Now we really are all in this together

The loss of 2,000 jobs over the next few years is a reduction of one third of the workforce.

Those that stay will face pay freezes, no money for the first day they are off sick, cuts in their working hours and the expenses they can claim for car mileage.

That, on top of trying to continue to provide as much of the old services as they can with only two-thirds of the people.

It cannot possibly continue to offer the same thing and not look very different.

Symbolically, it is some of the buildings that are affected that will offer the first sign of change.

Most people don't go behind the scenes at the Civic Centre, but it is already a quieter place following the loss of 600 staff over the past few years.

So it will be the libraries that will see their opening hours slashed - Whitmore Reans will go from six days a week to just 15 hours - that will be the real indication that this is a new way of doing things.

Central Baths and Bantock House are not going to close, but they will have to be run more like businesses.

The council hopes it will be able to get an army of volunteers in to fill the void, particularly around the libraries.

This is going to be a difficult one. These were jobs that people considered important and valuable enough to require a salary.

The local authority is going to expect someone to do it simply out of the goodness of their hearts and pay more council tax for the privilege.

Then there are the cuts in funding to remove the graffiti on privately owned buildings. Businesses will have to pay themselves if they want to get rid of a yob's spray paint.

It is a particularly galling state of affairs that victims will now have to cover the costs of restoring their buildings to a presentable condition, when all they have done is tried to earn an honest living in an increasingly tough environment.

But that is where we are. The council says it must prioritise the elderly and the vulnerable, although it will still try to attract new trade to create the jobs it can no longer provide.

As the resources are ever more squeezed it is going to be up to the people who live around here to make sure they don't let their towns and cities become ruined.

The woes facing Wolverhampton have made the news this week, but every council is in a similar situation when it comes to funding cuts.

Businesses won't want to have to pay to have graffiti taken off. And nor should they have to. But then neither should the taxpayer, in an ideal world.

If people can't volunteer to help run the library, the least they can and should be doing is making sure their kids aren't out tagging other people's property with stupid symbols meant to make them look tough.

And after that they need to make sure they use the services that have been offered to them for years - the leisure centres, the libraries, the art and graft galleries, the museums - because otherwise they could go.

Politicians will sling mud at each other. Tories will blame Labour for spending too much. Labour will blame the Tories for cutting too deep.

While they squabble, life has to go on. And whether any of us agree with the ideology of David Cameron or not or have opinions on the way he has gone about trying to craft his so-called 'big society', one thing is true now. We are all in this together.