Public spending

Unions are stepping up their defence of public spending.

The TUC argues that public spending helps restrain rising unemployment, with general secretary Brendan Barber describing the national deficit as “an inevitable result of the recession and the government’s willingness to fight it”.

At a Liverpool rally for public services last month, president of the PCS civil service union Janice Godrich said that “cuts in public expenditure will lead to a deepening of the recession not a recovery from it”.