The big story this week will be Mr Blair’s appearance at the Chilcot Inquiry into the invasion of Iraq.

But it may not last as long as the story that is slowly starting to ‘get legs’, as journalists say.

This is the fall-out from the public spending cuts that national politicians are ‘promising’ once people have voted.

I’ve no doubt that it’s going to lead to bother, and some of it on the streets.

Of course, ‘cutting spending’ sounds a good idea, particularly when people say that the country is going bust (it’s not, but that’s the perception).

But most people will not be happy when cuts have a direct effect on them. And the coming cuts are already casting their shadow over events.

Last week we learned that councils (in the form of a body called Local Government Employers) have announced they will not be offering a pay rise to their staff this year.

The decision is ‘aimed at protecting frontline services and keeping job losses to a minimum’.

It follows what has been happening in the private sector, but I don’t imagine the local government unions will be too pleased. Expect bother.

We also heard the outcome of the dreadful court case involving the ‘child torturers’ at Doncaster and the predictable calls for better children’s services – inevitably more expensive.

It is not clear that they (or social services in general) are included in the ‘health and schools’ ring-fence against spending cuts that the Tories and Labour are promising.

More signs of a lot of bother ahead.

Here in Lancashire, a headline in this newspaper on Friday read: ‘Police hail big drop in crime’. In the three boroughs of Burnley, Pendle and Rossendale – the police Pennine Division – the number of offences fell by 1,399, over 6%. This at a time when it was thought crime would rise due to the recession.

There are many overlapping reasons for this good news, but there is no doubt that much is due to the local community policing that Lancashire pioneered.

It, too, costs money. If public spending is to be cut, who is saying the police are exempt?

I foresee bother on our streets, of a different sort, if we lose our local policing teams.