Birmingham bankrupt

[threespires]

Anyway, remembering the thread topic: which is the worse risk for Birmingham? Nuclear devastation if we don't have nuclear weapons, or routine Tory devastation from not having the local services we need?

We look up to the skies and feel thankful that the missiles are protecting us; trouble is, as our gaze is averted, our own government has got out the carving knife and is busily stabbing us in the back a thousand times over. (Or maybe a better way of looking at it is that they're busily trying to cut out our vital organs for resale).

 

[BobKowalski]

Ah, unlimited funding, I wish that I was smart enough to think of that. People don't have unlimited pockets though, and who do you think will be the worst hit, as a percentage of their disposable income, would be ?

It's easy to spend tax cash, particularly when you face no repercussions, or won't accept any responsibilities !

Christ, this is so dumb. You whine when they go bankrupt or don’t maintain school buildings and then whine when someone suggests we fund these things properly, given that by failing to do so they cost more in the long run.

Is this a concept you find hard to grasp?

 

[Ghandi's Flip Flops]

Ultimately, the country is in a huge financial mess. This won’t be the last council to fall given the lack of funding and lack of investment over a large period of time.

How else can we create a large fund to pay for the services, education etc that need hundreds of billions of pounds of investment?

My way is binning trident and HS2.

What would yours be?

My probably naive view of the UK is that the 'essentials' like Education, Transport, Health, Public services (police, fire, prisons etc), Utilities, Defence etc should be under government control & financing. Everything else open to the market.

Trident & HS2 I wouldn't scrap, as I consider them an area for highly skilled, high paid jobs needed in the UK. Main issues I see with them is mismanagement, wastage and a focus on company profits.

 

[Vic]

If you'd had a listen to Jeremy Vine earlier you'd have heard the Labour MP for Edgbaston saying that it was complete financial incompetence, and mismanagement on the council's side. Interesting to find that Unison think the same.

A councillor from the local (enemy, just for you) Tory group then expanded the story. That this is the second ruling against them, and not from the original court decisions. Despite warnings that this exact thing would happen they apparently created a new pay scale for the bin people in 2017 to deal with a strike. They opened themselves to further equality claims, all brought on by themselves, and their short term thinking.

Bad decisions in Birmingham may be one aspect of this. But desperation to balance the books is not necessarily the most conducive way to good decisions.

Tory Northants County Council went bust twice, before it was abolished.

And cuts fell more heavily on more disadvantaged local authorities. The most deprived local authorities experienced the largest falls in spending power between 2010/11 and 2019/20. This was because of the way that central government allocated funding cuts. Grant funding was cut by a uniform percentage across all local authorities in the first half of the 2010s, but because grant funding made up a greater proportion of more deprived local authorities’ funding, this approach meant that their spending power fell by more.

 

[MouldensChippy]

Christ, this is so dumb. You whine when they go bankrupt or don’t maintain school buildings and then whine when someone suggests we fund these things properly, given that by failing to do so they cost more in the long run.

Is this a concept you find hard to grasp?

Except that we are talking about Birmingham pissing three quarters of a billion (rising everyday) of taxpayers cash after being warned that what they were doing would open them to exactly what has happened. How do you cure stupid at that level ?

I know, give them even more to waste.

Like Thurrock Council borrowing half a billion to invest in a solar farm scheme with a single business man. Did they ask the constituents about borrowing that in their name. What business or experience does any council have blowing cash like this ?

I know, the whole country will cough up, because it's so easy to spend other people's tax money.

 

[MouldensChippy]

Bad decisions in Birmingham may be one aspect of this. But desperation to balance the books is not necessarily the most conducive way to good decisions.

Tory Northants County Council went bust twice, before it was abolished.

And cuts fell more heavily on more disadvantaged local authorities. The most deprived local authorities experienced the largest falls in spending power between 2010/11 and 2019/20. This was because of the way that central government allocated funding cuts. Grant funding was cut by a uniform percentage across all local authorities in the first half of the 2010s, but because grant funding made up a greater proportion of more deprived local authorities’ funding, this approach meant that their spending power fell by more.

And yet most of them still pay their executives more than the country pay a prime minister (of any party) !

That'll be them looking after their constituents :-o

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

My probably naive view of the UK is that the 'essentials' like Education, Transport, Health, Public services (police, fire, prisons etc), Utilities, Defence etc should be under government control & financing. Everything else open to the market.

Trident & HS2 I wouldn't scrap, as I consider them an area for highly skilled, high paid jobs needed in the UK. Main issues I see with them is mismanagement, wastage and a focus on company profits.

So, where do we get the funding from.

 

[Ghandi's Flip Flops]

If that's a good way to spend £100bn, why wasn't it a good way to spend £100bn on council services over the last 13 years? (A rough estimate of the loss of government grants to councils.)

Maybe because in the long run you create a situation where you have people in decent paid jobs, more future opportunities and less likely needing/ using public services.

Remove these jobs to plug a gap in council services budget, then you also add more need for said council services. Over time you'll get diminishing returns.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

MAD is a thing.
We need to maintain an independent nuclear deterrent.
You can argue what shape that should take or how much money we should be spending on it but we cannot disarm ourselves.
It leaves us open to the leverage of friends and foes alike.

Ive posted this before (god only knows why this is in the Birmingham Council goes broke thread)

 

[Ghandi's Flip Flops]

So, where do we get the funding from.

