Crunch time and 46 Tories just woke up to austerity impacts. Not mine.

You can't make this up but following on yesterday's blast at an uncaring government, it turns out 46 Tory MPs are alarmed at the state of local government finances. Our local MP is MIA - of course.

Holy crap - but I’m writing again within 24 hours! What happened?

Following on from yesterday’s wondermissive in which I took a hefty swipe at our uncaring government, 46 Tory MPs woke up to the fact that large swathes of the country are at risk of sinking in financial shit. They say to Prime Minister Sunak (download PDF for full text) among other things:

On December 5th, Leaders of CCN member councils collectively wrote to you clearly setting out that this has left county and unitary councils in our areas significantly worse off than before the Autumn Statement and called on the government to provide further funding at the Provisional Local Government Settlement.1 However, the provisional settlement, published on 18th December, did not bring forward any further financial support.

While I’d love to take credit for orchestrating this, it’s a testament to our dreadful mainstream media that the extent to which our country is in trouble has largely been ignored. This plays directly to the tired, dreary but constant Tory government narrative of council profligacy and waste - mostly directed at Labour-controlled councils as you’d expect. It may be partially true but the austerity imposed by 14 years of Tory misrule is the real culprit.

What’s more interesting to me is the identity of the signatories to this letter. They include former ministers Priti Patel and Robert Jenrick among other high-profile Tories.

I’ve not done the math to determine whether their seats are at risk in the event of a Tory wipeout at the next general election. Instead, I looked at reported news stories covering their local council's proposed budgets. In both cases, their local councils are having to make savings and/or increase charges.

In Newark, Jenrick’s bailliewick, 11% proposed service charge increases caused something of a stink. As one councillor reportedly said (excuse the annoying ads):

Councillor Paul Taylor said: “To actually go to 11% is totally unfair on the people of Newark, I am quite willing to support an increase above 1.9%, but 11% in a cost of living crisis is totally unreasonable and I would suggest capping the increase to 5.9%.

“For people of Newark who can't afford heating, bills or to eat, this 11% increase is not insignificant, it’s a lot of money to them.”

Hell yes! And I bet that statement could be more or less cut and pasted across the whole country. Meanwhile, at Patel’s council:

The (Braintree) council faces a £2.181m budget gap over the next four years and is preparing to meet its longer-term challenges and address the budget gap through a comprehensive transformation programme.

This is a modest gap when compared to the massive shortfall facing my local authority. But then over half a million people are served where I live, many requiring social care support, while the comparative total number of constituents for Braintree is just shy of 156,000 accompanied by a relatively small social care requirement. Even so, cost problems in Essex are not inconsiderable:

The medium range scenario for future years indicates a gap between the council’s overall expected funding streams and its overall expenditure. After delivering 100 per cent of all existing planned savings, the gap is expected to be £19m in 2024/25 rising to £75m by 2026/27, before further tax rises.

Perhaps the reason these MPs have signed the letter is because according to an i-News poll, people are in favour of money going to help fund services rather than deliver tax cuts, the latter almost always serving the interests of the wealthy. (See image below)

via i-News poll

All of which leaves me wondering why our local MP has not signed the letter referred to above, especially as his official strap line is “Your interest not self-interest.” Hmmmm. How is that interpreted I wonder? Perhaps his refusal comes from a deeply held belief that manifests itself in the credo noted in the image at the top of this story. Regardless, he’s MIA as far as this citizen is concerned.