Osborne’s axe – it’s cutting most deeply in the North, in cities like Leeds

Councils across Yorkshire & Humber recently joined others – of all political persuasions – to lobby the Chancellor on the dire consequences of further deep cuts. But they had been bracing themselves for further axing – which is exactly what they got yesterday from our part-time Chancellor.

The suffering is general, but it’s not evenly shared.
The combined axes of Osborne and Pickles have not been falling equally across all Councils. Instead there has been bare-faced political, regional bias – in ways which make nonsense of any idea that this is a ‘national’ government.

Across the Yorkshire and Humberside region, councils were already dealing with previously announced cuts of around 34% to their budgets – for services from social care and waste collection to libraries and pot- hole repairs.

Further grant reductions of approximately 10 per cent for local government were announced yesterday for the period leading up to…