Dave's cuts are going be deep and they will hurt

[FellatioNelson]

I've been hearing this all day on the radio. I can't take the suspense any longer. They are going to affect the lives of 'every one of us'

I feel like a person wincing and clenching my teeth in anticipation of the big fuck-off needle the school nurse is wielding, and I'm next in the queue....

Come on then, what's it going to be?

peppapig - surely you want to tax things people CAN'T cut down on - otherwise they will cut down on them and you get less tax.

tax Boden!

SMA, but surely if the loopholes were tightened up, and everyone was strongly encouraged to take more personal and social responsibility for their own families, and taking work that's available, even if it isn't very inspiring, then mad old men like that would have less to get frustrated/abusive about about! The welfare state could return to doing what it was originally set up to do - which is help people out of an unforeseen fix for which there is no other realistic alternative.

Sorry to pick an easy cliche, but I can go into my town centre on any given day, and within 15 minutes I can show you a dozen or more young girls with babies and toddlers, who I would confidently bet my last penny exist totally on benefits, and have never worked. And I'd be very surprised if their baby-fathers did either. All under 20 or so. No concept of waiting a while to see if they can become remotely self-supporting, before they 'settle down' to family life. Nope, just straight in there, and queueing up at the DSS for a flat. Then wingeing because it's not very nice.

Of course there are always back-stories that we don't know, some of them tragic, young people with no support network fresh out of care, etc, etc, but frankly I do not believe that most of them in my area were monumentally 'unlucky' in life. They do not live in an area of high unemployment, where there have been no prospects for a generation. They do it because we enable them to. Then we throw all sorts of extra resources at them, trying to get them back into education, and work, and making endless allowances for their circumstances. Then watching them have another baby when the sands are runnin out...

I know everyone thinks their personal circumstances exempt them from criticism, but really, how long can we continue to be this understanding about everybody? Doesn't Riven ever wonder how much extra help she'd be able to have with her DS, if all those capable of contributing more to their own upkeep actually did so?

There was a thread on here only a couple weeks ago where someone freely admitted that she was masses better off as a single mother on housing benefit/tax credits etc., than since she'd lived as a couple with her new (working) partner.

She admitted that previously she actively looked for a job that allowed her to do the required 16 hours p.w only) can't remember the exact details, but anyway.....the upshot was, that there was no point in even attempting to be self-supporting unless she could get a job earning more than £37k!!!

I just do not comprehend how people like you Riven and SMA, with real difficulties, do not get utterly MAD over these scenarios!

It's horrible to have to offend anyone when we have conversations like these, but sometimes things need to be said.

Coalition - I meant as an easier way (alongside other cuts / taxes) as getting some revenue and seeing what happens with that. Essentially a lot of better off people would presumably still keep spending e.g. stick 50p on their posh coffee or £5 on a meal out and they would still go. Other people could choose to avoid this.

Not saying this is going to solve the debt crisis by the way!

Seth - yes tax Boden lol, thats what I mean .

Tax luxury items first before raising others (not saying that we will then not need to raise others later).

am amused by reference to 'bankers' as obv. people who are v. wealthy etc...most bank workers are at clerical level (ie,phone monkeys and cashiers) - good jobs for local people everywhere there is a bank or call centre.

incidentally, didn't the last Govt award 75% of senior civil servants a last-minute bonus as a parting gift (whilst other civil servants requested written instructions when presented with outlandish spending plans to implement?)

amusingly the Liberals seemed to want slower cut-backs..unil that is, they got into the treasury and found the little note left for them (ie sorry, no money)

also, at least you lefties are consistent -

high spending under Labour = the conservatives fault

lower spending under conservatives = the conservatives fault.

although John Major ran the country at a defecit during the recession of the nineties, he did also hand over an economy in growth.

It's not offensive it's common bloody sense.

Sadly Gordon Brown made families earning up to 50k dependent on tax credits therefore scooping more and more people into the benefits culture. This had the effect of "everyone" receiving state assistance therefore making it acceptable.

EnglandAllenPoe - there is a difference between 'working for a bank', 'working in banking' and 'a banker'.

