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?

I'm in that middle income bracket(too rich to claim benefits, too poor to escape). I'm prepared to pay my share to clear the deficit so long as everyone else does their bit whether by paying a bit more or using a bit less.

Well MH they do get one rather cool thing at teh end of it

A house they own

Whereas after losing ourrs I have no idea wher we will even live next year should LL want it back.

I am actually shocked that a public sector worker like myself who cannot afford a second child, cannot afford to buy a house, has to buy second hand clothes and struggles to make meet is willing to take a pay cut and a tax rise but someone with an income that allows them to pay school fees is moaning about possibly paying VAT on them.

I completely agree about raising aspirations and making it possible for people to lift themselves out of poverty. However, it is also true that not everyone can be a captain of industry - someone has to clean the toilets and sweep the roads.

Where I'm coming from is that everyone, no matter what they do for a living, has the right to a basic standard of living for them and their family, and it's up to us to ensure that. We can't just say 'it's your fault for being a toilet cleaner instead of a CEO' because that's not recognising that people have different skills and talents and different abilities. But they're all humans with the right to live a decent life. (By the way I'm not implying that everyone who is a cleaner is not bright enough to be a CEO - again the circumstances you're born into have a huge impact as well).

And if our society genuinely can't provide enough jobs for everyone who wants to work, then we do have an absolute duty to support those at the back of the queue. It's a nonsense to say that everyone who could work should be working if our economy simply doesn't have the jobs to offer, and we can't ignore those people who would very much want to work but can't because everyone else got there first.

True whatdfresh; and we know tehre will be more redundancies and less jobs as well.

The ONS recently reported (sorry can't do links so you'll have to take my word for it) that there were 2.51 million unemployed people (of which 253,000 had been unemployed for more than a year) between Jan and March of this year; the number of advertised jobs was 475,000.

A lot of advertoised jobs aren't real jobns;; many are of the start your own / pyramid tpe. hell, Mum's job centre just got flamed for advertising sex worker roles!

have a look through the apper and you will probably see what I mwean; suddenly a full jobs page can become just one or two by eliminating teh train as a driving instructuir / etc type

latest estimate is that 3 million people will will be unemployed; plus less jobs in amrket. and of course many of those jobs are where people are not- we're in SE Wales; if you live ehre you are largely fucked, as ever.

Agreed. I was surprised by the stats tbh. I think this means that we are utterly relying on the private sector to pick up the slack and start employing and puts into perspective all of those incentives to business that some people are grumbling about.

Lots of agencies advertise non existent (or filled) jobs to get more job seekers on their books

Well it will be interesting to see where the cuts fall. 2.5 m unemployed is not as high as we've had it I think in the UK historically but certainly not much fun for those without work who want it.

I hear what Dave is saying but he announced today so much money will be devoted to fighting against road side bombs in Afghanistan, when our men should not be there anyway. It all starts with our streets, our council talking about updating old lamposts, start here where money could be saved. Why replace something when it's not broke! I accept swimming pools in our area will be closed but we have to cut back somewhere and we all have cars so what is the hardship if we need to do something we will! This is tough time and we are bankrupt already, pull together just like Canada and we can do it.

But you could get them back to work for no pay in a workfare sense so they'd have to get up on time each day, have their workfare placement to go to etc etc.. Work for benefits so then they don't get the depression, haev to get out of bed, hopefully learn some skills or hate it so much they force themselves to go to where work is and at lerast tax payers would think they were getting something back for the benefits payments.

I think you speak some sense there Xenia, although I think workfare can cause economic problems.

When I was on benefits I did some kind of voluntary work or study every day so I kept my mind any body in a working frame of mind.

Disability Living Allowance for families with children with sen wher this does not affect the working lives of the parents or where the parents never worked anyway. Then we could use the money to help the families with children with greater needs who do need the help.

Some really thoughtful points here. Obviously action is needed, I am glad that it is not my decision as such to make!

I would like the government to have a really close look at its spending (know it is a small amount but why do MP's etc get such amazing pensions or a year's pay when they step down - most people don't, or other state paid people get "bonus'" when things are financially so tight.)

I don't understand contributions to other countries - am not saying don't help countries that need help, but as China is really economically growing why do we as a nation still give money (was it really 7m or 7b or do I remember wrongly?)

Know no simple answers, but there must be wastage in "consultants" for politicians/quangos that get changed etc...

We certainly need to find out what yields the most and most easily. It sounds like it will be increases in CGT, removal of tax credits for those on pay at the dizzy heights of £26k a year, perhaps freezing of tax allowances, public sector wages and benefits for at least a year, some aid and may be defence cuts and indeed pehpa even 20% cuts in general, perhaps £10k a year university tuition fees rather than £3250 or whatever it now is and longer term perhaps removing the retirement age so no one is forced out and indeed increasing it to 67 for all and big cuts in housing benefit (lower upper cap on it).

Then we can couple that with keeping interest rates low to help the economy and business, perhaps selling off some public sector things - The Tote?, motorways or some of them (that is less likely), Royal Mail?

We also should tackle and reduce public sector pensions, we could remove all sick pay in the public sector - just let people have private sector 3 days unpaid and then SSP at statutory rates and remove enhanced leave rights in the public sector so again they fall into line with the rest of us, ensure retirement age in the upblic sector is a uniform 65 or 67, none of this early retirement in your 50s stuff.

The figures of 2.5 million only reflect those people who are supposedly actively jobseeking though. People who live long term on DA and income support etc but not jobseeker's allowance are not included in those figures. I believe the total number of people who are living entirely through the benefit system but are of working age is something like 8 million? But maybe that includes their under 16 dependants as well - not sure. And maybe it includes pensioners who have no other income at all outside their state pension? . But anyway the figure bandied about of the number of 'unemployed' is a bit misleading. It is nowhere near representative of the number of people of working age who are entirely benefit dependent.

Re: Thatcher. She was the only member of the cabinet who voted against the removal of milk from schools.

I'm as socialist as they come but the thatcher/milk snatcher misrepresentation really bugs me.

I work in the public sector, as does my DP. A 5% cut, and loss of child benefits would really hurt. But I'd rather that than lose my job.

And let's face it, no longer having to drink that lukewarm rancid vomit out of those mini bottles with the greasy congealed cream round the top was a bit of a blessing in the end.

They are rich in part because they're clever so what do you expect? Wealth disparity is not wrong as long as those at the bottom eat, have warmth and shelter. ify ou're too hard on the very rich they just spend more with their accountants lawfully avoiding tax and leaving the country. If top rates of tax are 30 - 40% then people are happier to pay it as most of their effort is not simply going to those 8m who rely on the state for their all and do not have to lift a finger to get the money apart from a saunter down to the job centre every week.

Most people are on middle incomes so that is where you can make the most savings/gains. Income support is about £65 a week.