Quote Originally Posted by Eric Cartman View Post
This argument is ever so slightly undermined by the fact that nearly every council is scrambling around hopelessly trying to balance the books. You are always banging on about how recent UK government performance has more to do with external shocks than their own incompetence but mysteriously the same doesn't apply to local government.

Jon has explained it better than I can, but in short, councils have some things they are legally obliged to provide, when budget goes down, these things don't = no money. It's pretty simple and being seen across the country.
I'm not saying the government are not part of it. They are. Austerity is. Austerity happened because we suddenly were spending far more than we took in tax and without austerity no one would lend to us

If you got in financial difficulty and asked for a loan, no one will lend it to you without faith you can pay it back. Same here.

Austerity did go on too long in my opinion. UK govt to blame for that.

Local councils and devolved govts do determine what they spend money on. Some is statutory (like schools, certain care etc) some isn't. People absolutely *should* scrutinise what they spend their non statutory spending on, and it absolutely is their choice to decide to spend it on extra politicians, uncovering canals, cycle lanes, 20mph zones etc.

That is a choice. Maybe the right one, maybe the wrong one, but that's a local decision and they should be held to account for it.

Just blaming Westminster doesn't cut it, and it doesn't bring back youth services. If I'm honest I think it let's some of the hook and makes those services less likely to come back.

Partly Westminster's fault, partly WG, partly councils. That's my point. What gets my goat is this infuriating "blame Westminster" culture that completely bypasses the actual decision makers and totally lets them off the hook. It's one of the reasons I think public services are generally worse here than in England.

My general opinion is that young people have been completely fkd over by them all tbh. Not least in terms of mental health, access to affordable housing and now access to expertise and socialisation in the work place through in person learning.

I fear there is a storm coming when many young people hit their 30s and other life pressures emerge.