Good morning. One feature of Jeremy Hunt’s budget yesterday was an effort to present the government as ruthlessly focused on reducing the state’s profligacy, in order to leave more money in people’s pockets. (See below for highlights of the Guardian’s coverage.) To that end, a line was briefed out ahead of the speech that will have prompted groans in town halls across the country: an attempt to put the blame for the financial crisis so many of them are facing on waste.
The culprit, Hunt was expected to say, was “unnecessary” council spending on consultants and diversity projects. He told the Sunday Telegraph that he found public money being spent on “woke” initiatives very hard to defend.
