Politics

[Christmas Tree 4725]

BTW, you spend far too much time on here

 

That is certainly true. I have a lower post-per-day count than you though.

 

 

Im a taxi driver sitting on my arse all day?

 

Arnt you a big editor for the NHS or summit

 

At the moment I'm just doing silly hours in the Office doing some pretty boring stuff and need some light relief.

 

But, if we're going to get personal, didn't you say you earn 100k a year or something from your taxiing? Surely you don't get that from sitting on your arse all day? I'd have thought you'd be earning every minute of your shift.

 

No

[peasepud 59]

A someone who works in the Public Sector its a scary time ahead. The concept of having to take a pay cut following three years of negligible pay rises is not one that I relish. On top of that add in additional taxes in the form of PAYE, VAT etc, the cost of everyday items going up and its suddenly looking like I could easily be £120-£150 per month worse off. Thats before any additional cuts in things such as Child Tax Credits etc.

 

The bigger worry however is the job itself, not the fact of whether I will have a job or not but more in the job itself. Cuts are never made sensibly, no matter which government is in place. My department consists of 5 of us, collectively we save the government over £4m every year on an annual budget of just over £350k. We are not however front line staff and therefore be liable to be cut. The problem being that each little area within the bigger deparment has its own budget allocated and frankly doesnt care what problems it may cause another department ie if my ultimate bosses need to save £50k this year then they could feasibly get rid of a piece of work that saves another area £500k, the result? our boss has done his bit but simply created a bigger problem for another one somewhere down the line.

 

What currently happens when specific job roles etc are cut within the civil service is the biggest joke however and explaining it to people is the hardest thing possible as it defies all logic. Imagine the scene, a section has 10 members of staff and is told it has to lose 2 as the budget isnt there. The result? two people are told to look for jobs elsewhere within the department, a department which has no jobs and has numerous other people in the same boat. You therefore become something called "pre-surplus" and spend your days hunting the internal jobs pages for a move. Meanwhile you sit at the same desk you sat at previously but you're not allowed to do any work, after an hour of job hunting you move onto doing a crossword, read the paper and generally just lose the will to live. Every month however you're paid the same pay as you got for doing your job, your colleagues meanwhile become more and more stressed as theyve got 20% more work to do. Result? more sick leave and reduced productivity.

 

This happens day to day in thousands of sections across the Civil Service yet its seen as a cost cutting exercise, basically paying people to NOT work. Why not just drop them all into a big pool and move them to wherever in the Public sector needs the help? take 2000 civil servants from DWP, HMRC, F&CO etc and put them tomorrow into doing admin work for the police, thereby freeing up officers to spend more time on the beat and cut crime. After a month put them into the Benefit fraud department, 2 or 3000 extra staff in one day to move cases on, monitor suspects etc. The savings would be immense literally overnight. All of these front line services that could benefit immensely from the experience and abilities of these staff yet no, we'd rather sit them at a desk and fester on the hope they'll either leave or die of boredom.

 

Cameron talks about a previous spending "splurge" well we've not seen that, for the last few years we have been cut repeatedly. Talk of not replacing staff who leave as a way of saving money is old hat. We've not recruited properly for years now and although its not a problem at the moment at some stage in the near future we're going to lose huge numbers of experienced staff due to retirement/ redundancy etc. The gap will be immense and cost billions to correct but that will be down the line.

 

The answer is not to cut Public Spending, its to freeze it or increase but more importantly its to spend it wisely, if people arent needed then get rid, do it now, offer a redundancy package but stand back and wait for the stampede as it will be hugely over subscribed and thats the sad fact of life in the Public sector. Most believe they are doing a job for the better good of the country but feel hugely undervalued and let down by the way its ran overall. I see nothing from the new government that will correct that.

[Christmas Tree 4725]

It will be no comfort to those who lose their jobs but all the talk at the moment is trying to follow this Canadian model which did really get into the detail to justify cuts rather than just slashing each department by 20%.

 

There will be more privatisation of services which may limit some of the pain. An example of this is when governments / councils transferred council house ownership / management to private housing associations.

 

However in reality what this is saying is that the private sector can run some of these things better than the public sector.

