to think that there will be nothing left by the time the Tories have finished?

[lowrib]

Crown jewels' of Britain's landscape could be sold off

"England has 224 designated national nature reserves, of which the government ? via its agency Natural England ? owns or manages two thirds; Scotland and Wales have far fewer . A further 1,050 local reserves make up a national collection of beauty spots and sites of special scientific interest that is considered priceless. Covering an area the size of the west Midlands, they include windswept coast, ancient woodlands, flower rich meadows and moor, mountain and bog.

Proposals now being considered in Westminster and Cardiff include selling off the publicly-owned sites"

The reason there will be nothing left when the Tories have finished is because they have to clear up after Labour.

It's a shame they dont have anything like gold to sell isn't it? If Labour hadn't sent our gold reserves off to cash4gold then we might be in a better position.

Anyway, as with all these articles, like the library one, these are all ideas which are being floated and trialled - not actual policy. As in business, when you're trying to work out what to do you need to discuss ideas from the radical to the mundane, as the solution is usually somewhere in the middle. As it says in the article "Other conservationists are not overly concerned as long as there are guarantees they will be managed well. They point out that most nature conservation is now part-funded by business, and many nature reserves are already owned by private individuals."

So, something which is already happening, presumably successfully, is being talked about as possibly happening on a larger scale. The government are not taking a bulldozer to Snowdownia.

Exactly lucky

people are panicking about things that might never happen

Nothing left of the defecit, I hope.

Agree with the other posters. It isnt easy for anyone, but I just hope that they can get us out of the god awful mess the previous bunch of eejits left us in.

Ideas floated and trialled, possibly to lessen the impact of 'cuts lite' when they do happen.

YANBU!!! Sounds like everyone else here has short memories - this is business as usual for the Tories, What they do have over Labour is a very efficient spin machine which has enabled them to turn 'global recession' into 'UK Labour led recession' & bankers and private business cock ups to be translated into public sector wastefulness. Labour were not responsible for the recession you numpties,and Brown managed to steer us through the initial dangers when it looked like the whole of our economy would go down. He was recognised internationally for that but in the UK what do we do? Elect a government with no clue, who are hell bent on decimating the public sector under the guise of 'cleaning up after labour'. Just can't believe the British public is naive anough to buy it.

But just LOOK at their ideas and who they impact on. You apologists for this of this bunch of over privileged destroyers of our national heritage and values will find yourselves running out of excuses for them soon.

Anyway, the banks are back in profit, so we can have our billions back now, can't we? Problem solved.

" Just can't believe the British public is naive anough to buy it."

See, I feel that way about Labour jumping up and down in the background denying that they would have cut anything and the government is just doing this stuff for the hell of it, but we'll probably have to agree to disagree on that one.

For me, until Labour come out and detail what they would have cut for their projected 20% cuts then I don't think they have a leg to stand on frankly. Anyone can say "oooh, wouldn't have done this" or "definitely wouldn't have done that" but unless they can come out and detail what they would have done, in their cuts which Aliaster Darling said would have been worse than Thatcher, then I don't really understand why people listen to their complaining.

I was just about to rant but mindtheagegap beat me to it.

What mindtheagegap said.

X-posted with Mindthegap, who said it much better than I could.

Hmm - am at work so no time to fish out the relevant links but Labour's plan for the recovery was well publisised and is out there for anyone to Google. Was also recognised as a sensible & safe way to steer through the recession. Even if you can't be bothered to look for information further than the Daily mail pages, I think you could safely assume that labout would NOT have been decimating the public sector in quite the trigger happy way that the cooalition is.

Gibbon - a good rant keeps me sane

What mindtheagegap said.

The banks and the worldwide recession caused this situation; and Labour were on their way dealing with it in a measured way that didn't tear people's lives and jobs and hopes of jobs apart. Are the banks being asked to solve it? Are they more regulated now? Nope.

The unemployed, the elderly, young people, those at the lower end of the income scale - these will all be worse off. (And in the case of many young people without job training opportunities already axed by the Tories, already worse off. Let alone without the hike in VAT which hits poorer people more.) And there will be nothing left - no NHS, no education system that isn't based on privilege and the equivalent of the sorting-hat. This government likes to teach the public to despise and lay blame on other groups in society for the ills that greedy banks have brought upon everyone.

All too depressing. And angry-making.

The banks and the worldwide recession caused this situation?

Well then who is to blame for weakening bank regulation (re-regulation in 1997) and diminishing Bank of England control of the banking sector?

