Be Excellent To Each Other

Torygeddon*, then.

What have they used the excuse of financial disaster for to cut which is dear to you? What has survived as it supports the needs of commercial interest and the few at the top?

Come on, no bias here.

* (copyright Wullie)

I know what they should have cut, Malabars hair! It could have been sold off as Rats tails at New Model Army gigs to help fund smack heads cock chops.

What cuts? There's been nothing on the news here. I did just have my hair cut mind....

I've reviewed the breakdowns as shown on the BBC website and can't see what will affect me at all so far. Apparently though they're going to expand (so dig up and slow down for a couple of years) the motorway out of Hull, so the relief shift work I've been looking for down the motorway will be less reachable and the problem I was very glad to leave Wales to avoid has now followed me up here.

The media and opposition have hyped all of this up but the reality is that all they have done is return spending to 2007 levels.

Since I'm leaving this job, the cuts don't affect me but if I was to stay... I'd have faced redundancy soon enough as the place will be shutting down by March 2012.

In fact.. the cuts have already affected me because I've been made redundant. So there! I'm officially a victim of the spending cuts 2010.

Ah. Thought this was a thread about gynaecological conditions. As you were.

I'm disappointed the RAF isn't getting the F-35B which is far cooler than the F-35C.

I'm assuming Grim...'s 250% council tax increase is his local councils attempt at deficit reduction, so he's another victim of the cuts.

Mrs Squirt does some work with Train to Gain with her job, so she might be a little bit affected by them stopping that. From what she said it was a tiny part of her job though, so I'm not too worried about her being cast out into the snow to starve by her top-hatted boss, or anything.

We need a new benchmark for flight sims now the Harrier is cancelled:

Torygeddon?

Hardly mate. Don't forget who was in charge for the last 13 years and whose catastrophic economic and foreign policy mismanagement failings are the reason for said cuts in the first place. But hey, we've been there/done that, eh. At least most Tories are frank about the significant failings of their party, such as the Lawson Boom, Poll Tax and ERM fiascos and all the rest; fat chance your average Labourite being so candid, indeed honest, frankly.

To be completely honest, I don't even really see how any supporter of theirs has even the brass neck to raise their head above the parapet for at least the next 20 years, let alone pile into those that are faced with the unenviable clean up operation of quite simply the worst economic catastrophy this country has endured for at least 60 years, moreso given the fantastic starting point at the onset of their tenure and not to mention those unmitigated, unprecedented foreign policy disasters as well? And that's even by my standards, and I'm not exactly reknown for my wallflower-like tendencies.

Still, good ol' Broon and Blair; at least we've got the Minimum Wage though, right?

I'm looking forward to my next tax return :

Are you the sovereign claiming a Sovereign Support Grant? [ ]

Are you saying the minimum wage is a bad thing? People earning £5.80 an hour instead of £4 is hardly the cause of the current economic mess.

No, no, you totally misunderstand me mate. The whole 'we've got the Minimum Wage' thing is what Labour supporters always trot out in support of their Party in the face of all the terrible things that they have done, usually when pinned into a corner in one debate or other - because it's pretty much the only really good thing that they did in fully 13 years of any note that they fully deserve unqualified credit for, upon which most people would agree.

So, I was being sardonic only. I naturally support the Minimium Wage.

Ahh, getcha! That does make more sense. For a second I thought you were complaining about part-time cleaners sucking all the money out of the economy, or something odd like that.

Plus the Freedom of Information Act, the Human Rights Act, the greatest decentralisation of power since the formation of the Union (devolution), lowering of the age limit for gay sex, ending of Clause 28, civil unions, improved protections for part-time and full-time workers, a working Stormont Parliament, and a few other things. Pales a bit in comparison to the economic fallout and Iraq, mind you. Could never support a party that said this, for example:

"A vast range of regulations on the financial services industry should either be abolished or watered down, including money-laundering restrictions affecting banks and building societies. Also see "no need to continue" to regulate mortgage provision, saying it is the lender, not the client, who takes the risk."

AHEM.

Back on track before we have another Cavey/Peter love-in, please.

*Grumble Grumble*

not that I posted the defense cuts yesterday

Cuts! Erm…okay, well, if nothing else, Osboune has played a blinder by pegging it at 19% averaged across all departments (some hit more, some hit less), as it actually puts the cuts at roundabout the level Labour were suggesting. I think, though, it'll take a day or two for things to fall out - his speech left a lot of detail unsaid...

