Hard choices will have to be made as recession bites down

PUBLIC services in the South West – in common with those across the country – are stretched beyond breaking point. From ambulances unable to unload patients and get back on the road because of bedblocking in hospitals to police officers unable to get to the scene of a suicide because of staff shortages, the vital services for which we pay our taxes and rely upon are crumbling at an alarming rate.

In other circumstances a government – or even an opposition party – faced with such a grim set of statistics from across much of the public sector would be pledging to act, promising more funding, more staff and more resources.

But look beneath the headlines of what this government and Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour Party are promising by way of extra funding and in neither case does it get close to matching what those operating services – from local authorities to the NHS – say are needed.

The reason is painful to accept, but none the less entirely accurate. Britain has a massive hole in its public finances that needs to be plugged. As a result taxes are rising and most government departments are likely to have to take a hit or – at the very least – fail to see the sort of increases their ministers say are needed to keep pace with inflation and rising demand.

We go into winter 2022 with a whole raft of complaints and concerns at the plight of state-financed services and the likelihood that things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Even the Labour Party – desperate to paint itself as fiscally responsible – has barely demurred from the plans in Jeremy Hunt’s financial statement. It might cut the cake in a slightly different way – but it accepts it is dealing with roughly the same sized cake.

The alternative to the approach that, broadly speaking, is advocated by both major political parties came from Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng when they – mercifully briefly – had their hands on the nation’s finances. And look where their plan to borrow our way out of a crisis and ‘go for growth’ got us?

But with austerity, or something close to it, staring Britain in the face once again and many services in the Westcountry already showing signs of being among the worst affected regions, options are limited. The key for the government is to make the tough but necessary decisions about which aspects of our vast public spending commitments can safely be scaled back and which need to be fully paid for out of taxes.

To do that the nation needs to have a grown up conversation about what we need and what it would be nice to have. And that means accepting that, in some cases, those who can afford to, should pay for certain services so that those who cannot continue to get them for free.

Where those lines are drawn is a matter for elected politicians, who will then stand or fall on the popularity – or otherwise – of what they are promising to keep paying for and what they are concluding might have to come off the list of what’s covered by the public purse.

It won’t make them popular. But pretending we can see out this recession in any other way is dishonest. And that will not be forgiven.