One by one, England’s councils are going bankrupt – and nobody in Westminster wants to talk about it
One by one, England’s councils are going bankrupt – and nobody in Westminster wants to talk about it
One in five say they will be insolvent by next year. These local crises add up to a national catastrophe that’s about to explode, says the Guardian columnist John Harris
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Absolutely true that this isn't covered enough - the cuts were massive. They've also only been topped up by increases to regressive council tax, so it's yet another way the Tories are worsening inequality through tax.
But the important question at the end - what the next, presumably Labour, government will do about it - seems unanswerable. It's not just that Labour are now allergic to saying they'll spend money. It's also that paying debt interest is now a significant expense due to higher interest rates and our economy is barely growing, so taking on government debt no longer makes financial sense.
The Tories have done the opposite of fixing the roof while the sun was shining - they neither reduced public sector debt nor did they reinforce our services by investing cheap money into them. Now we're left with the consequences and I don't see how anyone can fix it.