Sir Peter Gershon, the Butcher of the Public Sector, has been taken on by the Tories and is calling for £12billion more cuts and another 40,000 job losses in the public sector. Cameron's also calling for a pay cut for public sector workers and higher tuition fees and also for a longer working life.
In other words, the tories will try and make working class people pay for the recession with unemployment, lower wages, cuts to public services, a higher retirement age and by reversing the access to higher education they gained in the past.
Even this, however, doesn't mount up to their full programme of cutbacks. Labour has said that there is a £22bn whole in the Tories' plan and the Tories haven't denied it! They've countered by saying there's a massive hole in Labour's plans too. Both are right, because both Labour and Tories (and Lib Dems, who have refused to rule out cutbacks in the NHS after the election).
But - as a start - why not spend the £4.5bn a year spent on Afghanisan and Iraq by Britain and the £76bn pledged to renew Trident on public services instead? Why not stop private companies from squeezing profits out of cash-strapped public services? These are the real "efficiency savings" that need to be made, but it's only Socialists who are willing to make them.
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