I have often argued that I favour councils setting a social budget and, if necessary, setting an illegal budget rather than implementing cuts. I continue to favour this but I fear that, on the left, we are getting too caught up in this discussion and it is obscuring other demands we need to be making. Opponents of illegal budget setting are also not without credible arguments regarding the lack of a supporting movement and the fact that individual councils would be picked off. So, the main purpose of this piece is to think about whether, strategically speaking, we should downgrade the social/illegal budget slogan as our main demand. Please note this is not to say ‘drop it altogether’ but to adapt our strategy to current realities and try and win more leverage. Continue reading →