Chancellor Gideon Osbourne has instructed every government department except four (health, international development, defence and education) to prepare plans for forty percent budget cuts. Which is pretty damn scary, there are essentially three reasons why he is doing this:
1) As I suggest in the title he is trying to shift the overton window to the right so that 25% cuts seem acceptable compared to 40%, the opposition has to argue him down from the higher number rather than the lower one and so on. Also with the unions preparing industrial action for 40% they're less likely to fight against 25% and so on.
2) The cuts of 25% was an average and because those four departments are protected to varying degrees the other departments have to take bigger cuts for it to average out at 25%. On top of this asking for 40% cuts as well as 25% cuts empowers Osboure, he can pick and choose from both lists rather than just having to accept the 25% the department chose to cut.
3) Osbourne is a rich rightwing scumbag and the destruction of as much as the state as possible is ideologically necessary for him to bring about as much shock therapy as humanly possible, if he thinks he can get away with more than an average of 25% cuts then he will cut more.
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