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| Lost Vivaldi flute concerto found A lost flute concerto by the composer Vivaldi has been discovered at the National Archives of Scotland bbc.co.uk |
Manchester police uses Twitter to detail inanity of 999 calls A request for advice about an "unwanted guest" and reports that a man was "not walking a dog in a popular dog walking spot" were among hundreds of inane 999 calls received by Greater Manchester Police as the force used Twitter to detail every incident it dealt with in a 24-hour period. telegraph.co.uk |
Spending review: how the cuts affect me Five people, all of them profoundly affected by cuts in the public sector. These are their storiesProfessor Natalie FentonDeputy head of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London"This is a massive cut to higher education and a slashing of the public subsidy for teaching, which will hit the arts, humanities and social sciences particularly hard if the science budget is going to be protected."Elite institutions will be able to recruit elite students from privileged backgrounds on high fees, and those institutions who attract less privileged students, including Goldsmiths, will suffer the most. It's an entrenchment of inequality right through the system, at a time when every other OECD country is investing in higher education."Some institutions will close, and it's inevitable there will be mass redundancies across the sector. Goldsmiths will be forced to take on an enormous number of international students who pay higher fees to make up for the cuts. Class sizes will rise, they'll be humongous; the staff-student ratio will rocket and nobody will be satisfied."By only protecting science, they're signalling that arts, humanities and social sciences are worthless. But these are the disciplines that engender civility, and teach empathy and tolerance."We have the fastest-growing cultural industries in the world and our students are highly employable with a whole range of transferable skills. It's just ridiculous to imply that because you choose to do a degree in history or English, it means you don't then go on to do something enormously beneficial." RWJiby Gopalan Director of Astrums Consulting, an IT service provider based in Newcastle"The cuts to local authorities and university funding are going to hit us incredibly hard. Some 80% of our business is in supporting IT systems used by public sector organisations to run things such as payroll, finance and customer relations – offering technical support and upgrading or adapting their systems."So it's really bad news for us, because when they need to save money the first thing people do is cut IT spending."When a consultant can cost £400 a day, that's bound to make us vulnerable. Even before the cuts we'd already experienced a downturn."People were planning system upgrades, migrations, but for the last six months or so it's been obvious that there are just no projects coming up."There's not even any leads. I sit on two local business forums and everyone's talking about demand from the public sector drying up. I've been really very worried about it, and we weren't even expecting the cuts to be as bad as this."We're trying to look for opportunities in other areas, like working for the private sector, or collaborating with some bigger boys to do some sub-contracting work. But in the worst case scenario, we'd have to cut staff."It's very hard, not just for the management, but for our consultants. They're worried about losing their jobs, and they know there's a huge number of people out of work already." RWMichael StringerHad a job in sales and marketing in Newcastle-under-Lyme but has been unable to work since having a stroke four years ago. He receives incapacity benefit and disability living allowance"My chest goes tight just thinking about what might happen to my benefits. I used to earn good money, but because of the stroke I have spasmodic paralysis on my left-hand side, deteriorating eyesight and problems with my memory and balance."I'm on 16 tablets a day and I get headaches that are so bad that I sometimes cry out in pain. I take blood thinners and when the weather is cold the pain I'm in is absolutely atrocious."But if somebody saw me they'd think I looked really well. I'm 99% certain I'll be assessed as potentially able to work and moved on to employment support allowance, which is less money – when it's a struggle already."I have good days and bad days. The kind of things they ask in the work capacity test are whether you can sit down, how long you can stand for without pain, if you can bend your legs. If I was assessed on a good day I might be judged fit to work."But some days before I get out of bed I think: 'Oh crikey, I can do this, that or the other today' – and then when I try to move, it's like I'm trapped."I couldn't work if one side of my body wasn't working. And there are already thousands of people challenging decisions to take them off incapacity benefit."I'd love to be able to work. There's nothing better than earning your own money. But I worry that someone will give me an interview and when they get my medical history wouldn't want to take me on."I'd get a year on employment support allowance before it was stopped if I hadn't got a job, because I've worked previously."I just don't know what I'd do then. It's very frightening knowing that. You can't concentrate on trying to get better when something like that is looming round the corner." RWNicola Sargent Mental-health recovery worker at a housing service in Somerset run by the charity Rethink"We're a 24-hour support project for people with severe mental health issues."Many of our clients, who may also have alcohol or drug problems, are referred to us when they leave hospital."They may have lost their basic living skills, or never had them. We help them find those skills, maybe getting them into voluntary work, college, or even paid work. It's all about getting people back on their feet – we're the first stepping stone."Without our kind of work, you would be setting a person up to fail. People are sometimes discharged from hospital before they're 100% ready, and if they were just sent back to their own homes to live independently, they could be back to square one. You would see a revolving door situation much more frequently."There seems to be a huge gap between hospital and supported housing and if we don't have the 24-hour projects then that gap would increase 10-fold, which would be really detrimental to the people who need us."We've already seen some cuts and are not always able to provide the service we feel we could, and I'm sure other services around the country are feeling that too. Now it's just a waiting game."Our clients are very vulnerable to begin with; they're having to contend with a lot and