Following on from the reprieve for Booktrust and an unchopped Quango or two, we have yet another saving reversal with the Department for Business finding a few million quid tucked down the back of a sofa :
Hundreds of specialist debt advisers facing redundancy have won a reprieve after the government found £27m to continue the service for a year.
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Last month, the government said it would axe the fund, and advisers were given redundancy notices.
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Now, the Department for Business has said it has found the money from a contingency fund to keep the advice going for another year.
How exactly is this government going to make progress on shrinking £1 trillion and more in debt when they cannot even manage to make the simplest of small savings? A few million here and a few million there soon starts to add up.
If the coagulation hasn’t even got the balls to face down a few shroud wavers on these small matters, what hope is there for the unrest that is sure to follow when the unions start direct action as the cuts to council services get underway?
This is just a political decision otherwise called avoiding a banana skin.
They do seem to be very risk averse though.
It reminds me very much of Labour politics – announce something, wait a few weeks whilst gauging the reaction of the tabloids and then decide whether you have the balls to carry it through.
None of this will help reduce the current account gap let alone the mountain of debt we have.
Tuesdays inflation figures should be interesting and I am sure will provide a large amount of scrotal tightening amongst the treasury and BofE!