"we're all in this together"

[bunique]

No local authority even knows what it's budget will be for next year - it'll be end of December at the earliest and possibly as late as February. Ours are preparing 6 different scenarios depending on how deep they need to cut and we've been warned to expect potentially even worse. The cuts will decimate local services, especially for children, as well as royally f**king over the local economy where something like 40-60% of jobs are reliant on the public sector. And all the cuts need to come in year 1 in order to start saving money, so there's no potential to phase out the services, leaving vulnerable people high and dry. You'll struggle to find a good word said about the Tories in our offices!

[grumpyhack]

I appreciate that everyone can make a case for protecting their sector/area of work but I work in adult and community education and surely if we are going to regenerate the economy we need to be investing in training and re-training and upskilling the population not cutting back.

[5co77ie]

With 10 days until Christmas the Devon cuts have been announced, they're double what was projected, with 1700 workers to go in Devon County Council (of which 800 have already been pushed out) mainly in green futures and technology (about the only industris Devon could get into other than tourism), and child/youth services, unemployment in Devon and Cornwall is still rising much faster than the national average.

Dave Hartnett's Vodafone deal let them off their £6bn tax bill, and the banks continue to shell out bonuses. The dismantling of the NHS and Council services have begun.

Edited December 15, 2010 by 5co77ie

[llcoolphil]

With 10 days until Christmas the Devon cuts have been announced, they're double what was projected, with 1700 workers to go in Devon County Council (of which 800 have already been pushed out) mainly in green futures and technology (about the only industris Devon could get into other than tourism), and child/youth services, unemployment in Devon and Cornwall is still rising much faster than the national average.

Dave Hartnett's Vodafone deal let them off their £6bn tax bill, and the banks continue to shell out bonuses. The dismantling of the NHS and Council services have begun.

[eFestivals]

They've gone for shock and awe announcement tactics this week with Council, Police and NHS budgets announced. Ive not seen all the detail yet but the idea that they are going to make efficiency savings in the NHS every year for the next four years at a level greater than has ever been achieved in a single year is preposterous.

And they said they would protect NHS spending.

And they said "we're all in this together" - yet students are being hit far harder than anything else.

And they said that everything would be 'fair'.

And they said that these ideas are 'progressive'.

And they said that all these things will be taken on by the new 'Big Society'.

That's yet to be seen, but I suspect that the 'Big Society' will be the hi-jacking of services by self-interested bigots who will work to their own agenda and not to their community's.

Edited December 15, 2010 by eFestivals

[bunique]

Just been reading the local news and it seems the budget cuts are so severe in Stoke that all the savings proposals will need to be implemented - so that's 700 local authority jobs (in an area where 40% rely on the public sector for employment) and an absolute hack into services. Saw an interesting stat on the % of hardest hit councils which are Tory/Labour/LD but trying to find an alternative source.

So depressing

[Kizzie]

Just had 'the' email in our authority a few minutes ago. We will have to save an extra 6 million on top of the 13 million previously identified.

Specific grants reduction is likely to be 25 million with a further 10 million reduction in 2012/13.

We have been warned that it is going to be significantly more challenging than previously envisaged.....

Edited December 15, 2010 by Kizzie

[sifi]

So the VAT increase is likely to stay, but the 50% tax bracket for top earners is going to scrapped. So says Moron.

What a bunch of utter c**ts. I wonder how lib dem supporters feel about this one? I mean the whole argument that they are stopping the Tories from doing what they want looks more and more facile with each passing day.

Edited January 9, 2011 by sifi

[gratedenini]

So the VAT increase is likely to stay, but the 50% tax bracket for top earners is going to scrapped. So says Moron.

What a bunch of utter c**ts. I wonder how lib dem supporters feel about this one? I mean the whole argument that they are stopping the Tories from doing what they want looks more and more facile with each passing day.

[lost]

its probably to bring us more inline with the rest of Europe. I think only Cyprus had a lower VAT rate than our 17.5% whilst our top tax rate is one of the highest and only beaten by Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark. Shit though haven't been in a pub since the VAT rise and was already paying £3 a pint.

[Steve P]

So the VAT increase is likely to stay, but the 50% tax bracket for top earners is going to scrapped. So says Moron.

What a bunch of utter c**ts. I wonder how lib dem supporters feel about this one? I mean the whole argument that they are stopping the Tories from doing what they want looks more and more facile with each passing day.

