Hunt says job cuts like losing ministerial cars


6:05 pm - July 27th 2010

by Sunny Hundal    


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The Daily Mirror has this story today:

Hunt, 43, outlined the impact of cuts, which he admitted could halve the workforce of nearly 600, to senior staff at the department’s HQ near Trafalgar Square.

He said: “The best-case scenario is still going to be a scenario in which there are going to be bigger cuts than any of the areas we represent have ever had to face, probably in their history.

We’ve made a small start with changes in policy on ministerial cars which is an absolute pain, but we’re all getting used to it.”

Mark Serwotka, of the Public and Commercial Services Union, which represents 300,000 civil servants, said:

This must go down as one of the most crass and insensitive comments a new cabinet minister has ever made to his staff.

via @GaryDunion

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About the author
Sunny Hundal is editor of LC. Also: on Twitter, at Pickled Politics and Guardian CIF.
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Reader comments


1. Jack

What a delightful chap Jeremy Hunt is. Suggesting that him having to get the tube every once in a while is in some way comparable to sacking half his staff so they potentially can’t even afford to get the tube.

2. Mr S. Pill

Jeremy Hunt? Looks like we’ve gone and got ourselves some new rhyming slang…

3. Sally

I do hope the Lib Dems are enjoying themselves because as far as I can see we have a Right wing Conservative govt , without a majority, being waved through by Clegg. The Lib Dems no longer exist as a party of the centre left. It is like feeding a crocodile with buns. Fine,, until you run out of buns.

4. Phil Hunt

I would like to make clear that I am not, as far as I know, related to Jeremy Hunt.

And I think his name should be spelt with a C.

5. Left Outside

I’m tempted to say…

“foot, meet Jeremy’s mouth; mouth, meet foot”

…but I know they are so well acquainted already.

6. Kim

Ah yes, the infinite wisdom of Jeremy ‘Spelling Mistake’ Hunt – the man the Tories have put in charge of the arts, culture & heritage brief. Why does it not surprise me that he’s come out with something like this? Oh yes, because the man is an idiot and wouldn’t know a decent profitable arts/culture initiative if it smacked him in the face – as proved by his decision to shut down the UK Film Council despite the fact that it brings in £5 for every £1 invested in it.

The man is possibly the worst person in the country to have been given the DCMS job as he’s desperate to suck up to Cameron and position himself as next in line for the Tory leadership job. He also appears to be under the rather idiotic assumption that by forcing the DCMS and the wider arts sector to cut all the people with the strategy, fundraising, marketing & project management skills to save money this will some how improve the UK’s cultural standing. He’s made it more than clear to everyone in the arts sector that he thinks we’re entirely expendable and I’d venture that his views are probably indicative of the Tory view of public sector employees too.

I swear, if the UK manages to come out the other end of the next 5 years with even half of the fantastic arts & culture sector that we have now still in tact, it’ll be a bloody miracle!

7. Mr Eugenides

No, he didn’t compare job losses to the loss of ministerial cars. At no point does he draw any such comparison.

The Mirror did, and you did. He did not.

8. Gwyn

Yeah this headline is pretty stupid.

9. Graeme

As someone who is trying to make their living in the arts, the news of DCMS cuts and the ridiculous decision to close UKFC are the final straw for me: unless the Lib Dems cross the floor, they have lost a vote they have had from me ever since I could vote. Even though it’s always been in a safe Lib Dem seat, it’s a matter of principle. The Orange Bookers have taken the party in a direction I cannot identify with: still hugely disappointed about what happened to Charles Kennedy, an MP who I still hold in the highest esteem.

The arts cuts I mention, because the Lib Dems promised in their manifesto that the arts, which for a relatively tiny budget (0.07% of Government spending) yields a huge return for the economy, would remain unharmed. That the Lib Dems could not get such a tiny concession to protect the arts says so much about them: weak, weak, weak. Hunt is going at the arts with a wrecking ball just to look good and cut-happy so that he might get a bigger department in the future. Never have I seen a Culture minister show such a huge lack of understanding and care for his own sector. Shame on him and shame on the Lib Dems. As it stand, Mr Clegg, you have lost my vote.

