Frontline services will not be affected by the cuts ...

How often have we heard this? Applied to the NHS, the police, and so on. Has anyone else noticed that it's got to be complete cobblers?

In any business or service, you have the people at the frontline (the guys actually swinging picks at the coal face, as it were), and a whole bunch of other people who are there because they're needed. The people who carry the coal back to the pit head. The people who load it onto trains. The people in the accounts department. The people in training, in purchasing of picks, the geologists ... you see what I mean? These are all people who are actually necessary for the operation.

If you cut those services, then either they weren't needed in the first place (in which case, why on earth were they there?) or else this is going to have an impact on the overall service.

If you cut the non-frontline services, then that's going to make the frontline services worse. If you fire the people who buy the picks, then either the miners will have to dig without picks, or else they're going to have to take the time go to hardware stores to buy picks. If you cut the people who transport the coal away from the coal face, then the miners will have to stop swinging their picks every so often, and carry the coal back themselves.

So please stop this "Frontline services will not be affected by the cuts". I'm not as stupid as you hope I am.