[5co77ie]

They want to drop the minimum wage to £2.50 for new employees as a 'training wage'

make it easier for small firms to fire staff by doubling the period before you can claim unfair dismissal

and offer first time workers a quicker path to becoming supermarket shelf stackers.

[dakyras]

They want to drop the minimum wage to £2.50 for new employees as a 'training wage'

make it easier for small firms to fire staff by doubling the period before you can claim unfair dismissal

and offer first time workers a quicker path to becoming supermarket shelf stackers.

[beLIEveR]

Well said. It appears to be a piecemeal approach towards it. But if anyone other than an MP directly accuses one or more named individuals of wanting to reintroduce slavery, they would be thrown in prison.

[sifi]

its probably to bring us more inline with the rest of Europe. I think only Cyprus had a lower VAT rate than our 17.5% whilst our top tax rate is one of the highest and only beaten by Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.

[dakyras]

That's irrelevant, really, unless it's taken in context of other variables.

What certainly isn't irrelevant is the fact that the OECD says we have one of the highest gaps between rich and poor in the developed world.

[Purple Monkey]

This thread makes me want to kill myself. I need to get out of this shithole.

[sifi]

So we were making good progress. Until the Tories managed to get themselves re-elected again.

c**ts!

[eFestivals]

However, since 2000, income inequality and poverty has fallen faster than any other OECD nation.

Are you sure?

Just about everything I've seen has said the precise opposite - that the attempts at reducing poverty have failed and that the instances of poverty in the UK have increased, and that wage inequality has increased.

I don't see how what you say here can hold true - after all, it's not your average shop, factory or office worker who have been getting 10%+ yearly rises, while the bosses of FTSE250 companies (and even the bosses at local authorities) very definitely have.

[dakyras]

Are you sure?

Just about everything I've seen has said the precise opposite - that the attempts at reducing poverty have failed and that the instances of poverty in the UK have increased, and that wage inequality has increased.

I don't see how what you say here can hold true - after all, it's not your average shop, factory or office worker who have been getting 10%+ yearly rises, while the bosses of FTSE250 companies (and even the bosses at local authorities) very definitely have.

Edited January 10, 2011 by dakyras

[eFestivals]

I'm not sure; the OECD is.

Here is a factual report I have provided to back up my argument. Please try to do the same:

Link

Oh, what you actually mean is that they were. It's not very current, and things have gone the other way since.

A wage gap is not the same as income inequality.

True. As that details, having those on the very shit wages moving to not quite as shit wages isn't really much of an improvement with anything of much meaning. Still being screwed over is exactly that.

But how did that improvement happen anyway? Via the introduction of the NMW, that the tories think is a bad thing. So what happens from here? It doesn't take much guessing.

[sifi]

Six months ago, I would have said there was no way that the Tories would cut the minimum wage.

Today - it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. I can imagine their arguments already - it will stimulate economic growth, etc etc.

I'd forgotten how rotten they are. Not so much to rich people, but the way that they put companies above people.

Because people tend to forget that it's rich people who own the companies ...

[eFestivals]

Six months ago, I would have said there was no way that the Tories would cut the minimum wage.

Today - it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest. I can imagine their arguments already - it will stimulate economic growth, etc etc.

I'd forgotten how rotten they are. Not so much to rich people, but the way that they put companies above people.

Because people tend to forget that it's rich people who own the companies ...

Yep - it shouldn't be forgotten that amongst all the cuts to everything, they still somehow managed to find the money to give companies a corporation tax cut.

And while Slimy Gideon likes to bang on about having introduced a bank levy, what he 'forgets' to mention is that as a result of that corporation tax cut, the banks will actually be paying less in tax after the introduction of that levy than they were paying when they ruined this country.

Meanwhile, Dave Moron has said that the VAT rise is permanent, but that he wants to reduce the 50% top tax rate as soon as possible - because those earning over £150k a year are obviously in need of a tax cut while those earning minimum wage deserve to lose a greater chunk of their pay via the VAT they pay on their purchases.

Yeah, we're all in this together.

[hot_ice]

I know this is slighly off the general theme but thought it was a great insight into Michael Gove,

The caller (imo was clear in his answers to mr gove,who just sought to twist his words) was spot on with what he was saying, for me it sums up just what the tories are like, Give the big speech saying that teachers, councils etc have the freedom to do what they want, but they then use centralised targets/league tables to force (in this example teachers)to follow the core subjects

thought it made good listening,

My link

Edited January 13, 2011 by hot_ice

[lharris92]

remember VAT is a progressive tax, according to our good chancellor George Osbourne