Councils of despair

Local authorities are slashing vital services, but keeping extravagant offices and salaries – and handing blame back to David Cameron

We are, of course, all in this together. It is just that an awful lot of people feel that they are rather further in it than anyone else, and believe that while they are drowning in the deep end they can see David Cameron happily splashing about in his Gucci shorts in the shallows.

I certainly felt that way when I read through Cambridgeshire County Council’s new budget and realised that my daughter’s transport to school has been selected for the chop. Like many disabled children, she has a long daily journey to a special school which is far removed from where we live. The nearest special school — built on a cheap edge-of-village greenfield site so that the sites of the two Cambridge schools which preceded it could be sold to developers — is half an hour’s drive away.