knowing that cuts could be looming is not going to help anybody in that situation. It's going to have a huge impact on people's lives." RWLauren O'BrienCase worker on the charity Catch 22's crime prevention team in Leicester, funded by central and local government"We aim to stop young people from the most troubled backgrounds getting into the criminal justice or social services care system. Once you get a criminal record, it's very difficult to get out and back into work."We take the burden off the police and schools, who may not have the necessary resources or time to help families experiencing a difficult time."Now that we know there are going to be cuts – possibly large job losses in beat bobbies, community support and police numbers – it makes our service even more crucial to the public. We help to keep children off the streets and in positive and safe environments."It's a worrying time, and I am surprised by the levels of cuts to frontline services. We do feel that we are at risk – but we're prepared to be flexible and handle what cuts are made to make sure we can still provide a service."The young people referred to us, aged eight to 13, may have chaotic family backgrounds. One child was caught stealing from a local supermarket because his mum had spent all their money on alcohol. Some witness domestic violence at home, others have parents with emotional and mental difficulties, or siblings already involved in crime."Without us there would be more children running riot on the streets, more anti-social behaviour and more youths committing crime."Prevention costs less than cure. It costs £101,000 to run our programme. The cost of a young person in prison is £50,000 a year."Some 85% of children we come across in detention show signs of a personality disorder. Early intervention is important, not just to prevent crime, but also to improve quality of life."GZSpending review 2010Higher educationWelfareSocial exclusionCommunitiesPublic sector cutsPublic services policyPublic financePublic sector careersLecturersMental healthGoldsmiths, University of LondonAccess to universityCuts and closuresRachel WilliamsGozde Zorluguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Leicester 1-0 Nottm Forest Andy King's second half goal gives Leicester victory over Nottingham Forest at the Walkers Stadium. news.bbc.co.uk |
There's more than one game in the casino | Political briefing George Osborne's autumn financial statement shows he's banking everything on austerity measures. Everything?Two ambitious young men put their reputations on the line at Westminster yesterday, together with the future of Britain's fragile economic recovery in a storm-tossed world. Even if they are half right, factors far beyond their control may ruin them.But George Osborne's relative youth and impetuosity ensured that his autumn financial statement was far less measured than the number-crunching that preceded it from Robert Chote, at 41 two years the chancellor's senior.Newly transferred from the authoritative Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) to the Treasury-funded but independent Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), Chote has a more pristine reputation to lose. After a shaky start the OBR has yet to acquire one.Osborne has his party and twitchy financial markets to reassure. For him, benefit claimants and the newly unemployed come a poor second. So Osborne gave only a passing nod to the OBR's cautious forecast – "inherent uncertainty" and lower growth in 2011 and 2012 as the coalition's cuts bite – while sheltering behind its independence.Mostly he embraced the old-time religion of economic optimism which chancellors feel obliged to adopt. Osborne mocked Gordon ("no more boom and bust") Brown, but often sounded like him. He even gabbled.As Labour MPs repeatedly reminded him, along with a handful of the sharper Tories whose questions the chancellor sidestepped, he is heavily reliant on resurgent business investment and booming exports to make his predictions work: the deficit shrunk, 1m more jobs, unemployment down from 8% to 6% by 2015.Some of this sunshine talk has the OBR's qualified blessing, though a 6% annual rise in exports, not to mention 8% investment, sound very un-British even without the sharp fiscal tightening – lower spending and higher taxes – now under way. Yet no one has actually done it in such adverse circumstances, warned Alan Johnson in his response, which insisted that 2010's resumed growth is on Alistair Darling's account, not the coalition's.Osborne is "in the casino, but has not yet spun the wheel", Johnson told MPs. But Osborne has placed the coalition's bet. The wheel is spinning, but has not yet stopped. In this casino it acquires fresh momentum and speeds up again: everyone wins. If only.The chancellor, as chancellors often do, declines to acknowledge an inconveniently holistic view. Yes, he does see the need for supply-side reform – less red tape, more competitive rates of corporation tax (no Irish irony here) – to encourage wealth creation and growth. So did Labour in its fashion.But Osborne does not concede that mass public sector sackings, now under way in town halls and Whitehall, will burden the welfare budget, make it even harder to get the long-term jobless into work and undermine the economic confidence of those who fear they may be next. That is why the US is cutting its deficit at half the British rate and the Japanese – after a decade of Chote's "sluggish growth" – even more slowly, though their debts are both greater.The chancellor repeatedly expresses hopes of better private sector times ahead, including for the construction industry even as its public sector contracts are axed – though he has done his best to protect capital projects.He blithely talks of not "wasting" £19bn paying interest charges on government debt to "foreign governments and private bondholders" – as if they are not mostly UK pension funds and citizens who hope to spend it on goods and services. It all helps an economy tick over.If the deflationary implications of the Osborne analysis are not enough, he talked yesterday as if his austerity has guaranteed that Britain is now safe from a sterling version of the eurozone sovereign debt crisis that is devouring Ireland's public finances – despite Dublin's Osbornian cuts.He must feel less cocky than he sounds. Angela Merkel's government intends to impose export-led austerity on eurozone laggards. China feels the same lofty disapproval towards the US, whose imports sustain Beijing's boom.It is a familiar crisis reflex, but misguided. The world's national economies cannot all export their way out of trouble. Britain is not an economic island. Brown too used to sound as if it was.George OsborneEconomic policyMichael Whiteguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |