Theresa May is living in a fantasy world where the mistakes caused by her cuts didn’t happen

A line from The Guardian‘s story about cuts to policing stood out very strongly:

The home secretary said the Home Office had managed to deliver a 30% real-terms reduction in its budget since 2010 in the previous round of austerity cuts “without the roof falling in”.

She’s living in La-La Land.

Did she not notice that, while she was off in Brussels at the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting, policing minister Mike Penning was making a grovelling apology for the fact that, due to an elemental error of statistics, her planned new funding formula for police forces has had to be scrapped in its entirety, triggering a lengthy delay?

If that wasn’t the roof actually falling in on Mr Penning, then it certainly must have seemed like it to him, as he fumbled and stuttered his way through his speech, to the amusement of Opposition MPs.

Keith Vaz, chair of the Home Affairs select committee, suggested that Mr Penning might “establish an independent panel of experts who understand the importance of sharing data and, more importantly, are able to count and understand mathematics” before embarking on a re-evaluation of the funding formula.

Jack Dromey told Mr Penning to “get a grip, and get it right”.

We have seen many errors already, due to the public service cuts that Tories love so much.

Undoubtedly we will see many more.

Mrs May should consider the facts before making unsupportable claims about her department’s performance.

Source: Theresa May warns police: cuts mean ‘fewer people, fewer buildings’ | UK news | The Guardian

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One Comment

  1. gfranklinpercival November 11, 2015 at 4:50 am - Reply

    Mike Penning was the disaster area who preceded Esther McVey at DWP.

    The chap apologised, but he is accustomed to that. .Count your fingers if you are sufficiently misguided to shake his hand.

    What is it with toffs and the brigade of guards?

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5369123/MPs-expenses-Tory-frontbencher-Mike-Penning-claimed-for-dog-bowl.html

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