What gets me about this whole scenario is the basic untruth behind the reason for the cuts. Blame is being laid at the feet of the Brown administration. The banks collapsed because of their unwise involvement in the US banking system and its insane approach to lending. We (the UK taxpayer) lent the banks over £950 billion to 'recapitalise' (in other words, pay for their recklessness and criminal stupidity). Our deficit in the public finances is now £850 billion. The mathematics is easy; we were a fiscally sound country with well resourced public services until the banks screwed up. The Coalition claims to have placed a levy on the banks to raise £7 billion per year (although their own Red Book figures show that thiey don't anticipate any of this being collected, as the banks will simply use avoidance tactics to make sure the money stays with them). Even if it was collected, it would take over 120 years to pay off the loan, even at zero interest. Try getting those terms from a bank!
Those to blame for this problem are getting away scot free, whilst those with nothing to do with the crisis are bearing the full brunt of the cuts. This is rather like being a parent with two children; one does something really bad, so you discipline the other one.
What is really scary is the apparent view from the government that there is no need to 'dress up' the cuts in some way to give the appearance of fairness. They are unfair, they know they are unfair, they know the disadvantaged will suffer disproportionately, but they make no excuses. We get the grotesque spectacle (to quote Neil Kinnock out of context)of a multi-millionaire Prime Minister with a multi-millionaire wife telling us 'we are all in this together'.
All civilisations decay over time, and Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' is the primer; what almost always happens is that gross inequality and conspicuous consumption leads to a sense of decadence; eventually the disadvantaged begin to notice, and revolutions happen. I thought this might happen under Thatcher, but she was savvy enough to hide the message and trim the policies enough to avoid it (although it was close around the poll tax and the miners strike). This time, I don't think those in power have enough intellectual ability to see the danger. To the barricades?
Tim