To think that the Tories will mess up this country worse tahn teh last goverment?

[poshsinglemum]

With all this talk about shuting down libraries. I am horrified. It's disgusting. What else will they do away with? Nappy changing facilities, buses? Hospitals? What were people thinking when they voted for thm?

I don't think we were the worst hit just because of policies but more of the disproportionated size of the financial industry in relation to others

Ireland and Greece were also governed very badly and are now suffering the consequences.

Iceland, USA many others.

Right, so we were hit disproportiantely hard excluding Greece, Ireland, Iceland, USA..

Greece,Ireland and Iceland had worse recessions then we had. Plenty of others eg USA/Germany/France etc had shorter and shallower recessions.

I suspect many of the cuts the Tories are bringing in they would have done anyway, regardless of what had happened previously with Labour, its just easier for them to blame Labour.

Im a Nurse and I really fear for the NHS now.

what is the percentage of households where no one has ever worked and live solely on benefits? and of those how many are families with children and how many many single or elderly people?

There's a pie chart around somewhere online that shows most benefits are paid to the elderly not parents with young children.
So there lies the problem, people are living too long, falling ill and we can't afford to keep fixing them up but we do.

As for library services, information can be found online, people are buying less and less physical books so buildings to house them all, staffed and heated are becoming redundant, we have 4 within a 5 mile radius and they are usually more staff than customers. 2 at least will and should go.

Japan was also affected. We are supposed to be out of recession too but the policies that this lot are bringing in could put us back there.

It shames me that there are so many people who focus on benefits and bloody libraries as the reason for our current economic crisis. Can I suggest that benefits make the tiniest of dents in the deficit that it's negligible (check it out - honest). Don't get me wrong, I don't agree with people parked on benefits, but it's not the reason we're in the state we're in and it doesn't answer why lib/cons are privatising public services. There are POOR, DEPRIVED people in this country. I earn a decent living but can't always afford to buy books. People use libraries for a range of reasons, including keeping warm! It enrages me that we keep going over this same old crap - it really takes us away from what's actually going on.

Yes of course you are.

Very bad long term things done by Labour -- trashing of education and profound deepening of state dependency.

These are very very bad things indeed and will take years and years and years to put right.

And I voted for 'em. Repeatedly.

It's purely ideological. In fact, making huge changes to an organisation the size of the NHS is rather like getting an oil tanker to chance direction - hard work, time consuming and expensive!

The most cost effective thing would be to leave it alone!

"started a war that was probably illegal"

Yes, the Labour government did do that. Shame shame shame on them.

Didn't see many Tories voting against it though, did you?

niknakpaddywak.

Will you please run for parliament?

Yes agree with Niknak people on here are obsessed with blaming people on benefits what do they bloody want to do bring back the workhouses ? I blame the gutter press including the daily mail for picking on the odd scrounger then everybody thinking they all are !!!

Two within 4 miles mamato is not my choice but not devastation; my aprents are in a rural county with virtually no bus service- they will lsoe 50% across the whole county. ANd no, tehyc annot use the net: have tried, found them a PC- nada,. Theya re scared of it. And too far away from us for us to drive tehre sadly.

I think this government is lucky, ready 'reasons' for cuts blame the previous government, which they always do no matter what

but they have the added advantage also of a royal wedding and the Olympics to keep everyone distracted, engaged and entertained

Bread and circuses.

I am seriously worried about the future,
short term money solutions such as shutting libraries, selling off forests have far reaching implications that will have repercussions on future generations that are we unlikely to recover from
I mean how well did we do with rail privatisation (now costs the taxpayer huge amounts in subsidies and huge amounts in fares to pay for private sector profits and a failing service)!!!!
I know that we need to save money but this is a purely idiotic way of doing it. And don't get me started on the NHS reforms - a huge money pit of reorganisation costs to basically privatise the service - which will become far far inferior . I'm not saying that savings can't be made but this ill thought out rushed throw the baby out with the bathwater approach is sheer madness.
We need to save money but not screw the country over , it can be done, but it will be more difficult, require hard work and will require EVERYBODY to share the pain not just the average joes of the general public

'If you go to the local library you will not find people who can't buy books in my opinion'

Rubbish.

The sort of person who depends on their reading on '99p' books from Tesco is not a reader.

The sort of person who reads to be enlightened, educated and informed, to have a glimpse into other lives and other worlds doesn't go to Tesco for their reading matter. The books I read in a week from my library would be quite unafforable to buy; add my DH and DD's reading habits and it would mount up to many tens of pounds every week.

Whether I should pay a subscrption for the service is maybe another matter, but certainly no child or pensioner should have to pay, not anyone on benefit, nor a student ...

Wonky -- the real, serious long term damage was done by Labour. There is nothing more important than the failure of education. Nothing. Britain cannot afford in a globalised world to churn out hundreds of thousands of badly educated people, fit only for jobs which can be done much more cheaply in countries where cost of living is lower and wages correspondingly lower.

That is what Labour created. There has been a systematic undermining of the knowledge economy. There will be a greater and greater mass of uneducated people who do not contribute to economic growth because they cannot. Proportionately more of tax take will need to be spent on them and proportionately less will be available for education, social services, libraries, whatever you like. The amount of money being spent to maintain a large uneducated population is going to bubble. It will take years for this to change: there has been some refocussing already starting about three years ago, so I reckon in about 13-15 years time children will start leaving school with an expanding skill base.

This is the greatest damage.

Havent the tories said they are scrapping Ante Natal classes on the NHS - if you want to do ANC then you have to pay for private ones?

UnSerpentQuiCourt - why should my council tax pay for your enlightenment or more likely pleasure any more than you should pay my sky sports subscription ?

mamatomany- I think libraries are a social good and as much as I like football sky sports isn't

But poeple who read learn more; they can study for OU degrees or so many things and get the wings to fly with. And that benefits society.

I don;t have an issue with a subscription in fact; and if there was a useful library here (too small and my subject too specialised) I;d gladly pay £5 a month or so; my books I need cost ten times that often. But it's a precious resource and the hhistory fo the library is one that shows a great aim that really works right now.

And you know what- when so many mroe redundancies and benefits cuts bite, 99p will be a luxury- 99p is the difference between rent paid or not. I certainly would not spend 99p without thought now and things are set to get far harder.

I can only speak for our local services but we have 2 people employed in a library at the top of our road, it stocks the cheryl cole type books, mauve what er face novels, weight watcher type books, you wouldn't find the cure of cancer in there. (I couldn't even get Jason Vales juicing book, which I needed for somebody with cancer).
It's heated, has a lovely disabled toilet which nobody can use without the magic key, my child actually pissed on their carpet whilst they told me she couldn't use it, it does in fairness have lots of useful information on the notice board.
But lets assume those two staff cost £25k each plus the bills there's no justification whatsoever.
OU courses are supplied with the materials aren't they ? And again the internet is useful for more than MN