Resignation season

GOVERNMENT Director of Communications Andy Coulson became the second major political figure in under 24 years to resign after Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson quit yesterday.

Mr Coulson stood down today having endured months of speculation over claims that phone-hacking took place at the News of the World while he was editor.

Yesterday evening, Mr Johnson left his post from the Opposition front bench "for personal reasons", amid allegations that his wife had an affair with a policeman assigned to protect him.

And, while both resignations come in rather different circumstances, it is much harder to spot the difference between the lack of judgement of the two main party leaders.

Resignation #1: Andy Coulson
Government Director of Communications (until today at 11:37GMT today)

Prime minister David Cameron first appointed Mr Coulson as Director of Communications in 2007 while the Conservatives were still in Opposition.

However, even back then, the arrival of the former News of the World editor caused a stir and the decision by Mr Cameron was questioned.

After all, these phone-hacking allegations, which have since stunk out the Wapping offices of the News of the World, were prevalent then.

And Mr Coulson was only able to take up his post at Conservative Central Office because he had resigned from the Rupert Murdoch-owned paper after Royal correspondent Clive Goodman was jailed for plotting to intercept phone messages.

For his part, Mr Coulson has always denied any knowledge of the phone-hacking scandal - and, indeed, the newspaper has always maintained the practice was down to a single rogue reporter in Goodman.

However, that claim is in danger of unravelling after the paper's hired private investigator Glenn Mulcaire told a court this week that the head of news Ian Edmonson commissioned him to access voicemail messages.

Of course, Mr Mulcaire's claim does not corrupt Mr Coulson in itself - but it is fair to say that the former editor now has some questions to answer.

And, undoubtedly, Mr Coulson would find it much easier to answer to the allegations without somehow having to deal with the press on a daily basis.

Bafflingly, Mr Cameron does not seem to understand this, claiming that Mr Coulson has been "punished for the same offence twice".

True, Mr Coulson has had to resign twice but then it was a surprise he got the chance in the first place, given the allegations hanging over him.

As Mr Coulson today said himself: "When the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on", echoing a line used in September by The Thick Of It writer Armando Iannucci.

Surely, Mr Cameron must realise this.

Resignation #2: Alan Johnson
The Labour Party's Shadow Chancellor (until yesterday at 17:00GMT)

While Mr Coulson's resignation has perhaps been coming for some time, Mr Johnson's departure "for personal reasons" was a genuine bolt from the blue.

Several newspapers now carry the story that his resignation relates to his wife's affair with a policeman employed to protect him while he was Home Secretary.

From this, Mr Johnson appears to be blameless and the popular former postman's promising political career has crashed around him through little fault of his own.

However, Labour party leader Ed Miliband must take a share of the blame - not for the affair, of course, but for a poor political strategy which left Mr Johnson flailing.

Mr Miliband appointed Mr Johnson as Shadow Chancellor in order to temper the influence of Brownite economist Ed Balls.

But Mr Johnson was ill-suited to job, admitting on his first day that he needs an "economics primer".

The MP for West Hull and Hessle was subsequently caught out by not knowing the rate of employers' National Insurance contributions or the rate of VAT on food.

However, given Mr Johnson's overall appeal to voters, it was likely that he would have been given time to grow into the position - and so his resignation was still a shock.

Now, Mr Balls is back and in a stronger position than before as Mr Miliband cannot afford to lose another Shadow Chancellor.

In other words, it could be said that Mr Balls has his party leader by the... er, balls.

Of course, the Conservatives will hardly find it difficult to associate Mr Balls with the size of the deficit left by Mr Cameron's predecessor Gordon Brown.

Mr Balls was in as an adviser to Mr Brown for 13 years between 1994 and 2007 until he became Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families.

Much now depends on the relationship between Mr Miliband and Mr Balls - and the ability of the latter to land hefty blows on his opposite number, George Osborne.

All in all, a rather messy end to the week in Westminster - and a week which has left both main parties shuffling their pack and scratching their heads over just what might happen next.

Spending Review: Osborne wields his axe on the welfare state

CHANCELLOR George Osborne has announced there will be cuts of £18 billion to benefits as he wielded his axe on the welfare state in the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Mr Osborne revealed a further cut of £7bn in benefits on top of the £11bn which had already been identified in June.

The reduction in the welfare bill will come through a 10% cut in Council Tax Benefit, a new threshold for Housing Benefit and the well-documented changes to Child Benefit.

The £2.5bn saving from the cut to Child Benefit for higher-rate taxpayers caused the Conservatives bother at their own party conference at the start of the month.

But today's announcement affects a much poorer proportion of the population with a £4.5bn saving coming from the introdution of a time-limit on Employment Support Allowance.