Who opened the door to reckless bank behaviour such as 125% mortgages?

Who ignored the housing boom risks, IMF warnings etc?

We have lived beyond our means for years, drowning in a national and personal debt that was facilitated and encouraged by the Labour government.

If we were so well placed to weather the recession why did the value of sterling collapse?

Why did other comparable countries emerge from the recession earlier than us?

Why did some countries experience no recession at all?

As with every Labour government, they spend like a man with no arms, wreck the economy and then stand on the sidelines whining.

I think it takes a very brave man to put measures into place that will be universally unpopular, but desperately necessary all the same. He isn't in it to make us like him FFS, he's in it to save our arses. Stop moaning and face the truth.

"He isn't in it to make us like him FFS"

Then what on earth were all of the gesticulating hands, open body language and "calls me Dave" stuff about? I thought he wanted us to be best fwends. :(

Like anyone who has overspent and is in debt, you need to realise aasets or trim spending to balance books.
Labour did the spending and the tories arte left to deliver the bad news and balance the books.
Do you really want the UK to be the new Greece or Ireland, nationally and notionally bankrupt with downgraded credit ratings ? keep your head in the sand singing Lalalalala and that is what you will find when you come up for air.

(btw isn't it a coalition govt at the moment?)

Well, OK, I'll concede that all politicians want us to like them (it's in their DNA!!) but you know what I mean. He can make hugely unpopular decisions/choices, and know that the hard-of-thinking millions will end up hating/blaming him forver more, and associating him with a time of austerity, but that ultimately in the long run, it's for the best.

Or he could soft-soap us, labour-stylee and say 'There there, let's all hold hands and stick our heads in the sand together' just to maintain popularity, whilst banging on about the 'Global' recession, which was in no way preventable or forseeable by any of us, and we shouldn't in any way be blaming ourselves for having prematurely emptied our piggy-banks and spent it all on sweets. Because if it hadn't been for those nasty bankers, and the Americans, the the rest of us would all still be living in cloud cuckoo land.'

I read a ludicrous article with Kirstie Allsop (avid Tory) this weekend. She was supportive of the coalition in the necessary cuts that they have made (fair enough) but then when the interviewer said 'what about the banks who were bailed out' she responded (paraphrase) 'I think we need to grow up about the money given to banks. Let's face it, the bankers have contributed so much, lots of restaurants and shops in London would not be there without the bankers'.

Oh that's all right then. The bankers are good egss because a few shops in Kensington High Street wouldn't be there without them. Daft cow.

I read that too, but to be fair it was a soundbite type quickfire question and answer interview so the comments are easy to take out of context when there is no space to elaborate/justify. I think her sentiment id right though. It's easy to feel jealousy resentment to the people at the top of the tree but without them to spend their money and have it filter down, so many businesses would not exist at all.

And those people can get us out of messes as well as into them.

FellatioNelson, I'm intrigued, you genuinely think that Cameron's in save our arses? Really?

He's an old-style Tory politician. He doesn't care about "us" (i.e. everyone), he cares about the interests of the rich and powerful and big business. The Big Society? Please! It's a
marketing con!

Yes, cuts are inevitable, but there is still choice over which cuts you make, how deep and how quickly. The Tories are using this as a great excuse to plough through with ideological cuts, attacking the welfare state. To pretend otherwise is naive in the extreme.

Kirsty Allsop is a twat. Her politics are as irrelevant as her opinions.

As for the rest, we need to save money and make cuts. Everyone will feel the pain to a lesser or greater degree. The Labour govt, while not responsible for the global recession, has left Britain very badly placed to deal with it.

I don't see a problem with state owned nature reserves being sold off, as long as the proper safe guards are in place to ensure that they stay as nature reserves. The National Trust and RSPB are brilliant at raising money and preserving the natural environment and are probably far more efficient and effective that any government-run agency for doing the same thing.

The cuts were going to have to come whoever had got in - Labour were still spending trying to buy their election victory right up to the end. Anyone with half a brain knew whoever won the election - the aftermath was going to be brutal for a good few years - the country's broke.

Labour had cut education to the point where they didn't view kids as worth anything other than being babysat with wordsearches and worksheets by someone with barely any qualifications for up to three days at a time when their regular teacher was away - hardly a trail blazing investing in a future party.

Lowrib - I never really got the feeling that Tony Blair or Gordon Brown gave a shit about the electorate. They both seemed to care far more about courting big business.