New ICM Poll – Tories 7% Ahead of Labour

There is a new ICM poll in tomorrow’s Guardian which confirms the post election pattern of Labour re-asserting themselves strongly in second place and the Lib Dems well behind Labour:

            Conservative              39% (up 1%)

                                                  Labour                       32% (down 1%) 

                                                  Lib Dem                      21% (no change) 

Changes are compared to the Sunday Telegraph ICM poll a week ago.

The Axe Begins to Fall on Labour’s Waste

Today the Treasury has announced where the intial tranche of £6.2bn of savings will be made. Health, Defence and International Development have been protected but some other departments face some big cuts in their budgets.

The new Government has been keen to stress that front-line services will not be affected and schools and SureStart have also been identified for protection from cuts. This gives the lie to the many Labour scares during the election campaign that there were Conservative “plans to scrap SureStart”.

Child Trust Funds will be cut and there will be a recruitment freeze in the Civil Service. A number of quangos and IT projects will be scrapped as promised.

The savings by department are:

Department of Transport – £683m

Communities and Local Government – £780m

Local Government DEL – £405m

Business – £836m

Home Office – £367m

Department for Education – £670m

Ministry of Justice £325m

Law Officers Department – £18m

Foreign Office – £55m

Energy and Climate Change – £85m

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs – £162m

Culture, Media and Sport – £88m

Department for Work and Pensions – £535m

Chancellor’s Departments – £451m

Cabinet Office – £79m

Devolved administrations – £704m