AS SURE as the leaves begin to wilt at this time of year, so the season commences for Lancashire County Council to begin moaning about a cash crisis.

Thus, already we see the predictable trailers for savage cuts in services.

Some £35million-worth, it is said, are needed to balance the budget.

And what comes next is the usual committee-by-committee doomwatch scenario of what the cuts will mean - sacked teachers, shut fire stations, closed old folks' homes and so forth.

Yet, after a winter of that woeful stuff, come spring, when the budget is finally fixed, the cuts do not turn out to be anything like as severe or scary.

Rather, by what the taxpayers must yearly perceive as masterful financial skill and prudence, our county councillors save the day - the council tax goes up (but never down) by only so much and services are trimmed by only so little.

And, this year, the trick must be worked much more magically.

Because adding to the dire straits of the county's annual autumnal angst, is a £10million bill for the shake-up of local government in Lancashire that let Blackburn and Blackpool go it alone

But will they not, for once, spare us this build-up?

The voters aren't mugs - they can see through this politicised prelude to the annual aren't-we-wonderful hey-presto act.

So why bother?

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