Liberal Democrat Newcastle city council puts these objections about grant settlements (the council was finalising the list this week) to government on Monday, I think it is.

Interesting. Is this a Liberal Democrat council standing up to its own party in government? “Standing up” might be too generous a phrase (as time goes on, I’d prefer a full-scale Ted Knight-esque resistance myself), but we could be seeing a vaguely compelling tantrum at Newcastle.

Newcastle City Council Lib Dem leader David Faulkner has already accused the Lib-Dem/Conservative government of failing the Northeast with a harsh local government settlement (£50m to be cut this year and the loss of the all-important working neighbourhood fund grant which was paid out for the country’s poorest areas). Faulkner also told students that he would have voted against tuition fees if he had been an MP. It’s true that any Lib Dem with half a brain in Newcastle would have said that, but it’s worth noting. I’ve heard no such fighting talk from Steve Bullock at Lewisham, to give a comparable, if unfortunate, Labour example.

Massive redundancies and service cuts are still likely in Newcastle, and I understand that Newcastle unions are gearing up to ballot. The council has listed some cuts proposals and is under pressure to show its hand on the rest. More on the impact of cuts in Newcastle in the next few days.