Do you want this government out?

[Pierre]

The government could save a fortune by cutting Wales, we could ringfence Snowdonia buy cut the rest.

The would sort the deficit in a matter of weeks.

[spanna]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

That was indefensible, mind you so is this imo

a minister admitted the measures were on a scale Margaret Thatcher could “only have dreamt of.�

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/we...1466-28458953/

Pretty much repeating what the previous Labour Chancellor admitted that they would have to do ... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8587877.stm

No matter who was in power huge cuts were going to have to be made Labour have said it .. the Conservatives have said it .... they didn't hide it before the election and still got more votes than any other party

Why do people act so suprised when we then have huge cuts

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Bankers or some thing similar...

No i think you will find it was 10 years of Labour mismanagement.

Originally Posted by Sirius

No i think you will find it was 10 years of Labour mismanagement.

Bankers didn't help, but building up unsustainable spending and government debts is what brought it all to a head.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Sirius

No i think you will find it was 10 years of Labour mismanagement.

Coupled of course with the actions of a good proportion of irresponsible people who ran up vast amounts of personal debt in one way or another without giving a thought to how they'd pay it back. Of course while they were so busy spending they didn't have they weren't too bothered about what HMG of the time was up to and that suited Bliar and Brown just fine.

Our current government is still only months old and they've made what I believe are some mistakes, however, the thought that there are those who'd actually like to see Milliband, Balls and their ilk back in power in spite of what they've done to this country is frankly astonishing.

[nomadking]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

That was indefensible, mind you so is this imo

a minister admitted the measures were on a scale Margaret Thatcher could “only have dreamt of.�

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/we...1466-28458953/

In the late 70's Labour didn't go on a big spending spree. They couldn't, they had to make cutbacks. I remember we had to provide our own paper to use in school.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by nomadking

I remember we had to provide our own paper to use in school.

Luxury! You were lucky, we had to provide our own school....

[Chrysalis]

I dont care.

for the simple reason it would be simply labour coming back.

what has dissapointed me the most is not what the tories are doing but rather the lib dems.

1 - agreeing to AV as the alternative, which is still not a PR voting system.
2 - backtracking on so many of their core policies.

I guess I probably would prefer labour as I think these cuts are too brutal when I am seeing corp tax breaks etc. But I dont feel it enough in that I want the change now.

---------- Post added at 10:52 ---------- Previous post was at 10:49 ----------

Originally Posted by Hugh

Bankers didn't help, but building up unsustainable spending and government debts is what brought it all to a head.

its not anything like that simple.

if public spending was lower, then the boom likely would have at best been much smaller and at worse not a boom at all.
government spending is just the tip of the iceberg, what happened with the banks was the core thing at fault, if they didnt crash then we probably would still have labour in power now spending like before.

---------- Post added at 10:56 ---------- Previous post was at 10:52 ----------

Originally Posted by Osem

Coupled of course with the actions of a good proportion of irresponsible people who ran up vast amounts of personal debt in one way or another without giving a thought to how they'd pay it back. Of course while they were so busy spending they didn't have they weren't too bothered about what HMG of the time was up to and that suited Bliar and Brown just fine.

Our current government is still only months old and they've made what I believe are some mistakes, however, the thought that there are those who'd actually like to see Milliband, Balls and their ilk back in power in spite of what they've done to this country is frankly astonishing.

Is interesting post.

I consider the dismantling of things like social services, welfare state, public services as more damaging than a bad credit rating and deficit. I think the average person on the street couldnt give a crap about the countries credit rating, thats just how it is. However people involved with finances and I think generally wealthier people consider things like the deficit and credit rating as extremely important issues.

Labour did bad things but they also did some good things which we would never has seen from a tory government such as the min wage and propping up poor areas with public sector work (I now consider this a good thing now as I learned my city will have over half of population unemployed without it).

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I consider the dismantling of things like social services, welfare state, public services as more damaging than a bad credit rating and deficit. I think the average person on the street couldnt give a crap about the countries credit rating, thats just how it is. However people involved with finances and I think generally wealthier people consider things like the deficit and credit rating as extremely important issues.

Labour did bad things but they also did some good things which we would never has seen from a tory government such as the min wage and propping up poor areas with public sector work (I now consider this a good thing now as I learned my city will have over half of population unemployed without it).

Nobody wants cuts in important services but these things have to be paid for. Our credit rating is what determines how much our borrowing costs and therefore how much we have to spend on services as opposed to interest repayments. The fact that many people out there can't/won't accept that explains why Bliar and Brown stayed in power so long.

