled-for and mismanaged intervention' the previous week 'in the row over the emergency budget's impact on unemployment', which an editorial in The Guardian the following day also concluded 'is now a fig leaf for Mr Osborne's plans to slash spending'. Moreover, Geoffrey Dicks, one of three officials at the OBR, told the first meeting of the Treasury Select Committee this parliament on 13 July 2010, that public spending cuts and higher taxes "logically increased the possibility of a double dip" (Quoted in P. Inman, 'Budget raised double-dip recession risk, says watchdog', The Guardian, 14 July 2010).

399 T. Helm, J. Doward and A. Asthana, 'Cabinet faces shock new call for 40% budget cuts', The Observer, 4 July 2010.

400 Department of Health, 2010, p. 5.

401 Tribal investor presentation 28 January 2010.

402 Tribal press release dated 13 July 2010, my emphasis.

403 Quoted in R. Wachman, ' Private health firms scent big opportunity in NHS outsourcing plans', The Guardian, 17 July 2010.

404 Ibid.

405 Ibid.

406 Ibid.