TUC National Demonstration Against Cuts

If we are so broke why are we launching missiles at Tripoli yet expecting the disabled to be shoved into poverty and indignity?

Oh, there's plenty of money. It's not like there's not enough 'stuff' in the world. The UK is richer than it ever has been. The problem is one of priorities. When we need to wage war, there is money. When MPs want to relax the expenses rules so they can make more claims, there is plenty of money. When we want to give tax breaks to corporations, there's money. When we need money for Trident, there's money.

The UK is one of the richest countries in the world. If the establishment was forced to find the money for public expenses, it would find them.

Besides which, the UK debt is not even that high by historical standards. Yes, the deficit should be brought under control, but no, this is not a good enough reason to slash and burn public spending (which is counterproductive anyway).

UK historical debt levels:

falseeconomy.org.uk/cure/how-big-is-the-problem

Xenia, I'm with Rosebud - national economics just aren't the same as those for a family. You can't compare the two and no economist ever would.

Nobody's denying we're in debt. It's how to solve it that's the problem. Arguably the twenties depression didn't end until the war, when spending had to be increased to stoke the war effort. That accelerated the economy via investment, not by cutting. Roosevalt's New Deal is also widely credited with helping lift America out of depression. That was all about the three 'R's and hugely invested in the social fabric of America to lift people from poverty. It was about investment basically not cutting.

If you want to keep people fully employed when an economy is slowing down, the government arguably has to step in. Osbourne's view is that the Private Sector will wade in and fill the void, but it's not proven historically in any way and is a huge risk. The lessons from the Great Depression show us that. So what if his plan fails and the Private Sector don't/ can't invest enough to bring us out of recession?? What's he going to do then?

I'm suggesting that the global economy is considerably more complex than a household economy and that there are many people who don't have a decent roof or decent food, and actually no or very little opportunity to be consumeristic and so, no, I don't think increases in for example child poverty will do anyone any good.

Though I too dislike the rabid consumerism of capitalism and wish we would just all stop it.

But you're not suggesting the economy doens't work in cycles are you? Nor even perhaps that a b it less money and no ability to be too consumeristic (which presumably most of us realise is a dreadful moral fault of our age) might not actually do a lot of people some good? If money doesn't bring happiness should it matter if people who have a roof and food have a bit less?

Xenia, it sounds like you've swallowed 'The Economy According to Thatcher' and you just keep regurgitating the same shallow rhetoric.

Me too.

When that kid gets a job and starts paying taxes, calling the 'laptop' free doesn't really work does it?

There is no money. We have to cut things. If you're in debt as a family you don't keep remortgaging forever. You cut back. That's all we're having to do here. It will pass. There are always economic cycles. This is no worse than the 1920s crash, better, easier in many ways.

wook's on a rant roll. Go for it, am with you all the way.

What's wrong with workhouses anyway (as long as they are owned by the private sector) They could maybe even make profits?

Wook, that's how Britain got 'Great' though, isn't it? That's what people are harking back to really.

Jogon regarding the laptops- what would you prefer to see? The poor staying poor forever? Never empowered to participate in society by learning new skills? It's not like there will be many librraies around for them to use the computer in... Do you want the poor to wear a sackcloth and ashes and spend their days begging in the streets with a sign saying 'kick me' stuck to them?
I teach a really bright kid who has just been given a laptop for coursework and revision because he's on free school meals, and we're in a rural area and he's bussed in so can't stay back after lessons. So, this laptop- what a waste of taxpayer's money- he was born to a poor family so he should know his place right? How dare he be given an opportunity to have something that could help him improve his chances?! At the expense of the poor hard pressed taxpayer. He should have had a smack in the face and been grateful for it...

Quite Smee the public and private sectors are mutually interdependent and to suggest that the relationship is parasite/host as some do is just disgusting, and wrong on a factual level. So the public sector does not create wealth? So public sector workers don't educate, treat medically or support in any other way the workers who work in the private sector? Really? Public sector building programmes don't involve private sector workers? Really? The purchasing power of public sector workers does not have any impact on the retail sector? Really?

Chil said (ages ago) "That period between '76 and '79 was less 'funky' and more 'deathknell of Britain'."
I'm reading a good book 'When the Lights Went Out' which is very readable and takes on lots of political and cultural myths about the 1970s. It's lazy to generalise and oversimplify that decade.

For the people it does impact upon it is decimation in lots of ways. You try losing your job and see how that hits you. Or losing the respite care which keeps you sane, or the youth services which keeps your troubled teenager off the streets. There are endless examples of things which matter disappearing.

fwiw, the opposition say they'll cut too, but more slowly and with a more measured approach. So given my example in last post regarding Schools Building Programme, where do you stand on that? My logic surely makes a kind of basic sense, so building schools employs builders and architects. So by cutting that bit of public funding, you're not creating private sector work, you're cutting that too.

First public sector spend is being taken back to 2006 levels (I think). Very uncomfortable (especially for those it directly impacts) but not nearly decimation.

Second - for a spend led recovery to work - you really need a store of money (or at least not too much debt). Otherwise the debt consumes you before you reach recovery. Also, the UK is a bit of a leaky bucket when it comes to fiscal spending policies (we tend to spend our money on imported goods and many of our companies are foriegn owned). So government spend doesn't stimulate growth by much.

