From welfare to warfare: Sunak’s spending shift imperils local services again

With the prime minister suffering the joint-lowest satisfaction rating of any Conservative or Labour leader since 1978, experts are predicting a drubbing for the Tories, with the party expected to lose as many as half the seats it is contesting.

Sunak’s focus on welfare changes, the Rwanda bill and extra cash for the military is not though without consequence for local government, at a time when England’s town halls are crying out for more funding after years of austerity and the fallout from economic headwinds hitting their budgets.

Experts on public finances warn that raising the defence budget from 2% of national income to 2.5% by 2030 will mean difficult trade offs for government.

Reducing expenditure on warfare over recent decades had helped allow for an expansion in the welfare state, labelled by economists as a “peace dividend” in the public finances.

There are legitimate grievances in several authorities, where councillors dealt an awful hand by government bet the farm on risky commercial projects in their gamble to survive and lost badly.

This week the blame game in the West Midlands will go into overdrive as the region’s Tory metro mayor, Andy Street, aims to make political capital out of Birmingham’s effective bankruptcy under a Labour administration.