Bankers are the highest paid of theses.

I do think Fellatio has a point. And not just about women. It's about everyone becoming more responsible, personally and socially.

There has to be some happier medium where work pays better.

I don't know what that is, but just making excuses and exceptions isn't working anymore.

It can't and plenty of people feel that way, enough who voted Tory or LibDem and now we got what we got, this coalition.

Since the PM is at least pretending to be open to suggestions, wouldn't now be the best time to talk, rather than, 'Well, I can't . . . ' or 'No one can because . . . ' 'She/he has had a hard life/bad luck/etc. . .'

There are tens of thousands of people who have never worked, whose parents never worked, and even grandparents. That can't last.

Because the writing's on the wall for that, people.

And if we don't start changing things now whilst we can, we'll have to do it when our options become more limited.

And that's never good, folks.

oh and..the economy looks/looked far from rosy - most of the companies i work with have seen their takings hit, only a few have seen a bump where they have become a favoured supplier after a competitor went bust.

They are expecting things to be tight in the medium term, hoarding money if they can - and they did before the election.

My prediction when this started out was it would take at least 5 years for things to b back to normal (on the grounds that it would take at least that long for start up businesses to replace the ones gone bust)- 2 years in that looks overly optimistic.

Employ enough benefit fraud investigators to deal with all of the benefit fraud that is taking place. The majority of people know at least one person that is taking money they are not entitled to. I can think of quite a few myself. Pay them well and get plenty of them because they are badly needed.

That way tax payers money will be going to the people that desperately need it and also help to reduce this budget defecit.

It's been too easy for fraudsters to claim most types of benefit and thats why IS/JSA/DLA etc. are so low.

It's starting to sound a little pointless to point fingers of blame, and that goes for both sides.

Yes, Labour made mistakes, yes, Tories have a history of not being the most compassionate.

But this is now. This is what we have got, this is the financial situation and this is the coalition dealing with it.

Time to see how it plays out and do what we can.

And YY to getting rid of cheap alcohol. The drunkeness in this country is out of control and needs dealt with now!

housepartiescanbedeadly

"I can go into my town centre on any given day, and within 15 minutes I can show you a dozen or more young girls with babies and toddlers, who I would confidently bet my last penny exist totally on benefits, and have never worked"

I think that would be rash.... appearances can be very deceptive.

Come to think of it, here's a way to raise money - get people to make risky bets like that and take all their money when they lose!

EnglandAllenPoe - there is a difference between 'working for a bank', 'working in banking' and 'a banker'.

Bankers are the highest paid of theses

where people have suggested penalty taxes of banks' profits, or other punishing measures (generally various forms of taxation that would affect the profitability of banking), those punishing measures woud be felt by everyone working for the bank. And in many ways by the banks customers as well...

'bankers' seems to be used by the media as a means of putting stuffed-suit faces as the image of the big corporations bought into by the taxpayer.

That's taxing Banks not Bankers though.

How is it we can generalise about bankers and lawyers on here, but not about teenage mums?

Don't get me wrong, everyone knows I'm no Tory, but c'mon, after 6 years here, it does seem rather hypocritical.

Or dads, for that matter.

Because see, you can't.

So why do it to bankers and lawyers?

Arts funding is also just 'not very much'

All the bankers I know (2) are relatively progressive. So therefore I assume all bankers are the same.

innocent face

Actually, it's 3! No - 4! There's a 100% in the sample size already. Though one of those is a rabid tory. So 75% of Bankers are left(ish).

destroyed this country's manufacturing base. We are therefore far too reliant on service industries

to ignore that China and India can undercut any price by almost any UK manafacturer would be to do the economic equivalent of wading out into the rising tide and telling the sea to get lost. Even the last Labour govt didn't make that mistake!

service industries retain a higher %age of profit (think about it: made in Taiwan, sold by Tesco's - the retail business has the superior profit share) and provide nicer,higher skilled jobs (i have done both assembly line work and service industry..i know which i prefer) and are no more vulnerable to fluctuations in the market.

TCNY - I like your logic! Almost breaks my heart to disillusion you on your stats though!