The Comprehensive Spending Review Thread

[Tezcatlipoca]

So, tomorrow sees the unveiling of Chancellor George Osborne's Comprehensive Spending Review...

Early news, not yet official until tomorrow, includes the decision to freeze the TV Licence for six years, & make the BBC cover the cost of the World Service and S4C: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-11572171


Meanwhile, the science budget will be spared from "deep" cuts: http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/20...-budget-spared


... And the Government expects a reduction in public sector workforce numbers of 490,000 by 2014-15: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...ument-job-cuts



In the meantime, have some fun conducting your own Spending Review! Can you save more money than George Osborne, or make the same savings elsewhere? http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/i...P=NECNETTXT766

[Taf]

Sack the Government and let anarchy rule!

[watzizname]

Originally Posted by Taf

Sack the Government and let anarchy rule!

Bit of a short term solution, if you ask me. i think we need to invest heavily, before we can save.

I'd suggest giving Barbara Harris a seriously massive wad of cash, and have her make every politician in the land, a similar offer, to the one she recently made to drug addicts. http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/20...terilised.html

It'll cost more than £200 a time for sure (greedy SOB's that they are) but think of the long term savings..

Difficult to invest, when doing so will mean spending money the country doesn't have, and by doing so lessen our credit rating, thus increasing the cost of borrowing the money to spend, thus ratcheting up the deficit further - repeat ad nauseam....

Might be a bad day for a lot of people, let's how it doesn't affect to many people suddenly.

Originally Posted by Damien

Might be a bad day for a lot of people, let's how it doesn't affect to many people suddenly.

The problem will be that we will just get approximate time periods ,few specifics and the actual redundancies will take time to come into effect, and in the meantime everyone within the areas concerned will be sitting under the threat of the guillotine until they are actually told by their employer, "you are surplus to requirements".

It's a horrible position to be in.Been there and done that already.

[Ignitionnet]

This adds strength to Osborne's case - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11579979

Ahead of Mr Osborne's statement, it emerged that the government had borrowed a record £16.2bn to plug the gap in the public finances in September.

The figure, from the Office for National Statistics, marks the highest borrowing for September on record, and is unexpectedly up on the £14.8bn borrowed in the same month last year.

We're also still waiting on Labour's long overdue alternative version, the only information being they would plug the gap 60:40 between spending cuts and tax rises as opposed to the 70:30 on the coalition side.

It'll be interesting to see what the response is from Labour especially and if it has genuine substance, as was promised months ago with claims they would be producing a shadow budget and a shadow PSR, neither of which have emerged.

EDIT: More good news - http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...high-september

Interest payments rose to £2.3bn from £912m in September 2009.

Certainly the economists the Guardian spoke to seem pretty clear -

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...economists-say

Nasty but necessary seems to be the general view, no consolation to those directly affected though.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by heero_yuy

Had the last administration actually invested the money that they borrowed in the infrastructure rather than blowing it on hundreds of thousands of non-jobs for Gardianistas and paying feckless teens to drop sprogs for England we wouldn't be in the financial mess that the coalition now need to get us out of.

Well said

---------- Post added at 11:42 ---------- Previous post was at 11:35 ----------

If Mr Prudence had done his job instead of infighting and plotting to get Blier out, We might not be in the horrid position we are in. Labour was the big version of Viv Nicholson the pools winner spend spend spend, However in this case it was Labour inheriting a grow economy when they came to power which as is the norm for Labour then turned it into the horrid position we are in. Its fine for Labour and there supporters shouting about what the tories are about to do but NEVER forget which party put us in this position in the first place.

Originally Posted by Sirius

]If Mr Prudence had done his job instead of infighting and plotting to get Blier out, We might not be in the horrid position we are in. Labour was the big version of Viv Nicholson the pools winner spend spend spend, However in this case it was Labour inheriting a grow economy when they came to power which as is the norm for Labour then turned it into the horrid position we are in. Its fine for Labour and there supporters shouting about what the tories are about to do but NEVER forget which party put us in this position in the first place.

Just like it's easy for the government to cut more than they need too and use the previous government as an excuse. You can blame the previous government all you like but it is now the government of the day that will have to be responsible for the implementation of these cuts, the effect it will have on the economy, and the services that get cut.

Can we please put to bed the fiction that things would somehow have been easier had Labour got another term. When Alan Johnson stands up and wails "It's worse than Thatcher!" as he did in the Grauniad the other day ... http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2...atcher-johnson ... all he's doing is echoing Alistair Darling's own concession last March that a re-elected Labour government would have had to have done the same ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8587877.stm

And while I am happy that neither of them is currently the chancellor, I know which one of them I trust with a calculator. And it's not the one that didn't even take a maths O-level at school, much less pass it.

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Sirius

If Mr Prudence had done his job instead of infighting and plotting to get Blier out, We might not be in the horrid position we are in. Labour was the big version of Viv Nicholson the pools winner spend spend spend, However in this case it was Labour inheriting a grow economy when they came to power which as is the norm for Labour then turned it into the horrid position we are in. Its fine for Labour and there supporters shouting about what the tories are about to do but NEVER forget which party put us in this position in the first place.

Let's not forget that austerity measures are in place/planned throughout Europe. The Germans plan to cut £66 Billion, the French $65 Billion, The Italians €25 Billion, and let's not even mention Spain, Greece and Iceland. Do you want to blame Labour for that too?

Fact is: there was an international financial crisis that has hit most countries. The UK may have been in a worse position to start with and may have been more exposed to it due to the importance of the financial sector in the UK, but the reality is that the UK is not alone in having to make tough cuts.

[Derek]

Just about to get underway.

Ed Milliband is lucky the headlines tomorrow will be about the cuts. He got his backside handed to him on a plate today at PMQ's

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Derek

Just about to get underway.

Ed Milliband is lucky the headlines tomorrow will be about the cuts. He got his backside handed to him on a plate today at PMQ's

He was useless absolutely useless, Wonder if the unions are already thinking of who they can get to replace him.

[Derek]

Police budgets down 4% a year - Could be worse I suppose, if the cuts are made in the right place the public won't see a difference.
Justice Ministry down 6% a year - New prisons put on hold, closure of courts and reductions of legal aid.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by Derek

Police budgets down 4% a year - Could be worse I suppose, if the cuts are made in the right place the public won't see a difference.
Justice Ministry down 6% a year - New prisons put on hold, closure of courts and reductions of legal aid.

Question

Will that hit the no win no fee scammers