please empty your brain below

Ah yes. Return of a classic-style DG post!

Very soon, Britain will no longer be such a plesant place to live.

My husband is talking about our family possibly moving to the UK in a year or two, as he wants to see what life outside Japan is like. I'm trying my hardest to persuade him of the merits of Australia instead ...

As a long time voiceless reader of your blog, this post has finally made me want to comment, and I just wanted to congratulate you on the simple and effective way you communicate your thoughts. This post has summed up all my feelings towards the current government and their policies.

I can't begin to communicate as simply and as effective as you how ill thought out, short termist, and ideologcally driven these cuts are.... for example the BBC licence fee being frozen for 6 years will not help cut the deficit in any way whatsoever, and is purely ideologically (and Murdoch) driven. The assumption that half a million public sector jobs will immediately be picked up by the private sector is ridiculous, and therefore the the amount spent on unemployment benefit will surely increase, apart from the fact that's probably going to be cut as well. The reduction in funding for social housing by half is worse than anything Thatcher would have tried.

Yes, the deficit needs to be reduced, but the scale and swiftness of these cuts seems to me like letting your children go hungry to pay off your mortgage a few years early...

OK rant over...

[this is good]

Is GB (above) Gordon Brown?

Of course, we woouldn't *be* in this mess were it not for his total mismanagement of the economy... It's amazing how short some people's memories are.

Let's blame the coalition for having to take drastic measures to keep UK PLC financially viable, while saying it's all the fault of the bankers/gloabl economy.

*If* that were the case, then every other country in the world would be in a mess too. And most of them are not.

I'd rather it got sorted sooner rather than later. Short-term pain for long-term gain. It's how we've paid off our mortgage years early. Sort the debts out and then you've got real choices. And that applies to country-debts and equally to personal-debts.

Is it not the case that there is more to life that "UK PLC"? What is it that means we are in thrall to "the markets". Has the near collapse of the financial system not shown that if left to act as they wish, UK PLC companies will do anything they can to make a fast buck and screw the consequences to people's lives and communities? But it's OK for politicians and those at the top of UK PLC companies as they will never feel the impact of these cuts as in most cases they will never need to use the NHS, Sure Start Centres, comprehensive schools, the welfare state etc etc.

It appears to me that they know the price of everything, and the value of nothing.

Let's await the details at 12.30pm before making assumptions, eh?

"Short-term pain for long-term gain. It's how we've paid off our mortgage years early".

Oh, the irony! Blue Witch - weren't you an ardent advocate of credit card stoozing - juggling large cash loans on credit cards offering interest free periods to offset against your mortgage? I bet that helped a great deal more than wearing a hair shirt. But perhaps that was using credit cards that were issued by finance companies that were not in part responsible for the global financial crisis? It's a shame we're all not so self-righteous, eh?

Stoozing was good while it lasted. What happened? The banks realised the loopholes they'd left and closed them down. Which is *exactly* what the Coalition should be doing.

Loopholes in benefits, taxes etc etc.

You really can't blame people for using loopholes they're bright enough to spot.

And you would do what, DG?

Maybe stick to the Labour cuts which would be, let's say 2/3 of these?

Or carry on regardless and watch the country go bust in a year.

Cheap grandstanding. Adds nothing. Get back to topography and history: something you understand and do very well indeed.

No organisation is perfect whatever sector it is in and there is always room for a little bit of fat trimming however attacking the public sector in this way is ideologically driven.

Democracies are messy and that's why sometimes Local Authorities do things that seem to lack common sense. Greg Tinsley's comment about widespread corruption in LBWF is completely unfounded. If he does have evidence of it what is he doing about it? It's also worth pointing out that LAs don't have the power to give away buildings that they don't actually own.

Give it a few years and we'll have our own Tea Party UK :(

I see the usual suspects are trotting out the "there is no alternative" bullshit.

