Has the Government done anything so far which we can say is of benefit to society?

[Waltraut]

I don't really want to talk economics, mainly because there are opposing views of how the Coalition's approach is going to pan out [understatement]. I'm quite interested in the "small" things that governments do to make life fairer, safer, easier, more productive, or simply more pleasant for the citizens of a country.
I honestly cannot think of a single thing.

And to also answer the original question, they hurled the last useless government out of power. That alone is a huge step in the right direction!

It's only a step in the right direction if this government is better. If they're worse, it's patently a step in the wrong direction.

Now, I wasn't a massive fan of the last government. But on true shittiness, they've got nothing, absolutely nothing, on this one.

Well the last government didn't need to try to get it's finances in order since they knew they'd lose the election, so they were able to spend and make commitments they couldn't have possibly kept to. I think it's a bit unfair to try and compare a government who has to cut because there's no choice, even following Labour's vague plans. This year, the coalition is making all but the same cuts that Labour apparently would have and EB has banned anyone in the shadow cabinet from making promises to reverse any of them. If Labour were in office, things would be broadly similar, at least right now.

I also forgot the 15 hrs a week of free nursery care for disadvantaged 2yr olds.

starrywillow - re choice of current cuts, I refer you to George Monbiot's excellent article:

www.monbiot.com/2011/10/03/more-cuts-please/

Even if you agree that the current level of cuts are 100% necessary (I'll leave that argument for now), there is no excuse for using those cuts to target the most vulnerable in our society.

Re the 2 year nursery funding, that was actually introduced under Labour but reduced in scope by the Tories.

Nice try, starrywillow, but no .

they hurled the last useless government out of power

if my memory serves me well, that wasn't really a hurl, now, was it

more a sidle

Yes SpringHeeledJack....more a 'begged the losers' who came 3rd'

I didn't say the current level of cuts was necessary, that's a different argument, what I said was Labour would have cut practically the same level this year and so far they haven't said how, they've simply said what they wouldn't have cut, though as I mentioned EB has stopped them from saying that now as he realised they were losing credibility for it. I'm not an economist and I'm not arguing about the ins and out of plan A and plan B, just pointing out that Labour would be doing pretty much the same things and I can't believe people really think they wouldn't.

I have no problem with people attacking this government on particular policies, but to think that Labour would be saving everyone's jobs and that this is all down to the evil tories, is so odd to me. What exactly do you think Labour would be cutting to halve the deficit? Since Labour haven't told us?

I also seem to remember that it was GB who was begging NC to keep him on at the end after telling him he wanted nothing to do with him. It's not all that odd that NC didn't embrace the idea with open arms. NC told him that if there was to be a coalition with Labour, GB must step down as leader. GB really wasn't keen on that idea and so scuppered any chance for the party to be part of the deal but by the end he was on his knees promising all the things he'd previously refused to do and even to step down, by which time of course the Lib/Con talks were going well and it was too late so if anyone was begging it wasn't DC.

So before the coalition government came into power, two year olds from poor backgrounds were already going to nursery for 15 hours a week? Is that how it was? I wonder why this government has said it's bringing it in then. Or do you mean there were plans to bring it in but it hadn't yet started in which case, Labour were planning to bring it in without having to work out how to pay for it. Maybe that's not what you mean, Breadandbutterfly? Had it already begun under Labour?

There is only a 5% difference between what Labour said they would cut and the Tories said. So hardly any real difference.

But it's hardly surprising that people blame the Tories. They seem to be the bogeyman for everything that's wrong whereas Labour have a magic credit card so are beyond reproach.

So pull out of Afghanistan? (just started reading article) I watched something on the news the other day which was about women in Afghanistan and the ones they met and asked were not asking the West to pull out of Afghanistan, they were terrified of that happening, because they felt they needed protecting. You could go and argue with them that they don't really and they'll be just fine, but I don't fancy your chances of convincing them. Obviously the aircraft carrier debacle is just that but, it was Labour who made it more expensive to cancel the order than to go through with it, this government is coming along and trying to save money and yet you want to blame them for having to deal with the things Labour did and let Labour off scot free? That makes no sense.

The person writing the article doesn't ender me by suggesting he's being indulgent to let the forces budget not get completely cut. Does he have a clue what the forces do? Does he offer to go and police the drug runners in the navy's place? Does he not think that when other countries are being oppressed, we should go and do what we can? Give aid? The military help with all of that, is he going to go and offer to help cart earthquake victims out of danger when we get rid of the army?