Oh, I'm totally with you on Gay Rights issues Peter.
Please excuse my omission; I am somewhat ignorant of such things but, as you know, am a fervent supporter of the full, unfettered rights of the individual to exercise whatever gender, trans-gender, sexual orientation, religious or other characteristic/preference the hell they choose. I am a Liberal in the real sense of the term; this is how I have raised my kids, it is what is in my heart and is how I live my life. Above all else, Live and Let Live.

Of course, such things entirely transcend mere party politics of one stripe or another, anyway.

Ah, soz mate. Perhaps Peter and I should have our own subforum!

Anyway, apols for mini-derail, I'll bugger off now.

Anyway, we are were we are, I suspect everyone agrees that cuts do need to be made, the question is more about how that is being done, and what political tendencies are showing up.

For example, I see the BBC being heavily leant on. Tories hate the BBC, and the owe Murdoch a favour (or at least favour him).

I'm asking this from a state of pretty much economic ignorance, but does anyone actually, in the whole world, understand how large scale economics actually works? Coz if they did, surely it would be easy to work out what to do - we'd just put the numbers in, turn the crank and we'd get "cut spending in X but increase it on Y for optimal awesome" out. As no one can even agree if a few percent rise or fall in VAT is a good thing or a terrible thing, I'm gonna guess that no one actually knows how this all works, and we may as well just be picking our economic policy from a hat.

This isn't even large scale economics or anything to do with ending the recession though.

It's purely about the appearance of reducing tax bills, which will make Tory-inclined voters happy. [cynical] With a fringe benefit of privatising any remaining public services so that a few Tory politicians make a lot of money. [/cynical]

Yeah, get back to your little games soul car, Old timer!

World Service being internally paid for is no bad thing. Suddenly there might be some imperative to save money and share operations rather than duplicate everything at Bush House. It might also give the BBC the balls to take responsibility for it and run it properly.

Mind you the killer cost is transmission for them. Think the gov should bung them a few quid when they start demanding they broadcast to certain areas.

The crazy thing to me is that they are cutting the BBCs budget for online stuff.

Because there is obviously no future in the internet...

ETA on when they'll be able to stop TV broadcast? 20 years maybe?

Edit: I mean cut back really. Less channels.

Agree. However, this was negotiated down from the "BBC should pay for all over-75s TV license" demand, which was a government perk, not a BBC one.

And I don't think it'll be the last swipe at them.



You can correct me here, but I was under the impression that the BBC no longer owned any transmission equipment, it having been privatised at an earlier date - so they have to pay whatever that private company wants.

Yeah - but the point is that the Govt demand that they make the world service available in Azerbaijahn, for example. Which is reasonable when the foreign office pays for it. It's a bit less reasonable if you expect the BBC to foot the bill.

Ready the full BBC article, seemed ok to me.

Sorry to not be any more enthused

Oh right, for the WS broadcasts. Fair enough.

Squirt's got it. No-one knows. The Con-Dem plan here is the one Ireland were crowing about under the glare of IMF endorsement a few months back. Now look at them.

Fact is there's a fuckton of wastage in the public sector whereas in the voluntary sector and schools and so on, a defeceit of investment where it is needed to get the job done to any kind of standard. The blues will generally not invest where is is needed but will make necessary cuts, sometimes too many. The reds will tend towards the opposite. By voting them in and out, we can maintain some sort of equilibrium. Problem here is the Blues provided no decent opposition to the reds for three terms, and in so doing you end up with unchecked power and madnesses like Nu-Labour's I.D. cards or the Tory Poll Tax. Modreation in all things, especially policy, that's what we need.

Voting wise though what we have here is a set of actions no cunt voted for. Labour voters didn't vote for it, Lib Dem voters didn't vote for it, so I'm really not sure why it's happening. There's a very frightening message coming from the Cleggs and Cables about the old 'political reality' chestnut of "we said this but now we've looked at it from a position of power we're doing the opposite". Well, if that's what must be done, surely anyone might as well just get on with that and we can do away with the whole voting for people thing, which I'm sure costs a fair bit. The Lib Dems were voted for in order to represent the desires of their voters, and they aren't, so they should quit. It doesn't matter if you know best, if the electorate vote for the wrong thing, whatever that might be, then that's what we must have, or that's not democracy.

So the main cut today is the right of the majority to get what they voted for. And to think I was worried about ending up on a DNA database.

Also, Pete's on the ball, Osborne's not really explained a great deal. He's told us we're all getting shit Xmas presents but we still don't know if it's socks, a game for a console you haven't got or a DVD by your least favourite comedian.

If they think they are going to sort the economy by sending me Michael Macintyre DVDs, they have another thing coming.