Let's be clear about this - the govt is not paying historically amounts on interest payments, the deficit is not historically high, and there is no chance whatsoever of "UK PLC" going bust.

Cuts to public services (due to a recession caused by part of the private sector) are ideologically driven and nothing more.


Thank you

So what would you have us do? Bury our heads in the sand and ignore the deficit?

Some fiscal sanity has to be restored. I'm thinking you are probably too young to remember the dire financial state the last Labour administration left us in. 97.5% tax rates anybody?

I also see the usual suspects taking their usual stances. Perhaps the somewhat blinkered response from the usuals above is a micro reflection of what is going on in the UK.

The world has changed and maybe the usual responses will not work anymore.

I think I will need many cups of tea today and tomorrow.

What gets me is the division that the Tory party always create in our United Kingdom.
Nothing is ever good, nothing is even done well. They tell us how we have to suffer, then retire to their comfortable life.
What would have been done under the Tories in the previous 13 years. Would the high speed link been built to France? Would any investment gone on the rail infrastructure of this country. Would we have seen the investment in the Hospitals and schools. No.
Any they moan about the overspending. But who overspent, the private companies paid by our hard earn monies who took the piss, with inflated the prices and didn't really try their best and hardest for this country.
And yes that is where Labour failed they should have been on their case, because they should have known that these people would try to screw us rotten. They knew they wouldn't get the blame and their fat wallets would be ok when their pals the Tories came in.

All we need now is a war in the Falklands in 3 years time, Cameron can be the hero and rule supreme. Or has anyone forgot how awful it was to be around between 1979-1981 when the Tories were destroying our country.

I expect today that we will see outcry from the left with vitriol from the right in response. It will not shine a positive light on politicians and commentators. Frankly, DG, this post would have had more meaning if it had appeared after the Chancellor had sat down - as it is, it appears reactionary and not considered, IMHO and with respect (although it is craftily written, so respect due).

As with all things, the truth lies somewhere between the extremes.

My view is this (and, since others have shared their views, I hope you won't mind me using your comment space to add mine): the truth is that our economy is in a worse state that other similar economies in Europe, which suggests govt mismanagement. The truth is that Labour proposed massive cuts before the election, so would be hypocritical to suggest that we can carry on without cuts now. The truth is that the Tories do believe in a smaller state and will take this chance to carry that through, like it or not. The truth is that we are all going to get hurt, one way or another - some more so than others, and certainly not limited to "hard working middle classes" or the poor. The truth is that the bankers contributed to the situation, significantly, but they also make an easy scapegoat - and they made their contribution under a regulatory framework designed by Gordon Brown. The truth is that the last govt spent £5 for every £4 it earned in taxes and that can never be sustained.

The truth is that those of the right of centre, like me, have had to watch govt of a persuasion that we did not like for the last 13 years. In truth, for a large part, it was not as bad as all that (although the national debt, the unemployment higher than 1997, the war in Iraq and plenty of other things are all pretty bad). Now those who are left of centre are watching a govt that they don't like - it will be unpleasant, uncomfortable and they may even shout "no". In truth, it won't be as bad as all that for much of the time (although they won't like the cuts, they won't like the public school boys (whilst forgetting that several major NewLab folk went to public school) and they won't like a bunch of other things. And then, in a few years time, the pendulum will swing the other way and the roles will be reversed.

It was ever thus. We live under a govt system where we each have a vote, but ultimately the decisions are taken by a small coterie of professional politicians who only ever represent a minority. Perhaps that system should change - but perhaps then we would end up like Belgium. I feel that reducing the reach and power of the state must, perversely, be good for democracy as it will restore power to those who should be taking the decisions - you and me - and reducing the power of the coterie to impact upon our lives.

Either way, I hope that today, and in the days to come, the discussion will be mature and reasoned. Somehow, I doubt that will be the case - in parliament, in the media, in the blogosphere or in the pub. The mud will be slung.

"*If* that were the case, then every other country in the world would be in a mess too. And most of them are not."

