Sweeteners dismissed as ‘fig leaf’ for public service cuts

UNIVERSITY lecturer Tom Stafford described Mr Osborne’s attempts to mask swingeing cuts to public services with sweeteners such as the cut in petrol prices as a “fig leaf.”

The 33-year-old, a lecturer in psychology at Sheffield University, has been on strike this week over the Government’s plans to raise the retirement age for academics and scrap final salary pensions.

He said: “Osborne has got this fig leaf of £100m of science funding, which will go just to four institutions across the UK – none of which are in Yorkshire.

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“He’s continuing his strategy of cuts which will affect the average person, reducing the teaching budget for higher education by 80 per cent.

“University fees of up to £9,000 a year will price a lot of people who would have gone to university out.

“At Sheffield University we’re seeing the prospect of access to world-class teaching and research being deprived of the average person unless they saddle themselves with a massive amount of debt.”

Dr Stafford, from Nether Edge in Sheffield, added that it was unfair that the budget cuts are being made to public services such as “education and health, which have a big effect.”

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He said: “There are alternatives to the cuts. We are a wealthy country with a high income and resources and we could choose to spend out money in a different way.

“I do not feel better off as a result of Osborne’s budget.

“I feel that the country has taken a wrong turn and this Government is using some fairly weak arguments about the need to cut to push through an ideological position which is pro-corporate to the expense of general society.”