The Preston Cuts, an eight-page print special, was joined by broadcast and online coverage in real-time, courtesy of Blog Preston. The results of their work can be seen here. I'm going to see about getting the PDFs of The Preston Cuts up as well. As part of the project, the students interviewed local experts, workers in a range of public and private sector positions, a political analyst and a Preston family. The impressive part is that the whole package was completed by 6pm on Wednesday - just four and a half hours after George Osborne finished speaking.
As part of the print coverage, I wrote a parliamentary sketch for the day, which you can read below.
Teetering dangerously on a single elbow, David Cameron spun his way through a Prime Minister’s Questions that had the distinct air of a warm-up performance.
Ed Miliband showed little of the aplomb with which he had accepted the Labour leadership. Shaken, perhaps, by news that the health budget would not be cut even as Margaret Thatcher was wheeled into hospital, Miliband struggled with basic information such as George Osborne’s title (referring to him as the 'shadow chancellor'). One key word during the warm-up was ‘inherited’, which is what the coalition did regarding the deficit. No surprises here. Everyone knows the Conservatives’ attitude towards inheritance tax.
George Osborne was today’s headline act, although the pages of the Spending Review itself probably had more vitality than the Chancellor’s performance. Eschewing the casual approach of the Prime Minister, Osborne spent much of his speech grasping the plinth firmly with both hands as though he were about to throw up.
Danny Alexander’s faux pas, it turned out, had disclosed the only real figure in the CSR relating to job losses. This was a report focused on sums of money, not people. Reform, fairness and growth: these were the terms in which we were encouraged to think. Less clear were the mixed semi-anatomical metaphors of ‘cutting’ and ‘squeezing’, although it was obvious that the surgery was going to be performed as cheaply as possible.
Big news, though, came in the form of the universal credit system, which would contribute toward welfare savings of £7bn. Child benefit would remain, for now, up to the age of 18 (at the mention of this, Vince Cable nodded so vociferously that he looked as though he had been kicked).
There would be investment in apprenticeships but state pensions would be withheld until the age of 66, in a step towards the cradle-to-grave employment for which Thatcher had yearned.
Much was made of the commitment to pensioners, who were to receive cold weather payments “for life, not just for general elections”. Sighs of relief: it was going to be chilly with all the freezes that were going on.
As Osborne took his seat, he was mobbed by an affection-starved Nick Clegg, who had been grinning at David Cameron throughout the ordeal on grounds that were evidently so suspect the Prime Minister would not return his gaze.
As this wasn’t a formal budget, it was Alan Johnson, the Shadow Chancellor, rather than the leader of the Opposition who was allowed to respond. Just as well – Johnson seemed to be the only one there who had any presence or delivery, although he relied heavily upon his speech ahead of the CSR, reiterating that the ConDems were packaging politics as economics and that the cuts (or squeezes) were ideologically driven, not essential.
Osborne, in response, ripped into Labour’s lack of an alternative to the CSR, echoing David Cameron’s earlier admonishment that ‘if you don’t have a plan, you can’t attack a plan’. Perhaps Johnson should have moved into sketch writing instead: he brought the House down when he suggested that the Tory Chief Whip was so terrible he could do his job without moving.