10. Kim

I just want to echo what Graeme in #9 has said.

Unless the Lib Dems suddenly leap in as the white knight to put a stop to Jeremy Hunt’s cutting frenzy, they’ve lost my support as well….and I say that not only because I work in the arts, but also because of the positive impact I’ve witnessed when engaging young people from deprived backgrounds with the arts. For many of these young people, the arts is the only thing that can inspire them enough to motivate them to take control of their lives and have aspirations. I think it’s the ultimate in low lows that Hunt is determined to take that away from them.

11. Tim J

We could start a competition for who can spot the LibCon story that has a headline that even approximately matches the story attached to it.

12. J

This, and the comments on the Hillsborough tragedy – what a fucking waste of space Jeremy Hunt is.

He’s everything I feared (and yet anticipated) from the Tories: arrogant, ignorant, incompetent, unfeeling. And a total wanker.

As an aside to abusing the poor excuse for humanity that is Jeremy Hunt, Kim and Graeme make good points. In my opinion, there are many issues of policy on which the Lib Dems have consistently stood apart from Labour or the Tories – and yet now appear to have abandoned all too quickly.

No-one I know who voted Lib Dem (to whom I’ve spoken) will touch them with a barge pole at the next election.

Some will go Green; one poor deluded fuck is going to vote Labour, whilst the rest of us will probably stay at home…

13. Sunny Hundal

No, he didn’t compare job losses to the loss of ministerial cars. At no point does he draw any such comparison.

So when he’s talking about cuts, you think he’s only referring to ‘cost savings’ do you? I suppose no one has lost their jobs due to the need for cuts?

14. Car Finder

Well Comparing a Job to A CAR is totally unfair. JOB IS A NEED and CAR IS A WANT!

15. Margin4eror

Kim

Cutting back on the arts isn’t about the budget deficit though. It’s common Tory practice. It always happens. And it is always done with the same mentality.

1 – say that projects have to prove their value before getting public money
2 – cut a bunch of projects whether they prove their value or not
3 – appear to be sensible and clear thinking about wooly artsy stuff to a public who don’t know what it costs them.

Boris did exactly the same on becoming Mayor. Schemes for rehabilitating the homeless through arts projects that had spent years proving their value in terms of return to the taxpayer were closed in no time. And they were closed down because Boris wasn’t going to fund projects that didn’t prove their value to the taxpayer.

The sad thing is – it works. It screws over those involved and hurts the taxpayer no end. But it sets a tone of value for money and tough on waste that works with the public.

16. Kim

@15

Believe me, as someone working in an office with people who lived and (tried to stay in) work in the arts during the Thatcher years, I’m well aware that it’s standard Tory practice. And that it’s fuelled by ideological bullshit rather than actual facts in terms of the cost of the arts vs. their benefits.

The arts are anathema to the Tories and their ideals, partly because they tend to question the status quo (and encourage others to do the same, and be filled with people who question everything anyway) and partly because their value can only be partly measured in profit/loss terms and we all know that the Tories think that profit/loss is the be all and end all of everything.

I fear, that much like the homelessness project you mentioned, it’ll be the grassroots and outreach work that will suffer the most and thus it will be those who can be helped the most by the arts who will lose out….not those who have the money to buy & sell the arts as they please.

17. The Grim Reaper

Except he isn’t actually saying that at all here, is he?

As for the rhyming slang thing, I say this. Out of Jeremy Hunt and Sunny Hundal, only one emerges from this post as a cunt. And I don’t think it’s our Culture Secretary somehow. Cretin, maybe…

18. gwenhwyfaer

The Grim Reaper, please detail the nature of Mr Hundal’s cuntrification, as you see it exposed in the above post. Given that the post consists entirely of two quotes from a Daily Mirror article, without additional comment.


Reactions: Twitter, blogs
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