Even Tory councils are now calling on ministers to ease the pain of cuts | Patrick Butler

Conservatives in charge of stricken local authorities faced with closing basic services are voicing their sense of betrayal by the party

The anguish of austerity cuts may have come late to the leafier Conservative-run councils of England but there is no doubt it has arrived. Reflecting on the eye-watering spending cuts stricken county halls must push through this year and next, the Kent county council leader Paul Carter declared to a Tory conference fringe meeting last week that "no Conservative came into local government to do this". The room, packed with councillors, exploded into applause, accompanied by booming cries of "hear, hear".

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