The Swaffham Crier Online

Editorial

APRIL, and the editors are feeling very depressed this month, and much in need of the cheering up we hope the forthcoming village celebrations will bring.

As you can read in our STOP PRESS, ECDC is not prepared to step in and save our much-needed Newmarket tip, and at the same time (Letters pages), the first of an anticipated tsunami of local government redundancies has already happened.

As any reader old enough to remember previous Tina (there-is -no-alternative) efforts, the trouble with swingeing cuts is that they often cost more money than they save, typically hit the useful jobs while burgeoning a bureaucracy who decide where they land, and most of all, bring confusion and despair.

Well, but when we celebrate this forthcoming Royal Wedding, at least we can look back to post-war days where despite a really huge national debt (see chart) governments nevertheless found a path to create and sustain the precious infrastructure we have all grown up with and which is now under so much threat. In this issue, the redoubtable Heath Road Traveller's Site committee are asking for more contributions to cover costs (see Letters), and don't forget forthcoming May 5 local elections- the Crier would like to invite all candidates to send us a contribution (a page or less?) to tell us how they will represent us. Also, don't forget this is the April edition, find the spoofs! Although these days, it can be a bit difficult to tell...

Caroline Matheson