The Biggest Political Gamble Ever

[fbloke]

The current coalition government are in the midst of the biggest party political gamble ever.

The continued push for cash savings ahead of almost all other considerations are no obviously based more on ideology than on economic sense, but there is going to be a rather big sting in the tail if they lose the gamble.

I am not talking about students here or others who are financially affected such as the disabled or the jobless.

But I am talking about all of us who rely on the state to remain healthy and safe.

Today we hear that they are closing coastguard stations, we have already heard they are slimming down and privatising the search and rescue services. The police are facing big cutbacks and the NHS.

The list is of course a lot longer and it is now getting close to being considered too much even by some Tories.

The Lib Debs of course are destined to pull out of the coalition and I can tell you when that will happen.

There will be a time in the next few months where, sadly a life will be lost (or many lives) that can be directly attributed to the political cost cutting of the present government.

When (and thats not and if by the way) that happens the political vandals will not gain support from any public sector employee, in fact they will be lining up to say 'I told them this would happen'.

At that point the political ideologists will have to answer to the public and may see the death of their party at the ballot box at the next election.

But before that happens there is also a chance that some of the current government will face criminal charges if it is proved that they went against the advice of others and limited services/cover/manpower that has until recently kept us all safe.

Remember that we all have a duty of care and not even parliamentary privilege will save some of these MP's when someone loses their life because of the decisions they have made.

It is the primary role of the UK government to maintain the safety and security of the UK and its citizens both home and abroad.

And we will all remember that you Tory wankers and you too Lib Dem slime balls.

 

[Blue Smarties]

The students started it, the people followed.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

The trouble with spending your way out of a recession is that the bills still have to be paid at some time but there is a rationale for doing it when the economy is stronger, using revenues from growth and increased tax take. Cuts will certainly reduce the deficit but the danger is that the economy will stagnate.

But most independent commentators believe that the state is too expensive these days, driven by Brown spending every penny and more when times were good with no thought for when they weren't going to be so good. I'm sure there's an element of ideology and I wish the chancellor was someone other than Osborne but the big story in London today is Newham Council (which is one of the poorest boroughs in Britain) spending £111m on a new HQ.

All organisations can cut costs. I used to work for one of the big consultancies and once worked on a big cost reduction project at a financial services firm. They were putting together proposals for cost cuts of 5, 10 & 15 percent. One look at the organisation was enough to see that 5% wouldn't even be noticed, 10% would have little impact and 15% might cause a little pain in some areas. We said that, if they were serious, they should be looking at how they would manage on a 30% lower cost base as that would really force them to think about how to run their business differently and make a step change in efficiency, rather than just carrying on as they were and cutting a bit here and there.

The public sector has just grown and grown, without any thought of how to optimise service delivery or be forced to make strategic choices and I'd be amazed if we couldn't knock 30% off their budget. If this exercise is done in the right way then slicker, better-targeted public services will be the outcome but more likely they will make headline grabbing job cuts and whine that they can't deliver the services they would like, while still employing an army of cultural diversity and equal opportunities consultants.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm an ex-shop steward / anti-tory activist and I'd love to join you in the knocking game but I can't because you fail to recognise that the blair/brown new (right wing) labour government put us in such debt that we either dig deep and deal with it or face collapse like Ireland, Italy, Greece, Potugal.
Labour should have started the cuts while in power but didn't because they new they'd get slaughtered in the election - this means that we now have additional debt to deal with . . thank you gordon.
We haven't actually had any serious cuts as yet - just talk about them but it will be devastating when it comes and we all need to accept that hurt.

The fact is that we do need to make the cost cuts that the tory/libs are putting in place. . my argunment is that the unavoidable cuts should be focussed on defence not education etc. The problem is that the student protestors are so tyhick that they haven't put across the 'eduction not bombs' message and they look like a bunch of whingers in the press. Ergo; little support and the only effect they'll achieve is to give the rozzers some baton practice and lose the small support they have presently.

The gist of our problem is that we're so firmly wedged up the arse of the americans that we're willing to cut education and public service jobs as a choice over cutting nuclear weapons and military hardware. We continue in our illegal wars on 3rd world countries and we have the highest taxation of any developed nation to pay for it.

Crap huh?

 

[metalblue]

coast guards are more about immigration and drugs, the lifeboat crews do the rescue work

 

[Fame Monster]

I honestly believe that this Coalition government will indirectly improve this country - by making themselves unelectable.

Let's have it right, Brown's government was awful; one of the worst in post-war Britain. The opportunities missed after the collapse of the banks was staggering. That's not mentioning an infuriating reluctance to even discuss immigration, welfare reform etc. Anyone who voted for them did so to keep the Tories out. The positives of such calamity, however, arrive from the fact that Gordon Brown is long gone as well as the increasingly right-wing New Labour.


After it's revealed that the Bullingdon chaps are destroying the welfare state for ideological purposes, the shit will hit the fan. The Lib Dems will renege on another agreement, and the Coalition will cease to be. The only electable party will be (I hope) a back-to-it's-roots Labour government - where a refreshing change from the Tory motto of 'privatise everything' will bring them to power.