Really? USA, Germany, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, many of the Eastern European EU countries, to name but a few, are in a mess. In fact, many of the countries that have economies like ours, and many of them had right leaning governments at the time the problem was caused.
The ones that aren't in a mess are mostly those that didn't have economies to be destroyed in the first place.

An intelligent and reasoned point of view Graybo. Thank you.

Blue Witch and others here faithfully rehearse the ConDem rhetoric about the mess Labour left us with. But the evidence points in the opposite direction. If Labour can be blamed for anything its a failure to stand up and refute the lie that the deficit was their fault. Even a cursory glance at the figures over the previous 13 years will show that Labour up until 2008 improved the deficit UK debt as a percentage of GDP. Indeed it was less in 2008 than it was in 1997. http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/downchart_ukgs.php?year=1945_2010&vie...w=1&expand&units=p&fy=2009&chart=G0-total&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&color=c&title=UK+National+Debt+As+Pct+GDP What has happened between 2008 and 2010? Yes the worst recession in post-war history, presaged by a crisis in the banking sector which was entirely created by the laissez-faire economics of Greenspan and which are espoused by our present not so honourable Govt. Don't let the Tory's get away worth the lie that it was Labours fault. While we are talking stats. I want to explode this idea that the UK's economy is one of the wosrse in the world. In fact we are in a much better situation than almost all other comparable states http://www.visualeconomics.com/gdp-vs-national-debt-by-country/

Please don't buy the Tory lies. These cuts are purely ideological. They will hurt the worst-off in our society and will divide us as Thatcher so effectively did in the 80-'s.

Lets face it you as a country have been living beyond your means for years. Now pay up.


Actually, whilst waiting in the dentist waiting room in the last hour, I read a very cogent article about the failure of debt-laden governments to act as though they have debt that needs to be paid off or at least reduced and how it is time that those governments changed their policies accordingly and started to live within their means.

It was in the Guardian. Funny that.

"Lets face it you as a country have been living beyond your means for years. Now pay up."

Where are you from Michael? And who is it you think we need to pay?
The majority of most countries' deficit is made up of government bonds belonging to pension funds and institutional investors, who are probably worried that they will pay up and they'll have to find other lucrative ways to make money.

"Or has anyone forgot how awful it was to be around between 1979-1981 when the Tories were destroying our country."

I haven't.

What we needed was re-investment. Infrastructure repaired, new homes, hospitals and schools built. People employed, people spending, people saving.

What we're getting is higher unemployment, deeper poverty, homelessness, breakdown of NHS, higher crime rates, troops fighting with one hand tied behind their backs, failing schools, people spending their savings.

Greg: Hardly codswallop - The figures are plain to see. But your even your arguments as to why you think they are codswallop do not make any sense. What Labour were going to do is entirely irrelevant because they are now not in a position to do it. Do you remember the recessions of the 80s and 90s? I ask because a lot of Tories have slective memories about them. But these were the recessions when Mssrs Brittan and Lamont talked a lot about Green shoots of receovery on the one hand whilst preventing growth with similar policies and cuts to we have been presented with today. These were the recessions when the Tories openly argued that "unemployment was a price worth paying". It took us years to get over those crises. Gideon and his millionaire pals are now saying this will take decades. Lies. Unemployment is never a price worth paying. It stifles growth and only adds to debt burdens. When will you Tories learn?

Good post!

And David: how rude!

Great post DG - best thing I've read for ages.

Pity the comment box resembles something from the Daily Hate.

Actually Blue Witch, we paid for your mortgage. If I remember correctly it was partially funded by stoozing, the costs of which were no doubt passed on by the banks to their customers in one form or another. I hate it when freeloaders abuse the system and expect everyone else to pick up the tab.

Not quite sure why everyone is so interested in my stoozing activities, but...

Really Denise? You paid for my mortgage? I don't think so. It's much more likely that the banks fleeced us on our savings rate enough for us to get a bit back, and for them to still be quids in.