Hmm, the million dollar question.
There's some things I'd look at, but don't know if they'd be viable longterm. And this thread probably isn't the one to go in depth about them.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Hmm, the million dollar question.
There's some things I'd look at, but don't know if they'd be viable longterm. And this thread probably isn't the one to go in depth about them.

Fair enough. It is pertinent to this, and most other political threads, though as all parts of the uk have been underfunded for over a decade now.

 

[domalino]

Ive posted this before (god only knows why this is in the Birmingham Council goes broke thread)

View attachment 92701

You cannot treat decision making as discrete events. Whether we would retaliate is not actually a seperate question to "Is the enemy made enough to use his nukes" because our answer feeds back into their deicison - even their madness (it's not mad to use something if it's not suicidal).

I think the game theory behind MAD and rational deterrence has been pretty comprehensively explored both theoretically and practically over the last 70 years and it's shown to work.

 

[Ifwecouldjust.......]

You cannot treat decision making as discrete events. Whether we would retaliate is not actually a seperate question to "Is the enemy made enough to use his nukes" because our answer feeds back into their deicison - even their madness (it's not mad to use something if it's not suicidal).

I think the game theory behind MAD and rational deterrence has been pretty comprehensively explored both theoretically and practically over the last 70 years and it's shown to work.

Makes you wonder how the Swiss (and many many others ) have managed without it then

 

[domalino]

Makes you wonder how the Swiss (and many many others ) have managed without it then

I think we've seen how the Swiss manage it, and that's by bending over backwards and generally debasing themselves in order to not upset the like of Putin.

Most countries manage by joining alliances like NATO and the EU that let them shelter under the protection of British, French and US nuclear weapons. Why cant' we be like them? Well I supposed we could, but then look at Trumps' plans to leave NATO. If we get rid of our nuclear weapons and that happened, all of Europe would be relying on France's nuclear weapons to shield us, and that's a very fraught position to be in.

 

[Vic]

Ive posted this before (god only knows why this is in the Birmingham Council goes broke thread)

View attachment 92701

My favourite Trident quote is still Field Marshall Lord Carver - "What the bloody hell is it for?"

And the more general observation, "I look forward to the day when we fund schools properly and hold a jumble sale to buy weapons".

 

[BobKowalski]

Except that we are talking about Birmingham pissing three quarters of a billion (rising everyday) of taxpayers cash after being warned that what they were doing would open them to exactly what has happened. How do you cure stupid at that level ?

I know, give them even more to waste.

Like Thurrock Council borrowing half a billion to invest in a solar farm scheme with a single business man. Did they ask the constituents about borrowing that in their name. What business or experience does any council have blowing cash like this ?

I know, the whole country will cough up, because it's so easy to spend other people's tax money.

Yes, the country - ie National Govt, will ultimately cough up, because there is no alternative.

The Nat Govt coughed up a few years back to save Surrey council. The Nat Govt will be coughing up a lot more in the future because, and to paraphrase David Cameron, we didn’t invest in the public sector during the years of cheap money and now it will cost a lot more to rectify the problems we ignored.

Even worse, we didn’t invest because of an ideological pursuit of a ‘smaller state’. Political dogma over pragmatism and economic good sense.

Birmingham, or whoever, fucking up a specific issue is just a sorry postscript to a decade long tale of political malpractice. And that is putting it kindly.

You can keep ranting about spending ‘tax payers money’ if it makes you feel better, but it ain’t solving shit.

 

[MouldensChippy]

Yes, the country - ie National Govt, will ultimately cough up, because there is no alternative.

The Nat Govt coughed up a few years back to save Surrey council. The Nat Govt will be coughing up a lot more in the future because, and to paraphrase David Cameron, we didn’t invest in the public sector during the years of cheap money and now it will cost a lot more to rectify the problems we ignored.

Even worse, we didn’t invest because of an ideological pursuit of a ‘smaller state’. Political dogma over pragmatism and economic good sense.

Birmingham, or whoever, fucking up a specific issue is just a sorry postscript to a decade long tale of political malpractice. And that is putting it kindly.

You can keep ranting about spending ‘tax payers money’ if it makes you feel better, but it ain’t solving shit.

So, you are saying that the tax burden isn't high enough, and that you would happily pay more to be squandered.

You'll find that other councils have had to cover their own malfeasance by raising council taxes by large percentages, but no doubt you'd be happy to pay that.

Mr blank cheque, perhaps you should apply to be an executive at your own local council !

 

[johnnytapia]

Bad decisions in Birmingham may be one aspect of this. But desperation to balance the books is not necessarily the most conducive way to good decisions.

Tory Northants County Council went bust twice, before it was abolished.

And cuts fell more heavily on more disadvantaged local authorities. The most deprived local authorities experienced the largest falls in spending power between 2010/11 and 2019/20. This was because of the way that central government allocated funding cuts. Grant funding was cut by a uniform percentage across all local authorities in the first half of the 2010s, but because grant funding made up a greater proportion of more deprived local authorities’ funding, this approach meant that their spending power fell by more.

I thought only Babs Windsor went bust twice.

 

[Mr Kobayashi]

So, you are saying that the tax burden isn't high enough, and that you would happily pay more to be squandered.

You'll find that other councils have had to cover their own malfeasance by raising council taxes by large percentages, but no doubt you'd be happy to pay that.

Mr blank cheque, perhaps you should apply to be an executive at your own local council !

 

[johnnytapia]

I blame @gordondaviesmoustache and his eye-watering expense claims when he worked the Birmingham Court scene.
“£8.50 again on Tippex?”
“It’s not easy being the Clerk and knowing where to put all these apostrophe’s.”
“Claim accepted.”