What's coming on 20th Oct

[Brollyflower]

So go on then all knowledgable MNetters... if the big slashes are yet to come, what will they be?

Are we talking tax rises or what? People keep saying no part of peoples lives will be untouched and the savings needed are massive, so can we please have some examples of what might actually be cut?

Assuming the OP was asking a serious question... If you check out a list of government departments, executive agencies and non departmental government bodies, it's a lot larger than you think. I think the low-hanging fruit is going to be areas like culture, sport, parks, all the 'off's... ofcom, ofsted, ofgem... inspectorates. The passport office in Newport and the Food Standards Agency have already gone, for example.

Then you're looking at big areas like Defence, Health and Welfare. Defence is going to be quite radical because the overspend is high so expect things like amalgamation/removal of regiments and a slimmed-down fleet or airforce. Health is supposedly ring-fenced but fringe services might go (bye bye homeopathy). I think we've had a dry-run of the big welfare cuts like CB, HB and benefit caps and the rest will be smaller-scale adjustments that apply. Payfreezes as standard for public sector workers and big cuts in the amount of money available to local government

This is a spending review rather than a money-gathering exercise so I think any changes in taxation etc. will wait until the next budget.

I think there is surely a limit to the number of policies even the tories think they can get away with, that attack women and children so blatently.

they can afford cuts whilst they have a job. today we got voluntary redundancy letters :(

Oh shit I'm sorry.

Agree with above, they will continue to make cutbacks where they can.

So if they make all these drastic cutbacks, and get rid of the 'welfare state' what is their idealised vision for Britain's future? Where are they going with this? Does anyone know?

I don't think healthcare (including dentistry) ought to be paid for at all at the point of need. I've always disagreed with what they did to dentistry.

But other things - maybe childcare, fuel payments etc - I dunno. I'm not entirely sure what you would include.

i'm certainly not voluntering to go though, they'll have to make me, just hope enough do volunteer :(

The tories work on the principle that everyone has a right to aim for the richest position, the most highly paid work, the most successful career.

however what they disregard is that not everyone can win. Everyone else is essentially a loser and there are a lot of 'losers' who won't even make it to an acceptable living standard. Distribution of wealth under a tory gvt is basically a case of everyone has to try really hard, there will be a few winners, if you don't win you clearly didn't try hard enough so it's your own fault, tough.

The winners get big rewards, on account of having 'won', and everyone else gets stuffed.

There can only be so many winners. The total wealth doesn't change much so it's shared out inequitably.

This is how I see it anyway.

Labour was more 'everyone should get the same' at least in terms of principles. In practice they were a bunch of corrupt sharks as well but it didn't feel so licensed somehow under labour.

Plus having a labour government at least gave voice to the still solid old labour advocates, the ones with actual integrity, and enabled them to speak out and question it when the rest were pissing about behind the bike sheds.

With a tory coalition there's no one even discussing it. Their motives are poor whichever you look at it. Even the nicer tories are all for inequality.

Thing is though, flight what's the point of achieving a higher salary if you have to pay for stuff other people get free with your extra money? HRT tax payers pay a lot of tax already, esp when they get a small bonus (half of it goes in tax and NI, so £4000 becomes £2000). Plus, a lot of people are paying huge mortgages and childcare - there's this myth that HRT tax payers have loads of free cash. It's just not true.

but grumpypants,if you choose to spend your extra dosh on a massive mortgage it's your choice that you don't have free cash.

Interesting answers thanks. It was a genuine question, as the amounts they need to save seem so huge. I'm not sure that means-testing anything will be much of a solution, as that in itself is expensive. I suspect more wholesale slashing is likely. Museums and other Arts do seem likely soft targets. I don't know much about defence or how they would cut that. Scrapping son of trident might be one way forward . I agree that I thought NHS spend is supposed to be ring-fenced. I hope 'marginal services' that get cut don't include vital things like proper maternity care, which we don't even have right now, and scrapping bf support. I really hope they remember to see the wood for the trees and remember that some money spent supporting some things can lead to bigger savings for society as a whole if they support long-term lifestyle and behavioural change. Anything like to help improve parenting & support families (like Surestart is intended to) with early intervention has the potential to save loads over the course of the lives of those children.