My sure start centre is very nice as far as facilities but completely impractical and the people working there freely admit it. There has to be someone to be paid to be there for the under ones drop in and yet some weeks no one comes at all, some weeks so many come that they can't really cope with it. No one has to say whether they are coming as it's a drop in and so the person running it has to stay there the whole time just in case someone pops in for the last five minutes. Completely impractical. It doesn't help that the person that does run it is rubbish at people skills and really shouldn't have the job in the first place. There are three sure starts centres that I can get to in my area and I don't drive so it's not always quite as simple as local facilities being closed and reduced is absolutely the worst thing in the world, it all has to be weighed up.

Afghanistan's a funny one. We shouldn't have been there to begin with. Now we're there, we have a responsibility to leave it better than when we found it.

In short, we fucked it up, we have an obligation to fix it.

They collect taxes

Right, Niceguy, we can't just leave them to it now, I don't understand the people calling for that. I can understand that people think we shouldn't have gone in but we can't just abandon it as it is, it's our responsibility to deal with the situation as best as we can.

And Labour did have a magic credit card, unfortunately they used it and racked up a load of debts. I'm not trying to claim Labour are responsible for everything that went wrong with the crash at all but to only blame the coalition is so short sighted.

starrywillow - re the funding for childcare for 2 year olds - if I recall correctly, this was propsed by Labour to cover all kids. And was due to start in the future (no-one ever comesup with a policy like this and says it will start tomorrow - there is always a delay so the details can be finalised and institutions/individuals made ready for it etc. anyway, the Tories came in and it was reduced to applying only to a very limited group of disadvantaged children.

So far less than Labour had originally proposed.

Glad you're reading the Monbiot article. Obviously you may not agree with his analysis of which areas we should pick to save money on instead - but the fundamental point is that there is a CHOICE to be made about which areas are cut; there is more than one way to skin a cat (or reduce a deficit). The cuts that have been made are not inevitable; they are a result of specific ideological, rather than financial, viewpoints.

can't think of anything here which helps me or others I know apart from pension change delay which well benefits my friends but not me as my parents did not have the good sense to plan for me to arrive before5 October.Good job they are deceased or I would be having strong words with them about their lax attitude to family planning.

But my point, Breadandbutterfly, is that if they proposed a policy to cover all kids, they still have no idea how that would possibly be paid for. It would be even more than the policy now and yet without telling us where the money would come from, it's useless. You might not like that the proposal was watered down by this government but at least they have put their money where their mouth is and put it into practice. Labour can stand at the stide and shout about it, but if they don't tell us exactly where the money would come from to bring that proposal into law if they were in government, it's all just hot air. I personally don't agree with anyone but disadvantaged children getting it anyway. The point of this government's policy is to try and close the gap between poor and rich by giving the poor ones a head start, if all the kids were given the same free hours, that wouldn't make any difference to the gap at all.

Of course there is a choice about what to cut and I'm quite sure that GO is not sat there cackling into his evil clawed hands about the choices he's made. He's made what he thinks is the right choice. Everyone thinks the cut that affects them most is the most important thing, the Chancellor has to make decisions about the thing as a whole, he has to see the big picture, that's his job, as it was GB's and Alistair Darling. I'm not amazingly keen on Labour but I don't think they were sat there trying to screw everyone over like people seem to assume is true of this government. GO isn't even that far right of his party, he's middle along with DC. The far right want to cut much much further and faster, they want to cut not just the deficit, but the debt.

Willow & bread, you are right. There are choices to be made and no matter what we cut and when, someone will always have to lose out and there will be howls of protest.

But what makes me laugh is when people go "Oh yeah but the cuts being made are ideological". Well surely you expect people to do things which are within their ideology? I'd be more upset if we voted a government in who then acts totally the opposite way (Hello Lib dems!).

I don't think Labour intentionally screwed everyone. Far from it. I think they acted in good faith. Naively. But they did genuinely think they were helping.

I genuinely think GB thought he'd banished boom & bust. Something any economics teacher would tell you is impossible in a free market economy. I do think he thought selling our gold reserves at the bottom of the market was the best deal. And he genuinely wanted to help the poorest in our society by creating the massive tax credit system.

What I don't think he thought too much about was where all the money was coming from to pay for it.

I agree, Niceguy. GO believes in keeping on top of the nation's debt and he would want to do that whatever the economic situation he inherited. He believes in a smaller welfare state, he thinks this one is massively out of control but that doesn't mean he's going out of his way to stomp all over the people using the welfare state. When people say things like that it just cheapens their actual arguments. He could have decided to cut in a different way but that doesn't mean it would have been any better. He has to balance in a way that the people complaining, don't. His main problems, Don't chase away all the business that brings the majority of the tax into the country, don't make the poorest who don't contribute much tax, pay for everything. If people would come to the argument without the ridiculous preconceived notion that he's a Tory and so must be the devil incarnate, if people would actually compare what Labour would or could do like for like instead of conveniently forgetting the facts that they don't actually have to balance the books anymore, then the argument for what GO could do differently might actually be useful instead of tribalism at it's most useless. Unless I'm very much mistaken, the coalition ring fenced the NHS. There might be cuts to it in real terms or whatever it's called, but Labour said they wouldn't ring fence it in the first place. Let's keep things in perspective.

