By Ray Fleming
DAVID Cameron, George Osborne and Nick Clegg have only themselves to blame for the mounting criticism of the unfairness of the government's programme of public expenditure economies. Even on Wednesday Mr Osborne claimed in his House of Commons speech that his spending review was anchored in fairness.
Yesterday Mr Clegg said that fairness was literally the question I have been asking myself every single day. As for the prime minister, he has not gone back on his assertion that we're all in this together which, of course, is palpable nonsense.
After Mr Osborne's speech on Wednesday several research organisations burnt the midnight oil analysing the probable effects of the cuts he had announced. Prominent among them was the highly-regarded Institute for Fiscal Studies which had described the Chancellor's earlier budget as regressive and reached the same conclusion about Wednesday's Comprehensive Spending Review, saying that The less well-off will be proportionately the hardest hit with families with children being the biggest losers. Other researchers unearthed the dodgy use of facts and figures by the government. For instance, Mr Osborne conveniently overlooked a substantial part of the reduction in welfare services while the apparently small cut in the Education budget hid the fact that 67 per cent of primary schools and 87 per cent of secondary schools will lose funding. Fairness cannot be the name of this game. Why pretend otherwise?