The spending review’s actors are jostling for position at the final curtain call.
Bit-part players are stealing for the prominence of the centre, Whitehall’s bigger beasts fight to preserve their dwindling limelight and the leadership try to direct and subjugate the
warring egos. Defence seems more or less settled, with the navy’s grandiose element
apparently securing its two super-carriers. Doubts remain over the education budget’s final reckoning and welfare is unsettled as yet.
Après child benefit, le deluge – so to speak. An attack on the principle of universal benefit would have predictable consequences. Questions have arisen about the government’s commitment to the winter fuel allowance and the cold weather payment. Gordon Brown may have scorched the already barren earth by extending these welfare payments in 2008, but the Conservatives have persistently guaranteed to protect them – a position that David Cameron reiterated unequivocally at PMQs yesterday and this morning’s Guardian reports
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