What can you buy with a cut?

Well, what can you buy with a cut?

Tory election propaganda leaflets proudly tell us that Council tax has been frozen for five years; but at what cost! Cuts in services are starving the mainstream education budget. It is being cunningly done like feeding someone a teaspoonful less every day. For a while you adapt to managing with less, until one day you realise that life as before is no longer possible.

For small primary schools in rural Norfolk, the crisis point is fast approaching. At the present rate, some time in 2016 (when this upcoming election is history and it's too late to do anything about it) some primary schools will either have to “cut teaching hours”, form some sort of alliance with another school in the district, or close altogether. More on that later.

How much use then will be knowing that your Council tax bill is still frozen to 2010 prices, when you find that suddenly your working day morning routine has to include an extra five-mile-each-way car journey instead of a gentle five minute walk because Tory cuts have teleported your child's primary school to the other side of town. (Also there's the return journey of course.) I won't exaggerate by pretending that many families will find that a second car suddenly becomes necessary; but a complicated daily commute doesn't come for free. Anyone know how to buy their way out of it with a cut? … No?… I thought not?

Lib-Dems are committed to protecting the schools budget.