Public Sector Will Bear The Brunt Of Cuts, Says Cameron [Bravo!]

London Times ^ | June 18, 2010 | Roland Watson

[Steelfish]

Public Sector Will Bear The Brunt Of Cuts, Says Cameron

Core areas of government spending would have to be cut, David Cameron said

Roland Watson June 19 2010

David Cameron braces six million public sector workers for sweeping cuts to their pay and tough new terms on their pensions today, describing next week’s Budget as the moment when “the rubber really hits the road”. The Prime Minister said that tackling Britain’s deficit would mean targeting core areas of government spending such as pay, pensions and benefits. “There is no way of dealing with an 11 per cent budget deficit just by hitting either the rich or the welfare scrounger,” he said in an interview with The Times.

The Budget will mark a move away from universal state handouts, putting an end to tax credits for wealthier families. Mr Cameron conceded that the pain from George Osborne’s four-year spending squeeze would be felt by all and is readying himself for a drop in his popularity. “There are no easy or popular ways of doing this,” he said.

He added, however, that the case for swift and deep cuts was unanswerable. He will try to persuade the country that the coalition’s four-year austerity drive comes not from choice or ideology but from necessity. “The Budget is something that we have to do,” he said. “It is not something we want to do, it is not something I came into politics to do. It is something we have to do for the good of the country.”

He is also preparing himself for a battle with the unions. When he hears them threaten to oppose all cuts, “you just think: what planet are they living on?”.

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