The Treasury used to soften public opinion leading up to a Budget by leaking, the previous weekend, dire predictions of tax increases and spending cuts which proved to be groundless, thus leaving the public relieved things were not worse. In the case of the local government settlement, there has been no attempt to soften opinion. In the weeks before the Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR), there were dire predictions that local government was going to get clobbered. Sure enough, in the CSR, local government was clobbered. In the run-up to the settlement, there were more predictions that local government would get a hammering in the settlement.
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