 

Easy said than done, but the trick is getting the good managers, who understand the savings your department creates, higher up the food chain, replacing the "empire builders" that we all know there are far too many of.

 

I think the coalition know that this will make or break them in five years time so there will be lots of emphasis on getting this right.

 

You should here the bones of the plan later today from Osbourne.

[Matt 0]

The Canadian model put 10 onto the average class size to 35- are we to increase ours to 40?

 

There's a good article that looks at how realistic this aim really is:

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/10254055.stm

 

This whole 'following a model' thing sounds familiar. But will it be the Arsenal, Aston Villa or Wolves model next?

[ChezGiven 0]

The Canadian model is just a process which involved people in the decision making process, tomake th changes more politicallyacceptable. To claim that those cuts led to an economic recovery is mental and very wrong

[AgentAxeman 178]

The Canadian model is just a process which involved people in the decision making process, tomake th changes more politicallyacceptable. To claim that those cuts led to an economic recovery is mental and very wrong

 

 

maybe, but it did reduce the deficit which was the main aim of the government of the day.

[Christmas Tree 4725]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

[Happy Face 29]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

 

Benefits aren't waste. The job of a government is to tax the wealthy members of society and distribute it to the poor so that no-one is left in poverty.

 

The biggest shame is they've not been taking enough from the wealthy....and the Tories plan to take less.

 

I find it incredible that any working man would be flag waving for increased crippling cuts.

 

Spain aren't having it...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10261567.stm

[Christmas Tree 4725]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

 

Benefits aren't waste. The job of a government is to tax the wealthy members of society and distribute it to the poor so that no-one is left in poverty.

 

The biggest shame is they've not been taking enough from the wealthy....and the Tories plan to take less.

 

I find it incredible that any working man would be flag waving for increased crippling cuts.

 

Spain aren't having it...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10261567.stm

 

 

I didnt say they were

[Happy Face 29]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

 

Benefits aren't waste. The job of a government is to tax the wealthy members of society and distribute it to the poor so that no-one is left in poverty.

 

The biggest shame is they've not been taking enough from the wealthy....and the Tories plan to take less.

 

I find it incredible that any working man would be flag waving for increased crippling cuts.

 

Spain aren't having it...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10261567.stm

 

I didnt say they were

 

But you did say they should be cut.

[Happy Face 29]

List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP:

 

Denmark 50.0

Sweden 49.7

Belgium 46.8

France 46.1

Norway 43.6

Austria 43.4

Italy 42.6

Germany 40.6

Netherlands 39.5

United Kingdom 39.0

 

Despite being amongst the lowest tax revenue generators (as a percentage of GDP) in Europe, our social programs must take deep cuts following the examples of....

 

Spain 37.3

Greece 33.5

 

Wouldn't you prefer tax increases so the people that can afford it (and that caused it) get us through this crisis?

Edited June 8, 2010 by Happy Face

[Christmas Tree 4725]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

 

Benefits aren't waste. The job of a government is to tax the wealthy members of society and distribute it to the poor so that no-one is left in poverty.

 

The biggest shame is they've not been taking enough from the wealthy....and the Tories plan to take less.

 

I find it incredible that any working man would be flag waving for increased crippling cuts.

 

Spain aren't having it...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10261567.stm

 

I didnt say they were

 

But you did say they should be cut.

 

 

We are overspending and need to save money, surely Stopping child benefit payments to Mike Ashley and Richard Branson would be a good start?

[Happy Face 29]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

 

Benefits aren't waste. The job of a government is to tax the wealthy members of society and distribute it to the poor so that no-one is left in poverty.

 

The biggest shame is they've not been taking enough from the wealthy....and the Tories plan to take less.

 

I find it incredible that any working man would be flag waving for increased crippling cuts.

 

Spain aren't having it...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10261567.stm

 

I didnt say they were

 

But you did say they should be cut.

 

 

We are overspending and need to save money, surely Stopping child benefit payments to Mike Ashley and Richard Branson would be a good start?

 

But you said to £15k+ households.

[Renton 21567]

If the data on this link is to be believed, the UK's problems don't seem particularly significant compared to many of our European neighbours, with lower debts (as measured by debt as a percentage of GDP) than Italy, France, Germany, and Spain; lower unemployment rates; and better growth forecasts. Add to this the current advantages and flexibility we have over retaining our currency?