Yes, Labour did some good things but then when you consider the vast amounts of money they spent doing it that really wasn't difficult was it? Getting value for that money is quite another thing, however, and they clearly fell very well short in that aspect of their financial management of the economy. Give me a blank cheque book for the purpose and the knowledge that I won't have to cough up and I'll do some good things. I dare say those I dole the money out to will love me for it and won't be too worried about where it's all coming from. Hmmm.... I could buy votes like that couldn't I?...

It's all very well having worthy ideals but IMHO a government isn't worthy of the name unless it creates the economic conditions capable of funding those ideals. New Labour didn't do that, they robbed, borrowed and spent without a care for how it was all going to be paid for. They bought power and now we're all paying the price - that's the real world, that the true new Labour legacy.

[Chrysalis]

I lost respect for this lot when they started cutting taxes whilst claiming there was no way round the cuts. cLearly there is more money available than is been made out.

The tories have a history of false ideals, the biggest one been that they overate the private sector too much.

What do you mean by robbed? I hope you not one of those who consider taxation stealing.

Also you gave no explanation as to how reducing spending and creating unemployment is a fuel for growth.

I voted no because if they went we would get labour back and neither we nor the country can afford that although i am in the group that should be voting yes i am a benefit claimant and am going to be royally screwed by this government mainly to pander to the daily mail brigade. It is easy to criticise this government but what other practical real solutions are there to solving the complete mess that labour created. Yes blame the bankers but they only got as stupid as they did because the government of the time (that would be labour again) worshipped at their alter believed they could do no wrong and basically did away with regulation of the banking sector allowing stupidity to infest not just government but banking as well.

Like it or not we have a stark and simple choice ease the pain now and dump it onto our kids and grandchildren or take it now and make it easier for everyone in the long term i know which one i prefer.

[tweetiepooh]

One issue is that when cuts are made they never hit the right spot as the cuts get implemented by the people/departments where the cuts should really fall.

As a crude example, merging hospitals. Clinical services are moved, often meaning patients need to travel further for treatment but there is an increase in HR and admin to manage this change. It should be the other way round. Merge the HR/admin type functions first to create a singe management body and then look at clinical side of things.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I lost respect for this lot when they started cutting taxes whilst claiming there was no way round the cuts. cLearly there is more money available than is been made out.

The tories have a history of false ideals, the biggest one been that they overate the private sector too much.

What do you mean by robbed? I hope you not one of those who consider taxation stealing.

Also you gave no explanation as to how reducing spending and creating unemployment is a fuel for growth.

There is no more revenue available for anything - unless you hadn't noticed we're existing on borrowing and that expenditure which isn't covered by income from taxation etc. is all going on the tab.

Gordon Brown raided the pension funds of those who'd scrimped and saved to make provision for their own future as opposed to relying on the state. Yes, I consider that akin to robbery.

When Labour came to power we had all that guff about stimulating the economy and invention, rebuilding manufacturing, stimulating enterprise etc. What Labour actually did was tax, spend, borrow and increase regualtion and bureacracy. They created a false boom based on borrowing and relying in large part for revenue from the city whose activities they conveniently overlooked for so long. Where did that get us exactly? Oh yes.. the mess we're in now!

I gather that in your world there's no such thing as waste or any job which is superfluous. No scope for cutting out dead wood at all. Everything's running at 100% efficiency with no scope for improvement. Cutting non-productive jobs and trying to create the conditions in which business can thrive is the best we can do and there are going to be people who suffer for no fault of their own. Inevitably there'll also be large numbers of job losses which nobody
wants to see but that's the reality of spending more than we can afford and Gordon Brown should've thought more about that when he was in power. By doing these things hopefully we can maintain more of the essential jobs we all rely on and find alternative work for those who've lost out.

Being in denial about the size of our problems and what has to be done may make people feel better but simply delays the day of reckoning and magnifies the problems we face. You speak as if HMG has a choice, can dictate our credit rating, can ignore international opinion, can force people to lend more and more money to us in order to carry on spending we clearly can't afford. The stark reality is that the UK is increasingly at the mercy of international financiers and they can do to us what they're doing to Ireland, Greece and Portugal. You can argue about that as much as you like but they hold all the cards and call the shots. They dictate how much our borrowing costs and therefore how much money is available to spend on services. We already spend the equivalent of our entire education budget on interest payments alone. That simply cannot continue and delaying getting to grips with our borrowing only compounds the problem and will prolong the sufferring.

