Ok so now we have another example of the push-me-pull-you government.

On the one hand, yesterday, that nice Mr Clegg, full of youthful charm, told us all that there would be no return to savage Thatcherite cuts. Today of course it is the for the Coalition’s bad cop (that’s the equally youthful Mr Cameron!) to break the news that times are going to be hard and the cuts will run deep.

Now Cameron comes to this cutting business with much better credentials. After all, it was the Conservatives’ position not just at the General Election, but throughout most of the recession not to intervene in the way the Labour Government did.

I don’t particularly want this to be a piece on the economic rights and wrongs of fiscal stimuli; the point I am making is that the Conservatives’ had a clear position on the deficit for some time – I did not agree with it – that the economy needed significant cuts in public spending to kickstart private investment.

Of course the Liberal Democrats agreed with Labour throughout the period running up to and including the General Election, that to cut £6bn immediately would be a  complete disaster for the economy and could tip us back into recession.  Again a very laudable and clear position.

So here we now are, 7^th June 2010. Almost a whole month has gone by for the new government and there’s the emergency budget on the horizon too; and despite Nick’s nice smile the blunt fact is they’ve completely signed up to the ‘Tory Cuts’ all of their pre-election Focus newsletters warned the electorate about.

The Lib Dem record player has certainly changed its tune from ‘More, more, more‘. Now it’s more like ‘There may be trouble ahead‘.

In real terms what does this mean? Well in my own patch, Greater Manchester Police have been ordered by the new Treasury to find an extra £7 million savings this year alone. That will have a disastrous impact on policing in one of Britain’s largest conurbations.

How far things have come since Stockport Council passed a motion condemning (I kid you not) the Labour Government and the borough’s Labour MPs for the 4% increase in police grant settlement, and claiming this would impact on frontline policing.  Of course, this was back in March 2010.  It is strange that we’ve not heard a peep out of them since the latest government announcement was made!

And therein lies the problem for the LibDems. They are comfortable with opposition; it’s what they know best. It is easy politics and the narrative is clear: Nasty Labour/Tory [delete as appropriate]… [insert local campaign]. Now in government those tough choices are theirs to be made. Over the coming weeks and months, some of their previous statements may well just come back to haunt them.