 

Can anyone verify if this is indeed the case? It appears in virtually every way we are doing better than our neighbours except for the projected deficit - but wasn't this a direct result of the global crash which hit us disproportionately?

[Sonatine 11361]

Doesn't tax evasion\fraud cost the Treasury something like 10 times the amount benefit fraud does?

[Renton 21567]

List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP:

 

Denmark 50.0

Sweden 49.7

Belgium 46.8

France 46.1

Norway 43.6

Austria 43.4

Italy 42.6

Germany 40.6

Netherlands 39.5

United Kingdom 39.0

 

Despite being amongst the lowest tax revenue generators (as a percentage of GDP) in Europe, our social programs must take deep cuts following the examples of....

 

Spain 37.3

Greece 33.5

 

Wouldn't you prefer tax increases so the people that can afford it (and that caused it) get us through this crisis?

 

I would most definitely but its not the Conservative way, most of whom probably still believe we are heavily taxed or living in 'rip off Britain'.

 

They've already plucked an arbritrary figure of 80% cuts and 20% tax increases, haven't they? There's no logic in that, just pure tory ideology.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Renton

[Christmas Tree 4725]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

 

Benefits aren't waste. The job of a government is to tax the wealthy members of society and distribute it to the poor so that no-one is left in poverty.

 

The biggest shame is they've not been taking enough from the wealthy....and the Tories plan to take less.

 

I find it incredible that any working man would be flag waving for increased crippling cuts.

 

Spain aren't having it...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10261567.stm

 

I didnt say they were

 

But you did say they should be cut.

 

 

We are overspending and need to save money, surely Stopping child benefit payments to Mike Ashley and Richard Branson would be a good start?

 

But you said to £15k+ households.

 

 

Well you tell me where you think it should be cut off.

 

Regardless what figure you come up with the points still the same, I would rather see the partys tackle these issues than get rid of people like peaspud who sounds like he is actually saving us money.

[Happy Face 29]

List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP:

 

Denmark 50.0

Sweden 49.7

Belgium 46.8

France 46.1

Norway 43.6

Austria 43.4

Italy 42.6

Germany 40.6

Netherlands 39.5

United Kingdom 39.0

 

Despite being amongst the lowest tax revenue generators (as a percentage of GDP) in Europe, our social programs must take deep cuts following the examples of....

 

Spain 37.3

Greece 33.5

 

Wouldn't you prefer tax increases so the people that can afford it (and that caused it) get us through this crisis?

 

I would most definitely but its not the Conservative way, most of whom probably still believe we are heavily taxed or living in 'rip off Britain'.

 

They've already plucked an arbritrary figure of 80% cuts and 20% tax increases, haven't they? There's no logic in that, just pure tory idealogy.

 

The problem is "The Market" can punish the economy for increasing taxes, the people can't punish it for making cuts........well, they could, but they're too lazy/blinkered/misinformed for that

[Christmas Tree 4725]

If the data on this link is to be believed, the UK's problems don't seem particularly significant compared to many of our European neighbours, with lower debts (as measured by debt as a percentage of GDP) than Italy, France, Germany, and Spain; lower unemployment rates; and better growth forecasts. Add to this the current advantages and flexibility we have over retaining our currency?

 

Can anyone verify if this is indeed the case? It appears in virtually every way we are doing better than our neighbours except for the projected deficit - but wasn't this a direct result of the global crash which hit us disproportionately?

 

it doesn't really matter what we are like compared to our neighbours, the fact that every party is backing deep cuts should tell you the problem is serious.

[Christmas Tree 4725]

List of countries by tax revenue as percentage of GDP:

 

Denmark 50.0

Sweden 49.7

Belgium 46.8

France 46.1

Norway 43.6

Austria 43.4

Italy 42.6

Germany 40.6

Netherlands 39.5

United Kingdom 39.0

 

Despite being amongst the lowest tax revenue generators (as a percentage of GDP) in Europe, our social programs must take deep cuts following the examples of....