 

[talkativesprout]

I'm an ex-shop steward / anti-tory activist and I'd love to join you in the knocking game but I can't because you fail to recognise that the blair/brown new (right wing) labour government put us in such debt that we either dig deep and deal with it or face collapse like Ireland, Italy, Greece, Potugal.
Labour should have started the cuts while in power but didn't because they new they'd get slaughtered in the election - this means that we now have additional debt to deal with . . thank you gordon.
We haven't actually had any serious cuts as yet - just talk about them but it will be devastating when it comes and we all need to accept that hurt.

The fact is that we do need to make the cost cuts that the tory/libs are putting in place. . my argunment is that the unavoidable cuts should be focussed on defence not education etc. The problem is that the student protestors are so tyhick that they haven't put across the 'eduction not bombs' message and they look like a bunch of whingers in the press. Ergo; little support and the only effect they'll achieve is to give the rozzers some baton practice and lose the small support they have presently.

The gist of our problem is that we're so firmly wedged up the arse of the americans that we're willing to cut education and public service jobs as a choice over cutting nuclear weapons and military hardware. We continue in our illegal wars on 3rd world countries and we have the highest taxation of any developed nation to pay for it.

Crap huh?

Dont be so hasty comrade,
i seem to remember the great recession of the eighties in which a tory government floated all its assets to the private sector to releive the debts, that seems like a short term fix, since then the government lost the revenue these companies brought in year on year. I dont know a great deal about economics so if im talking bullshit forgive me

 

[Anonymous]

Timesprout; I was on the picket lines and attended the demo's during the miners strikes (still hate thatcher tothis day) but that was then and our present problem is that we're not just skint as a nation but extremely deep in debt to the point that those few in work are forced to support a massive number of people who are either out of work / unable to work or in jobs that don't actually produce anything that could bring benefit to our trade deficite.
The only thing we can do to ease the situation is to finally accept that we're not an empire anymore and shouldn't spend so much on guns and bombs to kill poor people on the far side of the planet (not to say that the working class ever took benefit from the empire - 6 year old kids were dying down mines at the height of our world power!).
Fact 1; is that we were put into american debt so as to bring them into the 2nd world war and they've controlled our governments ever since - they even have military bases in OUR country . . and only defeated countries put up with foreign power on their soil.
Fact 2; The 2nd world war was (despite adverse publicity) fought between Russia & Germany while we and our yank saviours fought a minor side show - Russia lost over 21 million lives on the Russian front alone while Britain, America, Canada, Australia and all our allies lost circa 0.9 million lives between them. Yet our debts to america forced us to support them in a cold war against the same Russians that gave so much to defeat hitler.
Fact 3; our largest expenditure of choice is the cost of the weapons we use to kill poor people so that we can steal their resources off them . . and it kills our brave soldiers, breeds hate & terrorism and certainly doesn't make the world a better place . . mr blair.
As context; circa 3,000 americans (muslim and christian) died on 9/11. 180,000 men women and children died on the first night of the illegal invasion of iraq (and over a million in due course) but iraq had nish to do with 9/11 - just lots of oil that the yanks are still pumping out to prop up the american economy. It's murder and theft on a grand scale and we're paying for it - that's the problem

 

[col87]

I'm an ex-shop steward / anti-tory activist and I'd love to join you in the knocking game but I can't because you fail to recognise that the blair/brown new (right wing) labour government put us in such debt that we either dig deep and deal with it or face collapse like Ireland, Italy, Greece, Potugal.
Labour should have started the cuts while in power but didn't because they new they'd get slaughtered in the election - this means that we now have additional debt to deal with . . thank you gordon.
We haven't actually had any serious cuts as yet - just talk about them but it will be devastating when it comes and we all need to accept that hurt.

The fact is that we do need to make the cost cuts that the tory/libs are putting in place. . my argunment is that the unavoidable cuts should be focussed on defence not education etc. The problem is that the student protestors are so tyhick that they haven't put across the 'eduction not bombs' message and they look like a bunch of whingers in the press. Ergo; little support and the only effect they'll achieve is to give the rozzers some baton practice and lose the small support they have presently.

The gist of our problem is that we're so firmly wedged up the arse of the americans that we're willing to cut education and public service jobs as a choice over cutting nuclear weapons and military hardware. We continue in our illegal wars on 3rd world countries and we have the highest taxation of any developed nation to pay for it.

Crap huh?

Ok so let me make sure i've got this right! At a time when iran is on the verge of nucleur weapons and numerous other countries are spoiling for a fight you
want us to further cut a defence budget that already sees our soldiers under geared, and our navy without any aircraft for the next ten years after the harrier was put in to early retirement yesterday, all so students can carry on studying photography for a few quid!


IMO the best way to cut costs would be to stop people going to uni to take pointless courses that are no use to anyone! Hey presto fewer courses to fund, more people in work (paying taxes etc)!

 

[Balti]

yes lets all pretend that labour didn't cause this mess in the first place