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Cabinet summonded to No 10 as Gordon Brown sharpens spending axe
Joe Murphy, Political Editor18 Sep 2009
Gordon Brown today took out his spending axe in earnest by ordering Cabinet ministers to draw up cuts.
With Chancellor Alistair Darling, the Prime Minister has begun the first detailed talks in the agonising process to find savings before the looming general election.
Every senior minister will be summoned in turn over the next fortnight to defend their spending plans and agree where the axe should fall.
Home Secretary Alan Johnson went to No10 yesterday for his first grilling about "priorities". Talks are thought to have covered whether plans for ID cards could be made cheaper.
Mr Brown said on Tuesday that he was finally ready to cut "lower priority budgets", while leaked Treasury papers suggested that massive cuts of 9.3 per cent are needed over four years.
It is the first time in more than 30 years that a Labour Cabinet has come under so much pressure to spend less - and will evoke shudders from Labour MPs who recall how a pay freeze led to the Winter of Discontent and the rise of Margaret Thatcher.
The Government has moved in a week from talking in general terms about "difficult decisions" to the hard-pounding of identifying actual cuts.
Insiders insist that no minister has been given a target for cutbacks and no decisions have
been taken.
However, each Cabinet minister is being confronted with the findings of a major report led by Treasury chief secretary Liam Byrne over the summer.
Called the Public Value Programme, it scrutinised departments for savings and value for money.
An insider said: “Alistair and Gordon are doing this together. They are systematically working
their way through the departments, meeting every Secretary of State.”
The process is being carried out at breakneck speed. The pair aim to hold talks with every
Cabinet spending minister in the next fortnight, squeezing meetings between next week's G20 summit and the Labour Party conference.
The meetings are being led by Mr Brown in No 10 as a symbol of their importance.
Labour MPs are worried that the Conservatives have so far made the running on the spending
and cuts debate. A poll for BBC Two's Newsnight suggested more people think David Cameron would make the right cuts in public spending than Mr Brown.
Any savings in the ID card scheme, which the Tories have vowed to scrap, would have the extra advantage of putting pressure on Mr Cameron to find savings elsewhere.
Some ministers want ID Cards scrapped as a symbolic sacrifice, but sources say Mr Johnson is currently only looking at ways to make it more
efficient.
Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth is considering reducing the planned replacement for Trident from four submarines to three.
The Chancellor promised in April that his pre-Budget report, due in November, would set out plans to halve the deficit in four years. There is speculation he now hopes to go faster and further by setting detailed cuts.
Mr Brown has promised he will not axe front-line services. The Prime Minister last night denied Tory claims that he misled Parliament by denying the need for cuts, even though leaked papers show his officials said he would have to do the
same.
“Under no circumstances have we done anything other than publish the documentation that was essential at the Budget,” Mr Brown said.
“We are prepared to discuss and debate the figures that have arisen from that.” But Mr Cameron said the Premier had been “completely caught out”.
A poll today found Mr Cameron is increasingly seen as a better leader. He was seen as “substantial” by 56 per cent while only 38 per cent said the same of Mr Brown, according to
the Populus research in the Times.
He was seen as “decisive” by two-thirds — while the same proportion see Mr Brown as “dithering”.
Reader views (13)
Is this the very same Gordon Brown who was telling us just a few weeks ago that there would be no cuts by this government, that the Tories would be inflicting "savage" cuts of 10% on public services.
Now, just a few days after the emergence of Treasury documents apparently drawing up plans for cuts of a fraction under 10%, our "leader" appears to be rolling his sleeves up to implement the very cuts that he was denying.
Does he seriously believe that he retains any credibility to lead this country?
- John C, Leatherhead, UK, 18/09/2009 15:14
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'The meetings are being led by Mr Brown in No10 as a symbol of their importance'.
What utter tosh!
As ever, Brown [and Lord Meddlesome] wants to hog the limelight, pretend that he's still in control , choreograph 'his own' banally dissasterous script, and to puppeteer No-Time-for-a-Novice Darling!
And, besides, despite this mendacious pretence, they're only really all now going to do just what the Union Barons blackmailed Brown to do at last week's cosy little ZaNuLabour 'finance' gathering at Chequers!
So, it's from 'fags, beer and sandwiches' to 'cigars, champagne and foi gras' for 'the brothers and sisters' in 12 screwed up vaccuous years!
Ain't that right Mr Campbell?
June 2010 can't come fast enough!
- Dave, Cumbria, 18/09/2009 14:18
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On Sept 5th he was telling the entire world that cutting spending was a recipe for disaster! He is just a laughing stock surely. I used to think the people who said he was mad were deluded but now I'm not so sure. Absolutely barking behaviour.
- Johnfaganwilliams, London, 18/09/2009 14:12
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"Cabinet summonded to No 10 as Gordon Brown sharpens spending axe"
Shame, I thought you were implying he was sacking them all and getting cheaper more competant people in.
- Bob, Cheam, 18/09/2009 14:10
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Ummm..., not too good for New Labour.. this looks like deja vu from 1990,
just before Mrs T got booted out because of the Poll Tax and stuff...
mind you we are too close to the election now, but desperate times can bring desperate measures, who knows, a political black swan looming?!
- Nabil H, London, UK, 18/09/2009 13:30
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Word is that Brown threatened to slap them all with a wilted lettuce leaf and whip `em with a scented boot lace if they didn't fall into line.
- Ted, London, 18/09/2009 13:16
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This won't save Broon, he's a Jonah in every sense of the word.
I'm wishing my life away I know but next June can't come quick enough.
- Albert Hall, Kettering, 18/09/2009 12:32
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We really have gone full circle now and returned to the dark days of old Labour three decades ago with industrial action at every corner and a financial crisis due to over zealous and over ambitious spending. All we need now are the power cuts and flared trousers.
- Albert Swift, Aberdeen, Scotland, 18/09/2009 11:36
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A perfect opportunity for Crash Gordon to admit failure and call an election. Britain needs change.
- Linda, Islington, London, 18/09/2009 11:23
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Surprise, surprise this wretched bunch of people who call themselves the UK government, embark on a cost cutting charade the day after leaks from the Treasury. Why was this not done when in April Brown, the liar, was lambasting the Conservatives for contemplating 10% cuts and reiterating that he would not cut, but invest, when in fact the Treasury had already put before him a proposal for cuts.
- Bingham Macnamara, lymington, hampshire, 18/09/2009 11:11
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They fiddle while Britain burns,-rearranging the deckchairs after hitting the iceberg,-and the band played on whilst the people screamed,never in the history of socialist disasters has the cost been greater or longer lasting than this one will be.
- General Lee'Wright, Communist Britain, 18/09/2009 10:47
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I think the horse has bolted!
- Tojo, Hythe, 18/09/2009 09:51
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Gormless Brown "dithering"?
He is a walking disaster of the first order.
- Reuben Camara, Morecambe Compound, EUSSR, 18/09/2009 09:38
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