Here come the cuts

[Summerof69]

That old joke, funny how Labour passed a bill to cut the deficit by half in 4 years. Er...how the fuck were they going to do that without massive cuts. Answers on a postcard please

It was a bill to cut the ANNUAL deficit (say from £150bn to £100bn), so in effect the actual deficit will go up further.

[Summerof69]

The public sector is about to learn what the private sector has had to endure for the last 3 years. 

Nearer 10 years, starting with the final salary pension schemes, which started to go in 2002 in the private sector.

[Arriba]

i remember the tories slating labour for the hidden taxes etc.now they are upping taxes and making countless people unemployed at the same time.
it's all labours fault though......

[Bogus Dave]

I'm not the tories biggest fan, but they need to do this to save us from heading further up the creek.

[blinkpip]

KING OUT!

[Reg Smeeton]

i remember the tories slating labour for the hidden taxes etc.now they are upping taxes and making countless people unemployed at the same time.
it's all labours fault though......

I believe 2 years ago when Cameron was in opposition his party endorsed Labour's spending plans. Unfortunately this was before the banking crash fucked the world economy, so in order to avoid a catastrophic depression Brown chose to spend, to keep the economy bouyantish.

Now we'll see if that was wise or not, as the possibilty of a double dip recession is very real.

[Samdy Gray]

Once they spent all the cash they raised taxes, then sold off everything they could, then raised taxes, then borrowed, then raised taxes.

On the pretence that Brown ended boom and bust forever. Oh, wait...

[thepeoplesgame]

This has been a long time coming.  The public sector is about to learn what the private sector has had to endure for the last 3 years.  I take no pleasure at all in thinking of the ½ million public sector workers who are likely to lose their jobs...but it is necessary, unfortunately.

I, for one, do blame Labour for the fiscal mess we're in.  How Miliband and Johnson have the nerve to object while the coalition clears up the mess they created, I'll never know.

Unemployment is a price worth paying... I'm sure I've heard that one somewhere before.

And I blame the City for the mess we're in, and Labour only for letting it happen on their watch.

[Ardiles]

That's one of the problems with a situation like this...the language becomes very emotive very quickly.  I broadly support the steps being taken now, but only because I see no other way.  As I said above, I feel desperately sorry for the people who are going to lose their jobs.  Many of them are doing a good job and the country will be a poorer place without them - but the fact is we cannot afford the level of service they provide right now.

Edit: And it's also worth noting that the spending boom that took place during the early years of the last decade was, in large part, funded by tax revenues generated in the City.  So yes - the City was responsible for the bust, but also one of the main sources of funds that Brown used to expand the public sector to unsustainable levels in the years that preceded the bust.  The truth is that, while every public sector redundancy is a personal tragedy, many of the jobs about to be lost in the public sector should not really have been created in the first place.  Brown oversaw both the boom and the bust that followed.  The clear up job is the responsibility of others.

[jonny72]

On the pretence that Brown ended boom and bust forever. Oh, wait...

I'm still of the opinion that it was the Tories that sorted the economy out and put it on the right track before Labour came to power in 1997 and that they subsequently just rode the wave, until it started going wrong at which point they just proved what we knew all along - Labour can't manage the economy.

Brown and Labour saying there is nothing they could have done to protect the UK from the financial meltdown is complete and utter bollocks. Whilst better financial regulation might not have prevented it from hitting us, it would have definitely reduced the impact and meant no bank bail out. Plus if they'd have put some money aside during the good years rather than pissing it all away (and borrowing more on top to piss away) we'd have had a cushion to lessen the impact.

To be fair, Labour did increase spending which did a lot of good but they just went way too far, compared to the Tories who didn't go far enough. I really think the coalition will give us the balance between the two that we need and come the next general election we'll all be hoping for the same result again.

[pauld]

To suggest Labour are wholly responsible for the defecit, ignoring the minor effect of a global financial crisis (as Reg points out), is as facile as Labour pretending that they'd have done anything very much different. The impact was the same as it would have been under a Tory govt, the remedy is broadly the same as it would be under a Labour govt.

EDIT: that's not a response to jonny btw, just happened to post straight after him. jonny has it about right IMO

[Ardiles]

To suggest Labour are wholly responsible for the defecit, ignoring the minor effect of a global financial crisis (as Reg points out), is as facile as Labour pretending that they'd have done anything very much different. The impact was the same as it would have been under a Tory govt, the remedy is broadly the same as it would be under a Labour govt.

True...but more so in relation to the bust of 2007-08 than the boom of the late 1990s and early/mid 2000s.  Had the Tories been in power during this time, I doubt they would have overspent in quite the same way as Labour.  The structural deficit would not have been as large and the remedy now required not as severe.

[I'm sounding much more Tory Boy here than I'm comfortable with, but fiscally, I think they have it more or less right at the moment.]

[pauld]

True...but more so in relation to the bust of 2007-08 than the boom of the late 1990s and early/mid 2000s.  Had the Tories been in power during this time, I doubt they would have overspent in quite the same way as Labour.  The structural deficit would not have been as large and the remedy now required not as severe.

[I'm sounding much more Tory Boy here than I'm comfortable with, but fiscally, I think they have it more or less right at the moment.]

Yeah, as I say, certainly not trying to let Labour off the hook. They fucked up royally but from some of the usual suspect Tory Boy posts on here this afternoon (and the idiots I've heard on the radio), you'd think there'd been no global banking crisis at all. It did have quite a big impact.

It remains to be seen of course, how much of the coalition's cuts are actually necessary money-saving measures and how much is ideologically driven slashing the welfare state (kicking the poor) which the Tory right have been moist about for decades. I notice they're very very loud about "welfare cheats" and all the usual suspects (which is good, I no more want to pay for the idle poor to sit on their fat arses than anyone else) but gone awfully quiet about clamping down on tax avoidance. Which costs us far more. Like 4-5 defence review's worth more

[Summerof69]

I fully agree clamping down on tax avoidance, and close loopholes like 'image rights'(where the person involves pays only 24% instead of 40-50%), but since tax regulation has rocketed over the last 10 years or so, it means rich people can get out of paying 'their fair share' by hiring good tax accountants.

And the fact 'non-doms' only pay a couple of grand when they make millions is scandalous. At the end of the day they should pay their fair whack if they want to live in the UK.

[pauld]

I fully agree clamping down on tax avoidance, and close loopholes like 'image rights'(where the person involves pays only 24% instead of 40-50%), but since tax regulation has rocketed over the last 10 years or so, it means rich people can get out of paying 'their fair share' by hiring good tax accountants.

Been going on a lot longer than that and neither party will do anything about it in case they upset their rich donors.

And the fact 'non-doms' only pay a couple of grand when they make millions is scandalous. At the end of the day they should pay their fair whack if they want to live in the UK.

Not while Lords Ashcroft and Rothermere* are alive. It's not just individuals though, companies do it too. Like most of the ones who's CEOs signed that "Slash the benefits" letter the other day, the fucking leaching hypocrites.

* Imagine the outcry in the Daily Mail about a nominally French resident who actually lives over here and enjoys all the benefits of being British etc but refuses to chip in his bit to the tax pot while lecturing everyone else about "scroungers". Except you'll never read that story, not in his paper.