MAIL ONLINE: Lord Mandelson will today face down union threats of strikes and rioting if there are public spending cuts.
In the most hawkish statement yet from a senior minister on the need for restraint he will say Gordon Brown has decided to stop 'throwing money' at state services.
The Business Secretary, in a major speech, will also insist that the Tories are 'ideologues', hellbent on wrecking the public services.
His intervention comes as union barons raised the spectre of 1980s-style riots if public spending is slashed.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said taking an axe to public services would spark a 'double quick, double dip' recession and push unemployment over four million.
Unemployment could hit 40 per cent in major cities in the North, triggering massive social unrest, he said.
Speaking on the eve of the TUC conference in Liverpool, Mr Barber said: 'Cut the stimulus off and the economy would go into decline again.
'It would take many years before there was any chance of returning to anything like full employment. That would scar for life a whole generation of young people.'
He warned: 'Last time we suffered slash and burn economics we had riots in the streets here.
'I make no prediction that this would happen again, but it would take us back to the days of a deep north-south divide and once again hollow out whole areas of the economy.' >>> Tim Shipman and Kirsty Walker | Monday, September 14, 2009
