Osborne’s completely unnecessary fight with the unions

Most of us are probably watching with trepidation the upcoming battle between the government and the unions over spending cuts. Yet this battle is completely unnecessary. If they had brains. ministers could achieve their cuts without the loss of a single front-line job.

The solution is to put all public-sector executives. managers and administrators who do not deal directly with the public on a 4-day week and all quangos (like the useless £70m a year Equalities and Human Rights Commission on a 3-day week). This would save about £200m a week (£10bn a year) without any expensive job losses or redundancies. Plus it would avoid a fight with the unions. But as few minsters have ever had a proper job, they are unable to choose such a simple solution.