cuts - Wednesday's Spending Review

[mrsbaldwin]

Brace yourself ladies - these cuts are big, there will be tens of thousands of public sector redundancies and it's said (by the Fawcett Society amongst others) that they will disproportionately affect women.

Some workers will get some sort of payoff, and some will be pleased to go. Some will find new jobs.

But I reckon the overall effect (licks finger and holds it in the wind) will be to drive down women's wages, meaning that once you are made redundant from your public sector post you may find more work but it will be at a lower rate and the extra competition for jobs across the board will drive wages down across the board. This may be true for men as well but I think it will affect women - mums - more.

If you are watching the press coverage on Weds, what do you think the effects of the cuts and the job losses for women (and mums) will be?

No, because obviously people are working at different rates of pay and this would all be quite complicated.

In other words everyone will have to work at least 24 hours regardless of pay per hour - and then overall income assessed as to whether you qualify and for what being that I think the entitlement is going to be reduced anyway.

I dont understand the universal benefit thing.

Poor old Danny Alexander - is sacrificial lamb a new part of the LibDem MPs job description?

interesting challenge by Peston

Sorry about the missed apostrophe.

Did I just hear right that the Government have slashed the budget for building new homes by 75%?

Without prejudice - do you think it will be as much as 4 years at this rate?

Yeah they are hoping that they will get more private capital into social housing

Perhaps they could delay implementation - so they get a chance to re-think things, should such severe cuts not be necessary after all.

'Poor' Danny Alexander nothing.

He'll get another cushy job and a fat pension for his relatively brief troubles.

I'd never tire of slapping his face with a wet kipper.

Nick Robins, a few days ago, said it would take well into the next parliment before IDS plans for universal credit could be implented as there simply isn't the money for it now.

They say they can't delay it. The world will end apparently, or we'll all turn Greek or something.

20% off police budgets? Not very Tory.

I think there may be a coalition crisis when the electoral reform promised falls at the first hurdle. I don't know if enough lib dems will then stop supporting the government to then bring it down. They know if there is an election the lib dem vote will collapse and I imagine will want to stay in place as long as possible.

20% off the UKBA and 10% off counter-terrorism.

At a time when terrorism was shown to be the biggest threat to the UK.

Not just not very Tory, but very fucking stupid.

rainbow they can't delay because delaying it would mean we would have to pay more as we'd have to pay more interest on the debt.

Gosh that first gentleman really did look like an 'establishment' banker.

Bank Levy? Did anyone catch how much?

sorry dumb q alert, I am a sahm (lost my job)and DH works does this mean that we will lose DH's working tax credit?

uyter, that's too simplistic. The government is not like a household, its financial options are different.

And if you cut too quickly, damage growth and increase unemployment, you actually slow down the recovery and put the country in a worse situation.

£2-5 billion a year I think but not sure

I'm getting more and more confused.

Changes to hours worked to qualify for WTC but WTC to fall under a universal benefit which hasn't been sorted out yet?

EMA scrapped and to be replaced with something that targets help when EMA always targeted help according to 3 income bands

Are all the cuts mentioned today absolutely set in stone or do they have to be voted on by all MPs, and obviously because some are more traditionally liberal than conservative they wouldnt all agree on everything. So does this mean they have agreed?

Not that I'm advocating this but I don't think the LibDems are in such a weak position. If they actually crossed the floor with a big fanfare then they would probably retain their individual seats. Obviously the leadership is in a different position.

Ok I am sure you will all tell me I am wrong but bear with me I am seeing this all from afar as I am not in the UK. But there seems to be some good news here as the education budget seems to be protected? And Sure Start remains?

Are there any huge suprises? Anyone - who? - going to be much worse off?

I think the risk is that they will either get a strong local independent lib dem or a national campaigning figure standing against them.

New tenants for council housing daring to want housing benefit are going to BE MUCH worse off