Why do so many believe that it are the poorest of society who are paying the most. Don't higher earners aleady pay more income tax etc... and they will also loose childbenefit.

If higher earners have to pay even more then perhaps it is not worth going to work anymore.

When GB introduced all these tax credits etc, without considering where the money to pay for it would come from , higher earners never got a slice of that cake. Imho a lot of the so called higher earners have and are paying more than their fair share. Unfortunately and as the outgoing labour gov, rightly pointed out "sorry but there is no money". If there is no money then how do we pay for it all. There seems to be a view that all higher earners must be rich and have a bottomless pit of money.

But what makes me laugh is when people go "Oh yeah but the cuts being made are ideological". Well surely you expect people to do things which are within their ideology? I'd be more upset if we voted a government in who then acts totally the opposite way (Hello Lib dems!).

No, this has been explained to you several times. It's not that parties shouldn't have an ideology, is that the Tories are ideologically committed to a smaller state but pretend that when they slash public spending, lay tens of thousands of people off, attack people's pensions, cut public services and privitise everything, they're doing it 'for the good of the economy'.

This is disingenuous for two reasons:

a) They would be doing this in any case, no matter what the financial situation - as they are ideologically committed to doing so.

b) These cuts are actually harming the economy, rather than helping. The fact that the economy has stagnated and grown at a slower rate than europe and the fact that unemployment is at a 17-year high is indicative of this.

Hope this helps.

starrywillow, you sound like a lovely and genuine person but i do think you're incredibly naive - i think 'cackling into his hands' is actually a very accurate description of what George Osborne is doing. sadly. While he rapes and pillages our lovely country.

And no, for the record, I think Labour got lots wrong - i couldn't have voted for them at the last election either.

But that doesn't excuse what the Tories are doing now; that argument is past, because Labour is out of office. The Tories are in and I am horrified, absolutely horrified, with what they are doing on a daily basis.

Other than scarpping ID cards, I personally can't think of any improvements the Tories have made either to the state of the country or to what Labour would have done if elected.

Of course they want a smaller state, is anyone trying to dispute that? They believe that the welfare state has got massively out of hand. But there's no way you can think that everything they've cut is what they would have wanted to do anyway. The armed forces for example. Tory ideology does not tell us that a Conservative Prime Minister and Chancellor would be chomping at the bit to scale back defence spending.

And you haven't compared with what you think Labour would be doing. Ed M is not as left as he pretends despite all the Red Ed references, he made that clear at his conference. He doesn't want the welfare state to be as huge as it is either, what he wants and what the Conservatives want is for people to be working. Now getting that to happen is incredibly complicated but the cuts so far would have been very similar if Labour was in power and to pretend they wouldn't, to borrow a phrase from the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, is "living in cloud cuckoo land."

You're ignoring the actual facts here which are that people are living longer, you can't drive businesses out of the country, the taxes that we pay aren't enough to cover the welfare system now that we're trying to get spending back under control (though I assume you'd just tax the rich more, oddly enough the very rich feel they're being taxed quite enough and are rich enough to up sticks and leave, that you don't seem to think they'll do this makes me wonder why you think Britain is so amazingly wonderful compared to all the other countries and sounds rather... Conservative) Labour spent too much money and in a good portion of cases it didn't change things for the better. People don't want to be stuck on benefits. People want to be out there working. Now there are no jobs, but that's down to so many things that you can't seriously just blame this government. Labour were here for 13 years and this government's been here for one and half. Unemployment has been out of control for a long time, why pretend it's easy when if you were Chancellor you wouldn't have the perfect answers either?

The truth is, all three parties want the same thing. They want people working, they want all sorts of businesses coming here and paying taxes, driving the economy, they want a competitive market, they want a welfare section of the state small enough to be looking after only the people who really need it and that's it. How they go about trying to make these things reality is what differentiates them from each other.

Well Breadandbutterfly that's fine because I think you're incredibly naive too so we're even. ;D

Labour would be doing pretty much the same thing because all the parties have committed to the cuts. Labour would have slowed down so that by the end there's still half the deficit left instead of none of it, but this year, right now, there'd be little difference.

He was cackling into his evil clawed hands, Breadandbutterfly, not just his hands, it makes all the difference. If you don't get the wildly over the top tory caricature just right, people might make the mistake of thinking he's just an ordinary human being trying to do his level best in an impossible situation.