I think you're right jackstarb, G.O. does see that as the way out. Trouble is I can't see how decimating the public sector's going to achieve that. Take for example the schools building programme (can't remember what it was called!). Okay, so it wasn't the most efficient, but it created jobs in the private sector - builders, architects, etc. Now that's largely scrapped they've got less work not more. It just makes no sense at all to me.

See this is the thing - both sides want growth, no one knows which method will lead to it.

We won't really be able to judge for 10-20 years what the results will be, and even then we won't know what the alternative route would have lead to.

" Surely we have to create conditions in which the economy can grow"

I think that is exactly what Osborne is planning. Except he wants to see the private sector lead us out of recession. The real attack on the defecit will start then.

Niceguy, you're doing what George Osbourne does, so being hugely selective about the Canadian model. As LaWeasel says you can't compare. Yes they cut the deficit, but morally it was bankrupt, as the bloodbath budget was a disaster for the majority of working families, who broadly experienced the 1990's as a lost decade. Also did you know that the gulf between rich and poor significantly increased due to it? Interesting that isn't it.

In other words, they cut the deficit, but at what cost? You're bringing out the anorak in me now, but there's a great book on by a Canadian journalist called Linda McQuaig called 'Shooting the Hippo'. Seem to remember her describing how how the media and officials ratcheted up the fears of the debt to create a sense of crisis. Sound familiar??

And you really can't compare household domestic budgets with National economics. It just doesn't work like that. If it did it would be easier to fix.

I agree the NHS needs to be more efficient, but freedom of information has shown the budgetary restraints will mean 50,000 job losses - which will hit front line services. It has to. There are ways of doing things, but slashing budgets so brutally won't get them there. Surely we have to create conditions in which the economy can grow, then cut the deficit. What the Government is doing is pure destruction.

On the Radio a few days ago - Alistair Darling said the Osborne strategy is a 'judgement call'. Darling might have made a different one - but delaying cuts is not a risk free option.

Remember - we are nearly one year into this government and few of the cuts have even been implimented. Whilst the deficit is still increasing month by month.

Jogon - Pickles has very carefully changed the way councils receive central funding. Basically the more tory voters in a county, the more money the council gets.

www.nlgn.org.uk/public/2010/poorest-areas-hit-hardest-by-finance-settlement/

Of all the things this government is doing this is perhaps the most obscene.

Change the formula so that labour councils have to make more cuts than tory ones. So yes Richmond on Thames loses almost nothing while Liverpool, Manchester and Birmingham are hammered.

Niceguy - did you read my post earlier where I pointed out that the reason Canada coped was because it's neighbour America was doing extremely well at the time? They cut their rates for various business including filmmaking and most 'american' tv shows are now filmed in Canada?

It's not a valid comparison to now because there aren't any successful neighbours. This is a worldwide recession, there aren't any successful countries at all!!

It's totally a gamble. I'm not denying it. I'm just offering a reason why they're doing it fast & deep rather than slowly. Both strategies are logical and it just depends on the sort of person you are I guess which you prefer.

The slower you pay off your debts, the more interest you actually pay and more you end up eventually paying. Oh and bear in mind we're merely talking about the deficit here. In five years we won't have paid a penny off our actual debt yet. Just stemmed the tide of overspending.

About a decade ago, Canada faced a similar problem where their deficit was out of control and on the verge of bankruptcy. They chose a hard & deep cut strategy (aka the bloodbath budget) and eliminated their deficit in 3 years. Sweden had a similar issue too but I can't remember when now. The lessons learned from them is that it's better to just pull the plaster off quick and let it hurt now rather than look to prolong the pain over a decade.

To me those who are wishing for a slower speed are simply living in denial of the scale of the problem. Five years just to stop overspending and you think that's too quick!?!?!

If I went to CCCS tomorrow and told them I'm on the verge of bankruptcy. I've overspending every month and up to my eyes in debt. Would they recommend I reduce my outgoings slowly over the next five years because otherwise my kids would suffer? Or would they recommend something faster and accepting the fact that the kids will be affected?

As for the healthcare, it's not something I've read much about. To me, the NHS is a spiralling monopoly organisation which is out of control. I'm not 100% sure if the new plans will help or not but I'm keeping an open mind on that.

Jogon - it's because it's not really about 'having' to do anything. It's about particular councils wanting to push through their own agenda's - ie there are councils who don't want to be in control of anything but the bare basics - so it's an opportunity for them to cut everything they don't think is government 'business' IYSWIM.

So for example, it is easy for some councils (with all the individual councillors to convince to pass proposals) to sell off libraries, if the council is mostly made up of very business minded people who don't believe they are valuable because they look at them in financial terms, instead of social.

In my last district, the council voted to close public toilets in order to pay for the refurbishment of their council building. - They didn't see the value of the toilets because they didn't have to use them and couldn't make money off them (their building was right next door!) but everyone who uses the gardens and playpark they are part of, and now has to walk 20 mins away to the only remaining set did!

I think you must have an excellent council if they have managed without cuts, and it puts all the others to shame.