To think we need to prioritise defence/Ukraine spending?

[Wildflowers99]

I’ll admit I had no idea how depleted our military has become until a few weeks ago. I was absolutely staggered to read we now spend more on PIP and DLA than our entire military.

I feel like slowly all of our public spending has been funnelled into health, benefits and social care, leaving everything else in a very poor state. Any time anyone has suggested spending money on anything apart from ‘freezing pensioners, the homeless or disabled’ they get shouted down (I am disabled btw, so I do understand the need).

AIBU to think we need to urgently address our spending priorities and as a nation wake up to the fact we’ve been overspending on the above for too long?

I thought starmer was prioritising it??

I recognise you from a few threads you seem to have a.real problem with people receiving disability benefits.

I work for the NHS and I also work with chronically ill/ disabled people. I fail to see this "overspending" on health and disability welfare to be honest. And don't get me started on social care - it's practically non-existent which leaves healthcare to pick up the slack.
I also have parents in one of the continental European countries which practically bankrupted itself through Ukraine/defense spending. Trust me, you wouldn't want to live there right now.

Not at all. But I have an issue with the sheer volume of claimants and total spend as it’s very very very high. We can’t pretend otherwise. But disability benefits are part of a civilised society and completely necessary.

The overspending is that 40% of our total expenditure now goes on these 2 areas. Nothing else can be cut because they’re all such a thin wedge. It’s also the rate at which the spending is increasing - it’s not high but stable, it’s high and rapidly increasing.

I think he’s prioritising as in scrabbling around to see what emergency change there is down the back of the sofa, but he won’t be able to raise the sums needed in that way. I don’t ’have it in for benefits’ it’s just there’s literally nothing else can cut - a quick glance at the expenditure will show that. There is always borrowing but that would be disastrous. We’re still under the cosh from Covid.

This has been happening since austerity was introduced, 15 years ago.

this country has always been obsessed with benefits and who might be getting things they don’t get/ more than them and the deserving/ undeserving poor.

it’s therefore easy for governments to manipulate voters by pulling the levers that align to voter values- the focusing on “others” and then the elite step back to watch whilst poor people become obsessed with each others lifestyles and achievements, or lack of.

This includes the massive over emphasis on immigration over the last 15 years.

whilst facilitating the obsessive prioritising by voters of who has what, and whether they deserve it, the government has to fund all of this obsessive people watching.
Of course they take from silent services- who notices lack of investment in the military after 70 years of peace?

it was easy and we let them do it.

@AquaPeer can you back that up with figures? Because the only figures I can see suggest we spend an overwhelming and increasing amount on these things while everything else has been stripped.

You do realise that a huge number of highest rate dla and pip claims are fast track ones due to terminal illness? What do you want to do put a cap on cancer ffs?

Prioritising and increasing spending on defence and Ukraine doesn’t have to mean taking away from the most vulnerable in society that’s not how it works and not how it should ever work.

This. It is just intended to get people frothing. They could have just said, should we be spending more on defence, without bringing in PIP, and DLA.

But how do we spend more without making cuts? And what should be cut if not our (by far the) biggest and rising expenditures? It doesn’t have to be these but it seems logical - what else is there? And please don’t say ‘the Parliament bar’ 🙄

Back what up with figures? I haven’t suggested anything that requires figures as evidence

1 in 12 people on PIP have cancer? They absolutely should get the money but that doesn’t seem a ‘huge’ number?

What's your answer tot hat then? Cut NHS and social care/benefits spending and let people go without so that we can buy more fighter jets? Yeah, we can try that but, again, I have a family in a country who is currently doing just that and the PM went on TV to say people are poor because they complain too much (not because the government stripped every security net and froze salaries or turned farmland into weapon warehouses or overspent on a rail building project to deliver said weapons to Ukraine). Speaking of rail, how much did that HS2 thing cost again?..

I think we don't. People and health not bombs. Also, Ukraine could be used by governments of any colour to justify huge extra cuts.

Why the eye roll? Why not the bar, seeing as you are the one mentioning it?

False dichotomy.
We need much more money on both defence and health care.
Austerity is to blame, ie the Tories.

I'm really concerned about our security as a nation.

Because it would save a few million a year which would make up probably less than 0.001% of the money needed?

So how do you suggest we repel Putin? Or don’t we, and just hope he likes spending on healthcare in the countries he invades?

How do we raise the money to do that?

I think this thread proves what I’m saying. The only responses have been disagreement yet the vote indicates (so far - much can change!) that 80% of people silently agree with me.

Maybe we should release a single to raise funds?

Reading this again I think you’re basically mistaken about how we have ended up with a depleted military.

You said you didnt notice the lack of investment in the military. I am saying you haven’t paid any attention to it because you were obsessed with social benefits instead

If the British public had less obsessive focus on benefits they might notice other things

Reducing military investment has never been hidden. It was a conscious decision when the conservative/ coalition government introduced austerity in 2010.

This isn’t something that’s happened recently and isn’t related to recent increases in benefits payments

Yeah let's cut education and policing while we are at it. Sounds a great idea 🙄

But we can’t. They’re already down to bones. That’s my point?