They're going to reduce the national debt by threatening to send you Michael Macintyre DVDs unless you pay them 1000 quid.

Yup, obviously because I take the piss out the Tories/come from Scotland I must be a Labour voter

Oh & it's copyright someone off twitter (possibly karmacycle, but I'm not sure)

Isn't all this stuff about wastage in public services largely a smokescreen though? Whilst it clearly should be fixed, there was a commentator on the radio this morning said that the amount of money they were likely to save from the non-ringfenced areas was peanuts in terms of the stuff they'd committed to keep spending on and the size of the actual debt.

There's a ridiculously enormous amount of wastage in the public sector. The problem is, you don't fix wastage by just cutting budgets. You actually have to be able to work out where you can improve efficiency, cut out extraneous process (and, if necessary, those jobs that support those processes), and that takes effort. If you just slash the budget, you don't have the badwidth to be able to actually address the wastage in a sensible way.

Something about horses and carts, and chickens with their noses cut off to spite your mum.

Except that I reckon there's whole swathes of simple measures could be taken that would save a lot before you get to the tricky savings that craster illistrates so well.

Fook me, I wasn't even thinking of you or anyone in particular (in fact TBH had not even had the nowse to notice you'd even been mentioned, in truth), let alone stuff about Scotland or whatever! Soz mate

Strike a light, at this rate I'm gonna limit myself to talking about the weather, the war and Werthers Originals around here. But even then, someone would probably flame me for having a penchant for butterscotch. Chill, dudes.

It's butterscotch lovers like you who are responsible for all evil to have befallen mankind. You monster, you!

The elephant in the room here is that "waste" is an ideologically-loaded concept. You might think waste counts as, say, governments spending too much on needless bureaucracy and photocopying, for example, but the Coalition see the concept through the strongly-tinted lenses of ideology. For example, free post-16 further education, subsidies for public transport, working tax credits for poorer workers, the personal care money I get for my disabilityment – to some if not many Tory MPs, they might all count as 'waste', all needless government spending, because in their view the state should do the absolute bare minimum. Keep that in mind.


True, but ask anyone who works in the public sector, if you don't get funding increases in line with inflation for a year, that is in effect a budget cut, let alone if you budget is reduced to the level from several years previously. State spending covers some of the most inflationary parts of the economy (a key reason why those areas weren't left to the free market in the first place), including military and healthcare for example, so don't get the premature impression that the cuts aren't so bad, or aren't cuts at all. They are, and severe ones.

The real test for the cuts is how the social damage looks when filtered-through to 'ground level' and local services. We're not out of the woods yet.

A quick squizz at the numbers and I reckon you're right. If we want to actually reduce the national debt any time soon and on the governments current income, we'd have to do things like "cancel the army" and "scrap schools" and "close all the prisons and courts". Even if we're talking billions and billions of pounds of cuts, they're a drop in the ocean really.

I was going with Wikitonaries' "extravagant consumption or ineffectual use" in the context of the public sector doing what it does now, but instead of for example one tiny area like Torfaen having Jobmatch, Future Jobs Fund, A4E Pathways, Want 2 Work, Jobcentre Plus, Progress to Work, Genesis Cymru and Bridges into Work (to name but a few) all working with the same clients towards the same goals, maybe reduce the number of agencies to one or two specialities, one or two offices, one or two senior managers. The number of frontline staff is probably about right, but every seven or eight of them have a manager. It's not necessary. Unify performance management, as clients have one guy who is on targets, one on an open-ended mandate and the two can't work together for the client. This is all in one slim provision in one corner of one region of one country in the UK. Times this by everything, the problem is massive.

But the point of the work being done is sound, and any Tory ideology to the contrary is exactly why the sods aren't fit to govern. Heaven knows I agree 100% with their reluctance to hand-hold in principal, but as a rationalist who pays (theoretical) taxes and (theoretically) works with the expensive, marginalised members of society and has to live alongside them every day, I know that's going to put us back to Victorian social stratification inside a couple of generations, or cause a revolution.

Looking at the broader deficit issue, where has all the money gone in the recession? Who has got it now?

If as some economists tell me, the money never really existed in the first place, I contend that we didn't borrow it as you can't borrow nothing, don't therefore owe it, and if anyone wants to argue about that, we've still got Trident.

Yes, and who does that money really belong to, eh?

Well I thought George Osborne inherited it all by being born, didn't he?

You scamp.

Grim....

And in turn, The Council.

Graphs!

Scummers to be 24% scummier than under Labour!

http://www.adamoxford.co.uk/2010/10/osb ... y-cahones/