Stand by for a blizzard of reports about cuts, cuts and more cuts. Here comes the week of the Comprehensive Spending Review - ambitious plans to pay off the previous government's mortgage within five years rather than the usual 25.
The news from Westminster is expected to be so unremittingly grim that a story will have to be outstandingly bad for it to get a mention. And any story about the closure of this or that local council service can conveniently be blamed on central government.
On Wednesday we should get our first peek at Cornwall Council's proposals for cutting £110 million over the next four years and possibly making 2,000 staff redundant. Convention, and democracy, dictates that the background papers for the special Cabinet on 27th October should be posted on the council's website no later than seven days before the meeting. But it might not happen that way.
The trade unions, for example, will be understandably miffed if the first they learn that this or that department is to become "commissioned" (privatised) is when the documents go on-line. They will probably (and quite properly) be briefed in advance.
Cornwall's Liberal Democrats, in opposition at County Hall despite having their hands dipped in the blood at Westminster, are in a tricky posiiton. Will they produce an "alternative budget" and make any serious suggestions as to where the axe should fall? Or will they just vote against the budget regardless? How can they do this without fingering Lib Dem Treasury Secretary Danny Alexander?
So I'm bracing myself for even more spin than usual. I won't be that surprised to hear from councillors on all sides that the cuts are not as bad as we had been lead to fear. But not until I've read for myself every line of every budget column will I believe it.
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