David Cameron has been accused of hypocrisy after writing a letter of complaint to his local county council in Oxfordshire about cuts to services.
Writing in his capacity as MP for Witney, the prime minister said he was disappointed with planned cuts to frontline services including elderly day centres, libraries and museums. He also said the decision to close children's centres across the county was "unwelcome and counter-productive".
The letter to Conservative council leader Ian Hudspeth was written in September but only recently leaked to the Oxford Mail. In it, Cameron urged the council to make more back-office savings and suggested selling off excess council property to help fund vital services.
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The letter was published just days after the government announced that the communities' department budget would be cut by a third. Further cuts are expected as George Osborne "prepares to wield his axe once again" in this month's spending review, says the Financial Times.
Hudspeth replied to the prime minister, telling him that the cuts were made as a result of government funding being slashed. The council leader said that government grants had been reduced by £72m and the council had been forced to reduce its workforce by 3,000.
He also added that Cameron's suggestion to sell off council land would be "neither legal, nor sustainable in the long-term since they are one-off receipts".
Labour has also hit back, with shadow chancellor John McDonnell calling Cameron's intervention "unbelievable hypocrisy". The party has written to cabinet secretary Sir Jeremy Heywood calling for an investigation into whether the ministerial code was broken.
Cameron's spokeswoman has insisted "there is still significant scope for sensible savings across local government to be made" and that discussions will be held 'with Oxfordshire' on how to achieve this while protecting frontline services.
But commentators argue that Cameron's letter proves that the government has little understanding of how its policies affect ordinary people.
"Have you ever wondered how the PM sleeps at night? How can he live with himself after imposing such gratuitous pain upon the people of this nation?" asks The Guardian's George Monbiot.
"Well now, it seems, you have your answer: he appears to be blissfully unaware of the impact of his own policies."
