Labour's new shadow chancellor Alan Johnson has lost no time laying into the government over its economic plans: "Conservative spending cuts are worse than Thatcher's", screams a headline in the Guardian (where else?).
In March, two months before the election, of course, Labour chancellor Alistair Darling accepted that if Labour won, a Labour government's cuts would be deeper and tougher than Mrs Thatcher's: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison, I think, is secondary to the fact that there is an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough".
And he was backed up by Labour's then Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam ('There is no money left') Byrne, who when asked on BBC One's Question Time whether the cuts would be deeper than under Margaret Thatcher, said: "Yes, they will be".
Sounds like Mr Johnson needs to start reading that economics primer.
Sunday 10 October 2010
Monday 4 October 2010
Ten green bottles
Ten o'clock and time to take the dogs for their morning walk - in the rain, again, so on with coats for the three of us and wellies for me.
Monday is rubbish collection day in Sutton and, as I shut the back gate and trudge to the road, I notice that the bin men have already, er, bin.
My complimentary black bin liner (for residual waste), carefully fashioned into the shape of a hand grenade by the East Cambs Council Origami Team, has been lobbed onto our drive where it's getting rained on, and when I get back I'll have to grubble it out of the weeds and shake it dry.
Our complimentary brown paper sacks (for garden and food waste) have also been left on the drive in the rain, and are already a sodden mess. There's no way they're going to sit and fester in my kitchen for a fortnight in that state, so I'll have to find somewhere to put them to dry out.
Our glass bottles haven't yet been collected, and are sitting in various soggy carrier bags in our trug of recyclable paper - or, as it's become by now, papier-mâché.
Up to the top of Pound Lane, where the bottle banks live. Since the council stopped collecting plastic bottles six months ago, the local recycling point has become - quite literally - a tip. Local residents, still keen to play their part by recycling plastic bottles despite the best efforts of the council to frustrate them, now bring their empties to the recycling point, only to find the plastic bottle containers stuffed to overflowing. They're not going to take their carrier bags of bottles home again, so they get left in massive heaps around the recycling point. Situated as it is on the road into Sutton, it's not exactly a fantastic advert for the village, or the council.
Back home half an hour later, I pick up the soggy paper sacks and trudge across the overgrown garden in the mud and rain to stick them in the shed. Hopefully we'll have a dry weekend so we can do some gardening, and they'll be fit to use by then.
While other councils in the area are pushing ahead with recycling, East Cambridgeshire is continuing to tumble down the waste management league tables. It's hardly surprising, with a performance like this. Perhaps, like the green bottles, some of the councillors responsible for this farrago will 'accidentally fall' at the election next May.
Monday is rubbish collection day in Sutton and, as I shut the back gate and trudge to the road, I notice that the bin men have already, er, bin.
My complimentary black bin liner (for residual waste), carefully fashioned into the shape of a hand grenade by the East Cambs Council Origami Team, has been lobbed onto our drive where it's getting rained on, and when I get back I'll have to grubble it out of the weeds and shake it dry.
Our complimentary brown paper sacks (for garden and food waste) have also been left on the drive in the rain, and are already a sodden mess. There's no way they're going to sit and fester in my kitchen for a fortnight in that state, so I'll have to find somewhere to put them to dry out.
Our glass bottles haven't yet been collected, and are sitting in various soggy carrier bags in our trug of recyclable paper - or, as it's become by now, papier-mâché.
Up to the top of Pound Lane, where the bottle banks live. Since the council stopped collecting plastic bottles six months ago, the local recycling point has become - quite literally - a tip. Local residents, still keen to play their part by recycling plastic bottles despite the best efforts of the council to frustrate them, now bring their empties to the recycling point, only to find the plastic bottle containers stuffed to overflowing. They're not going to take their carrier bags of bottles home again, so they get left in massive heaps around the recycling point. Situated as it is on the road into Sutton, it's not exactly a fantastic advert for the village, or the council.
Back home half an hour later, I pick up the soggy paper sacks and trudge across the overgrown garden in the mud and rain to stick them in the shed. Hopefully we'll have a dry weekend so we can do some gardening, and they'll be fit to use by then.
While other councils in the area are pushing ahead with recycling, East Cambridgeshire is continuing to tumble down the waste management league tables. It's hardly surprising, with a performance like this. Perhaps, like the green bottles, some of the councillors responsible for this farrago will 'accidentally fall' at the election next May.
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