Claimants of ESA who are reassessed as being fit for work will have one year to find a job before being moved to Job Seekers' Allowance which is paid at a lower rate.

However, many claimants of ESA are former manual labourers - men in their 50s for whom the jobs market is not favourable.

Those who are working will have to work for longer after Mr Osborne announced a rise in the State Pension age to 66 for both men and women by 2020, six years earlier than expected.

Meanwhile, public sector workers and local government were also hit hard by the spending review. Over the next four years, 490,000 public sector employee jobs will be lost and local councils face a real-terms cut of 27%.

It appears that the government is taking a huge gamble on an increase in opportunities in the private sector to cover the huge losses in the public sector.

Another risky decision was the introduction of rents for new tenants in social housing to be charged at 80% of the market rate.

This causes a problem for anyone who is evicted by a private landlord after losing their job as social housing may also now be unaffordable.

Elsewhere, the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice will have to make savings of 25% by 2014-15, including a real-terms reduction of 16% in spending on police.

And, while that percentage is not as high as the 25% feared by the Police Federation, Greater Manchester chief constable Peter Fahy has said that a reduction to the number of frontline officers will be unavoidable.

Other Whitehall departments affected over the next four years include Environment Food and Rural Affairs which takes an annual 8% hit, Energy and Climate Change which has its budget cut by 5% each year, and the Business, Innovation and Skills which faces an annual cut of 7.1%.

Of course, some of the cuts had been confirmed already while others had been perhaps intentionally leaked in an attempt to soften today's blow.

Already this week there had been the Strategic Defence Review which concluded that, while the two aircraft carriers HMS Ark Royal and HMS Prince of Wales will still be built, both will be sold after three years of service.

The Defence Review also confirmed that 7,000 Army jobs would go with the RAF and Navy losing 5,000 positions. The Nimrod spy planes will be cancelled and there will be a 10% cut in the counter-intelligence budget, despite it being named in the report as a priority.

In other known news, students in Further Education were dealt a severe blow when the governnment removed caps on tuition fees.

Controversially, Liberal Democrat ministers backed the move despite all Lib Dems MPs having signed a pledge before the election to oppose any rise.

Deputy PM Nick Clegg even appeared on video promising to oppose any rise and, after the previously-opposed increase in VAT, the change in heart represents a second major Lib Dem U-turn in a matter of months.

Amongst the gloom, there were some positives to take from the spending review. Pensioners will be pleased that the winter fuel allowance and free bus travel remain unaffected.

Additionally, cold weather payments will be kept, as will the right to a free TV licence for the over-75s.

For the rest of the population, the TV licence will be frozen for the next six years - a welcome decision considering it still costs a hefty £145.50 each year.

One of the areas to benefit most from the review was the NHS in England. It will get a 1.3% real-terms rise in funding over four years, a new cancer drug fund and £2bn towards social care by 2014-15.

But critics argue that the real-terms increase is so small that increased demand on the health service over the next four years will outstrip it.

Similarly, there is a small increase in funds for schooling in England from £35bn to £39bn but again it seems likely that demand will outweigh this additional supply.

The education sector had already taken a hit in July when the Building Schools for the Future programme was abandoned for a saving of £5bn.

At least the Lib Dems achieved one of their coalition aim with the introduction of a £2.5bn pupil premium and funding for 75,000 apprenticeships has been made available. However, Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) has been scrapped.

There will be substantial investment - £30bn - in road and rail projects across the country, including the new Crossrail project.

As ever, though, the plans come with a catch - train users can expect fares to rise 3% a year above inflation for the next four years to help fund improvements.

Incredibly, the department to benefit the most from the review was International Development which saw a 37% increase in its budget.

This allowed Mr Osborne to declare that "even in these difficult times, we will honour the promise we make to the very poorest in our world".

But, to low-income families in Britain, it would seem with this government that charity does not begin at home.

Labour's Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson referred to Mr Osborne's statement as "a reckless gamble with people's livelihoods" but the previous government must take its fair share of the blame.

The current budget deficit is 64.6% of GDP, the highest since World War II, and even despite these cuts, total government spending is expected to reach £740bn by 2014-15.

However, it was disingenuous of Mr Osborne to play politics with the figures at the end of his speech.

The Chancellor claimed that the average of 19% cuts across all departments was less than the 20% cuts proposed by Labour in March but this is only the case with the massive reform to the welfare state factored in.

The cuts to the welfare state and to the public sector workforce mean, incredibly, that the announcements in this review hit the poorest 10% in society the most.

Mr Osborne is hoping for a huge increase in private sector jobs to make his plan work. It is a massive gamble, and one which he is currently odds-on to lose.