[Closed] "The Cuts! The Cuts!"

a precis please

a precis please

1. The Conservatives are adding more to the debt rather than cutting it.
2. Government spending was down less than 1% this year over last.

So what really needs asking is WTF are they doing with the money?

we have not really had cuts as spending is up - it is a bizzarfre spin to put on things given the cuts announced everywhere and the redundnacies but the very right wing like to try and say there are not cuts.

I hate the govt/state it spends too much of my money

That is as short as i can make it

The blame for this deception does not lie solely with Labour, or with the more socialist-leaning or Keynesian sides of the debate. The coalition must take some criticism, too. From day one, and even during the preceding electioneering, both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have fallen in line with the rhetoric that any reduction in the government’s runaway spending will be painful for everyone in the UK and is inherently a bad thing. The only fight they put up is to say that they were reluctantly forced into this situation. They happily give the impression that real austerity has been in place since David Cameron entered Downing Street on 11 May last year – a convenient lie for the whole state-funded political class.

The British state is gigantic, set to spend the equivalent of 50.1 per cent of GDP this year, according to the OECD. It has become larger since the coalition took power, and, as yet, there are few signs of significant cuts to its mass.

This sounds like a problem that the Big Society could solve.

If you create mass unemployment you are bound to have to spend more on social security payments as well as losing out on the tax on the income those people used to earn. Oh and let's not forget the cost of our our instant war, and the EU contributions, bailing out the banks...

Never mind, you can always drown your sorrows in the govt's (uncut) wine cellar...

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Have we got here yet...?

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Judging from their presence outside the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool, police cuts don't seem to apply to political party related events...

The roads around the Echo Arena have been closed for a week. All pedestrian access has been limited. Police have been patrolling every entrance/exit/wheelie bin for days. They even have a little grow-tunnel thing going on in the car park, as if they're trying to harvest fresh coppers without the cost of actual recruitment.

Is there a credible reason why the conference of a non-governing political party should receive such special treatment?

Me, here, over a year ago

The coming "spending cuts" are being described - even by the government itself - gives people the idea that public sector departments are suddenly going to have 25% less money to spend - since that's what it would mean to a person if they received a 25% pay cut.

But of course it means no such thing. In fact public sector budgets will increase every year for the next 5 years, it's just that this will have (after accounting for inflation) about 2-5 % less buying power each year. The point is not that there aren't real terms cuts, but that the language being used to describe them makes them sound far worse than they are.

Are you catching on? [b]There'll be no "cuts". There never are[/b]! The government are talking it up to try to reassure the markets and shore up the pound, but they'll never have the guts to take on the massive and long term restructuring of the public sector that is needed.

"Cuts" are now being defined as any failure to adopt large budget increases. And it seems a proper English usage has disappeared - If your salary in 2006 were £20,000 p.a., and your salary in 2010 were £20,000 p.a., would you say that your salary had been "cut"? Of course not, or, rather, you might say that, but you would be talking more nonsense. IF there had been inflation over that period, your purchasing power would have been cut, but not your salary.

total public sector spending, even in real terms, was just 0.43 per cent lower than last year – and still 3.9 per cent higher, in real terms, than in Labour’s final full year in power (2009).

excellent. good to know it's all been a massive success then. hooray for our glorious leaders!