Real freeloading from the banks, Denise, was done by those people who attempted to claim back charges they'd legitimately (according to T&Cs available to them) had to pay. IMO, of course, but then I wasn't someone who tried it on in that way. because I manage our money carefuly enough to have never paid bank charges in my life.

I did not abuse any system. And I never would. I was just bright enough to spot an opportunity, adn time rich enough to avail myself of it. A loophole the banks have now closed. In the same way that the governmint should close a lot of loopholes in a lot of systems. Most of which they have still been left wide open today.



People are walking into this like bloody sheep. This is going to be the final splitting of London, the rich living near the centre (zones 1-3) with better transport, tube lines, cheaper travel etc, and the poor living in the outer edges, in shabby estates that will....will....sink into pits of despair.
And the rich will drive by, on their way to their country cottages in cute villages and tut at the utter utter greyness of it all.
I voted Lib Dem thinking they would be a viable third party.
Never Ever Again.
Bastards.


kittens tomorrow...please DG ??

I'd forgotten how tedious and bitchy some political comments threads get.

Excellent stuff. Goodnight.

chances of them coming for the bankers are slim.
we can only hope.

Ah yes, because cuts required because of ten years of overspending is EXACTLY THE SAME as the Holocaust.

Perhaps if we stopped having a system where we swung from one political extreme to another, we might actually stop having a rollercoaster economy.



"I'd forgotten how tedious and bitchy some political comments threads get"

Well maybe you shouldn't post lazy, provocative, derivative and political posts then...Just saying....

@David: I thought it was a light-hearted and humorous post on a serious issue. There's just an arrogant and aggressive element that appears here from time, and even though I now avoid their own blogs for that very reason, I'm a bit peeved that they're diminishing my enjoyment of one of the few well-written and interesting blogs I still read.

DG - please rearrange these words into a well-known sentence.

nail-head-hit-the-on

Good post DG - it made me think, did it not?
I can think back to 60 years ago in Essex-London.
Do you wonder what it will be like here in 60 years' time?
My guess is that we have just had the best of it in this area. Cheap oil did that for us.
So it'll be back to the 50s then - rationing, no hot water from a tap, very little heating, basic food.
And lots of laughs.
Oh, and lots of buses.

New Labour built welfare state on top of the housing and banking bubble (and then spent billions trying to keep the bubble intact). And now, when the bubble burst - welfare state must be scaled down or we will end up like Greece.

I'd rather take the cuts as opposed to tax raises - people telling scary stories about Tories somehow conveniently forget Labour's 33%-83% income tax in 70s.

This is all very clever, but I think it's rather excessive.

The original "First they came..." verse was written about the inactivity of people to stand up to the rise of the Nazis in Germany and the holocaust that came as a result.

To then use (or 'subvert') this verse to bitch about spending cuts seems rather tasteless. Or histrionic.


Ooh, what was that noise? Ah, must have been the sound of Dave disappearing up his own arse....

I work in a private sector company. They have already come for us. Our markets have collapsed and my friends are being made redundant. Our main clients were developers and local authorities. Across my industry hundreds have been made redundant over the last few weeks - never a mention in the press.

They have come for us already, and destroyed an industry which was also a great export success.

Yes, the state is being rolled back to....erm, 40% of GDP, more or less the post-war average.

Get a grip!

Whether or not you agree with it (and I do) it was beautifully and thoughtfully written. Onya DG!!!!

DG - Rather late to the party here (It's been a rather busy week in Civil Servant Land as you may imagine) but wanted to add my congratulations for another wonderfully aposite post.

Take care.

CF

Late to comment, but just had to say to the cut-em-and-flog-em brigade that the welfare state is NOT above its usual size. In 97 it equalled 7.76% of GDP - it is currently running at 7.26% of GDP, despite a worldwide recession. The public sector cuts agenda is all smoke and mirrors I'm afraid.











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