Same warnings on austerity are rolled out again

One thing that being a journalist teaches you is that there's always two sides to every story.

But another thing that being a societal observer teaches you is that as bad as something may appear, there's always something a lot worse (or better) about the happen just around the corner.

The past week I was chatting to a colleague about government spending.

"Why is it that everyone talks about austerity when Whitehall spending is going up and up and up?", he asked.

It was a good question - and one that warranted a lengthy answer explaining that while the numbers are rising, it is spending as a percentage of GDP which is coming down slightly.

A lot depends on interpretation, I explained.

If you listen to the government talk, there's never been more money pumped into the NHS.

Yet, if you talk to opponents, it's never been more underfunded.

"It's all lies, damned lies and statistics" - I was on a roll, about to reach the climax when up popped the draft proposals for Brighton and Hove City Council for the coming year.

It was accompanied by the usual dire warnings from those in charge:

X is going to have to close, Y will be no more, [insert large figure here] will lose their jobs.

It was the usual copy and paste job from years before.

Continuing with tradition, the fallout has been the same as seen in the previous six years.

Headline one: £20 million plus has to be found, scores of jobs will be scrapped, the end of the world is nigh.

Headline two: council leader claims the government are to blame, adding he/she is doing what they can but a cap on increasing council tax is holding them back.

Headline three: opposition politicians say the current administration lacks vision and rolls out the 'salami slicing' metaphor.

That brings us to the start of his week.

What will follow - if tradition is upheld- will be three months of discussion with the same old faces. Then in February, the politicians come together, make a few tub-thumping speeches which follow the party line and a stalemate follows as each of the three parties on the council do not want to be seen as getting in to bed with each other.

Closed-door discussions then take place, a few thousand pounds are shifted around here and there, then voila - the budget is passed, hopefully before midnight.

Keen to avoid another severe case of deja via, I've been frantically searching for snippets in this year's offering which are different from previous.

But no number of dire warnings will hide the fact that what is on paper is just following the same script as before.

Instead of the mobile library being scrapped, this year it's the playbus; previously it was children's centres which had to be scaled back, this time round it's a youth services contact.

The Labour administration is trying to open things up to the community and voluntary sector, such as placing the Royal Pavilion into a trust.

But, as is always the case with these big organisations, these big plans take time - and just as they are about to take shape, an election comes round.

Which is why, on the whole this is a budget drawn up by professional officers, who are sticking with what they know.

They knew back in 2010 that there was to be ten years of belt-tightening in store for local authorities.

But rather than push on with anything radical they have just trimmed and trimmed and trimmed, hoping that next year will be different.

I've news for you: it won't.

So whether you view this year's council budget setting process as death by a thousand cuts or simply trimming the local authority fat, there is just one central theme in this story - that no matter how much is cut every year, the status quo remains at the heart of our city's local authority.

IT'S beginning to look a lot like... no don't worry, I'm not going to say it...yet.

Love it or loathe it, the C word is approaching as fast as a festive-decorated lorry carrying the world's favourite soft drinks.

Normally I love the whole thing - but only start to deck the halls from the first day in December (which is why I've waited until now before writing this segment).

So imagine the size of my big Grinch-esque smirk this year as it seems that finally everyone is cottoning on that the season of goodwill is not a year-long thing.

Everyone except a train station cafe in suburban London which seemed to think that the last week of OCTOBER was apt to put the tinsel and flickering lights up.

It's difficult to know if they are too early or just forget to take them down from 2015....