If you think things are tough here, take a trip over to the 'Celtic Tiger'. It's not a mean spirited Tory govt which is forcing the huge cuts through there is it? The people and politicians there bought into the idea that they could spend, spend, spend and thereby create jobs based on borrowing but look what's happened. It's out of their hands now. They can bleat as much as they like but they just have to accept the rules of those who're bailing them out. Yes they created loads of jobs and fancy housing estates. Jobs which are now long gone in large part and housing estates which are lying empty like ghost towns. This is the real world and I don't want it to happen to us.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I lost respect for this lot when they started cutting taxes whilst claiming there was no way round the cuts. cLearly there is more money available than is been made out.

Where were taxes cut without balancing them through increases elsewhere?

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

The tories have a history of false ideals, the biggest one been that they overate the private sector too much.

As do Labour, the biggest one being that they overrate the public sector too much and underrate the private one.

[img]Download Failed (1)[/img]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Also you gave no explanation as to how reducing spending and creating unemployment is a fuel for growth.

You've given none why spending more on welfare and increasing interest payments is a fuel for growth.

The tax cuts you so despise are a fuel for growth. Taxation is anti-growth.

---------- Post added at 14:14 ---------- Previous post was at 14:02 ----------

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

what has dissapointed me the most is not what the tories are doing but rather the lib dems.

1 - agreeing to AV as the alternative, which is still not a PR voting system.
2 - backtracking on so many of their core policies.

They are the junior part of the coalition, and for someone like me their influence is very easy to see.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

its not anything like that simple.

if public spending was lower, then the boom likely would have at best been much smaller and at worse not a boom at all.
government spending is just the tip of the iceberg, what happened with the banks was the core thing at fault, if they didnt crash then we probably would still have labour in power now spending like before.

It isn't anything like that simple either. The boom was fuelled by government policy and government spending along with private debt accumulation which was unsustainable.

Had Labour not spent money like water but instead run reasonable budgets, not involving running deficit on the books and even bigger ones off the books, the funds would have been available to appropriately stimulate the economy. As it is they did nothing to correct the country's financial situation and active encouraged people to make it a lot worse.

The behaviour of banks is, of course, an issue, but they were simply serving a need, an asset bubble born out of government policies shifting investment from pension funds into property and taking increasing amounts of tax and redistributing it as welfare.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

I consider the dismantling of things like social services, welfare state, public services as more damaging than a bad credit rating and deficit. I think the average person on the street couldnt give a crap about the countries credit rating, thats just how it is. However people involved with finances and I think generally wealthier people consider things like the deficit and credit rating as extremely important issues.

That's exactly the point, the average person on the street couldn't give a crap until these things affect them, which they would. I am unsure why you are commenting on this as if it's somehow wrong to appreciate that the government spending more on debt interest than education is a bad thing, and ramping this interest payment up through further long-term accumulation of debt is a worse thing.

It is an extremely important issue, the only reason to disregard it is ignorance.

I would regard describing these policies as 'dismantling' as being typical tabloid / union news letter speak by the way.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Labour did bad things but they also did some good things which we would never has seen from a tory government such as the min wage and propping up poor areas with public sector work (I now consider this a good thing now as I learned my city will have over half of population unemployed without it).

Propping up poor areas with public sector work isn't a good thing, it's a temporary life support, in typical Labour fashion. What they should have done is what this government is doing and incentivised private sector investment in these areas to allow for longer term prosperity rather than what will inevitably happen, areas which were previously propped up by unsustainable levels of spending being hit disproportionately hard when some of that spending is withdrawn.

Fundamentally I prefer to treat people like adults, taking their money from them and spending it for them is treating them like children. Leaving them with as much money as possible to spend / invest / save as they see fit is the grown up thing to do. Labour busily taxed, spent, and indeed taxed then provided welfare to the people they were taxing. The public sector must not, and cannot, get us out of this hole otherwise we'll just be staring up at an even deeper one in the not very distant future.

[Osem]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Propping up poor areas with public sector work isn't a good thing, it's a temporary life support, in typical Labour fashion. What they should have done is what this government is doing and incentivised private sector investment in these areas to allow for longer term prosperity rather than what will inevitably happen, areas which were previously propped up by unsustainable levels of spending being hit disproportionately hard when some of that spending is withdrawn.

.....and of course, New Labour having been booted out of power, these people then blame the incoming government for the problems they're facing. They should blame Labour's failure to provide them with sustainable jobs even after borrowing and spending such vast amounts of money!