 

Spain 37.3

Greece 33.5

 

Wouldn't you prefer tax increases so the people that can afford it (and that caused it) get us through this crisis?

 

I would most definitely but its not the Conservative way, most of whom probably still believe we are heavily taxed or living in 'rip off Britain'.

 

They've already plucked an arbritrary figure of 80% cuts and 20% tax increases, haven't they? There's no logic in that, just pure tory ideology.

 

 

Labours figures were going to be 70% cuts and 30% tax increases.

 

Not much difference really

[Renton 21567]

If the data on this link is to be believed, the UK's problems don't seem particularly significant compared to many of our European neighbours, with lower debts (as measured by debt as a percentage of GDP) than Italy, France, Germany, and Spain; lower unemployment rates; and better growth forecasts. Add to this the current advantages and flexibility we have over retaining our currency?

 

Can anyone verify if this is indeed the case? It appears in virtually every way we are doing better than our neighbours except for the projected deficit - but wasn't this a direct result of the global crash which hit us disproportionately?

 

it doesn't really matter what we are like compared to our neighbours, the fact that every party is backing deep cuts should tell you the problem is serious.

 

When appraising the last government, our performance relative to our neighbours doesn't matter? How else can you appraise Labour's economic performance, which you've been all to happy to do?

 

The relevant US figures look worse to me as well, I'd quite like to know what's going on here.

[Happy Face 29]

The biggest shame is that no parties seem to want to get to grip with some of the real wastage.

 

Child benefit should be scrapped for everybody bar the sub 15,000 families.

Same with Tax credits.

 

And if someone got to grips with the disgusting abuse of the benefit system we would save billions.

 

Benefits aren't waste. The job of a government is to tax the wealthy members of society and distribute it to the poor so that no-one is left in poverty.

 

The biggest shame is they've not been taking enough from the wealthy....and the Tories plan to take less.

 

I find it incredible that any working man would be flag waving for increased crippling cuts.

 

Spain aren't having it...

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/10261567.stm

 

I didnt say they were

 

But you did say they should be cut.

 

 

We are overspending and need to save money, surely Stopping child benefit payments to Mike Ashley and Richard Branson would be a good start?

 

But you said to £15k+ households.

 

 

Well you tell me where you think it should be cut off.

 

Regardless what figure you come up with the points still the same, I would rather see the partys tackle these issues than get rid of people like peaspud who sounds like he is actually saving us money.

 

BP's profit in the last quarter were £3.6Bn.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/ap...oil-prices-rise

 

I don't know what their current tax bill is, but the most recent one I can find said it was 20%, so using that, they paid £720m in tax over those three months. If they paid what any person on a good salary pays, you could double that.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2002/jan/11/oilandpetrol

 

It is estimated that in 2008, £12.6 million of public money was lost through benefit fraud. http://www.stopbenefitfraudni.gov.uk/cost.htm

 

£12.6m...in a YEAR!!! Compared to BP's favourable tax rate saving them £720m in just 3 months.

 

If you increased BP's rate of tax by 0.045% (less than one twentieth of a percent), you'd cover the cost of benefit fraud.

Edited June 8, 2010 by Happy Face

[Renton 21567]

Not sure BP is a good example at the moment.

[Happy Face 29]

If the data on this link is to be believed, the UK's problems don't seem particularly significant compared to many of our European neighbours, with lower debts (as measured by debt as a percentage of GDP) than Italy, France, Germany, and Spain; lower unemployment rates; and better growth forecasts. Add to this the current advantages and flexibility we have over retaining our currency?

 

Can anyone verify if this is indeed the case? It appears in virtually every way we are doing better than our neighbours except for the projected deficit - but wasn't this a direct result of the global crash which hit us disproportionately?

 

it doesn't really matter what we are like compared to our neighbours, the fact that every party is backing deep cuts should tell you the problem is serious.

 

It's in every politicians best interest to keep big business happy and anyone middle class or lower diverted by red herrings and misinformed.

[ewerk 30544]

It is estimated that in 2008, £12.6 million of public money was lost through benefit fraud. http://www.stopbenefitfraudni.gov.uk/cost.htm

 

£12.6m...in a YEAR!!!

 

I think that's just for Northern Ireland.