I was thinking about library closures etc, but those would come under Local Authority budgets. Admittedly they may get cut to, but how they deal with those cuts in detail will vary area by area and not get announced immediately.

Interesting point about NDPBs. It will be a shame if all regulation vanishes as then surely standards will fall and all sorts of shit practices will creep in all over the place. I do worry for the vulnerable -poor children, the elderly (especially those with no voice for themselves), disabled people who are reliant on the state etc.

I really really wonder how an Old Etonion whose wife can afford £750 dresses can have any genuine empathy for these sitations give their lack of any real-life experiences. There's also this whiff of "I'm all right Jack". It's OK for the likes of them to have a large family because they're stacked with family money, but poor people, no they should definitely not breed .

Gah. Cannot believe I voted Lib Dem so actually contributed to all this indirectl y. Cross with Labour too for flinging money around like confetti , and never voted for them either.

Regulation doesn't 'vanish' just because a department closes or is reduced in size. The Audit Comission, for example, is going to be put out to tender.... lots of very good auditors out there already capable of doing a competent job and probably cheaper than funding an entire department.

I don't think the cost of the PM's wife's dress or the PM's old school is relevant to the conversation. However, you should be extremely angry & disappointed with the non-empathetic Blair/Brown team.... supposedly dedicated to eradicating poverty and supporting the working man but instead wasting the working man's tax money on keeping the poor exactly where they were.

they'll probably do something to maternity pay and mess about with nursery places.

grumpypants Fri 08-Oct-10 19:43:33
Thing is though, flight what's the point of achieving a higher salary if you have to pay for stuff other people get free with your extra money? HRT tax payers pay a lot of tax already, esp when they get a small bonus (half of it goes in tax and NI, so £4000 becomes £2000). Plus, a lot of people are paying huge mortgages and childcare - there's this myth that HRT tax payers have loads of free cash. It's just not true.

The thing you're not addressing Grumpy is why anyone should be entitled to have loads more money than everyone else.

Someone has to empty the bins
Someone has to be a nurse
Someone has to pick apples

These jobs are really bloody hard but a lot of people who do them earn barely enough to feed and clothe their kids.

Why should someone in a large office in charge of a load of other people in a bank earn 20 times what they do? How is that fair?

Why should some people have an enormous wage and some people have hardly anything? It's not because they work harder or are better people or are more deserving.

It's often purel luck or knowing how to work your way to the highest point in the system in which we live.

My point isn't about taking that money from richer people and handing it out to everyone who isn't rich - it's about richer people paying for basic services that they have enough money to afford, while poorer people who CANNOT afford these necessary services don't have to pay for them, because if they had to pay for them they would go without.

There would remain an inestimable divide between those who have a high wage and those who don't. But at least there would be a safety net for the nurses, farmworkers and binmen among us.

As Mrmagoo said having a huge mortgage is not essential.

if you go to school and all your friends are from a rough estate with no money for tuck, do you share your crisps or do you sit and eat them all yourself?

This is basic humanity we are talking about. If it doesn't happen then the nurses, binmen and farm workers perish. It's that simple. We're all equal on this earth though some like to think they're superior, probably. We all need to look after each other or we have collectively nothing.

In short:

What would Jesus do?

Forgive the rich sinner, is what he would do, flight...he would forgive the rich sinner.

They are about to push through huge redundancies in the civil service, but before they do they are trying to push through legislation that will take away the rights of those individuals to the redundancy packages thay were originally contracted on - how is that ethical? A contract, is a contract is a contract, or so we we told when Mr Bank of Scotland got his 6 million pension fund......
One rule for the rich and screw the poor...

Pensionable age will rise, forget HE unless you have money, benefits cut etc, etc.
Its not just about the cuts it is about the messages they are sending. All in this together? Yeah, right, hope you enjoyed your thousand pound bottles of Petris the other night Dave

Voting for these bastards was asking for it. They have no ethics.

Anyone who voted for them should be ashamed of themselves.

So there people hate the coalition and what they are trying to do. Two questions then, how would Labour make it any better and what should they do to resolve the debt which was in part caused by Gordon Brown and Labour?

Rogue 'there', sorry!