Gordon Brown has mentioned the C word....at last.

[flip_flop]

Why did it take him so long?

What should be cut first?

[B00]

His genitals?

And that wasn't the C word I was thinking of.

[jake-the-peg]

Silly schoolyard game

Say Ptarmigan
why?
say it?
why? what's the point?
you can't can you?
Yes of course?
go on say it then!
OK Ptarmigan
Why did it take you so long to say it - loser!

Very childish.

It's not what cuts it's when.

Cuts mean job losses - more on the dole. They mean buying less from companies.

The Tories want these now while we're still just climbing out of recession

Does that sound a good idea to you?

It doesn't sound a good idea to me!

[Sandy-Wroe]

I haven't heard any mention of cuts for the city fat-cats who are still getting massive bonuses. It's just about a year ago that their greed almost toppled the world economy into meltdown.
Cuts affect the services that working people depend on to make their lives tolerable. Brown or Cameron will do the cutting and we'll suffer the consequences.

[flip_flop]

Despite your rhetoric Jake, we all know that cuts are necessary and will happen.

I'm interested in which of our public services/public payroll should be looked at first.

I'd go for local government.

[jake-the-peg]

There were restrictions on bonues for the banks that the Government bailed out - that's one reason why a nuber of them tried to avoid Government money like it was Radioactive.

Barclays did a deal with the Saudi's I think and HSBC managed to scrape by without.

Now of course the news is full of fat bonuses and are blurring who and what hoping you'll just assume that everyone took the handouts

[jake-the-peg]

We do all know this

But you haven't addressed the key point

When?

Do you want lots of redundencies now?

When the economy is still down few jobs about and they'll go straight onto the dole? when the local businesses that do council work are still struggling?

You want to do that now?

[grannie39]

Gordon Brown is the 'C,' word read that as you wish

[jake-the-peg]

Of course there are some spending plans that can safely by implemented now.

Particularly things like the Trident refurbishment this has been a white elephant for the last 10 years.

Renewal of it will cost £15-20 billion at the government's own estimation at £1.5 billion a year to run

How many local government managers will you need to sack to save that sort of money?

[buildersmate]

Try Trident replacement (and ID scheme) should be cut. But these are mere chickenfeed compared to the total amount of Government expenditure needed to be saved, Jake. Trident replacement only saves the capital cost of paying the US corporates who make the system - running costs are largely employment of civil servants and contractors in the UK - some of the very same people whose costs currently pay for the slightly smaller cost of maintaining current Trident.
The real reason why Tories are arguing for cuts now is because they expect to win the next election, it's gonna have to be done by someone, and the sooner it's started the better. Pathetic Labour are merely delaying for the reverse of the same logic - it'll kill off any chance they have of winning an election.

[Sqad]

jake.....Government borrowing for next year may well have to be between £75billion---£100billion depending upon who you believe.

The interest at least will cause for a rise in taxes of £25billion.

Raising taxes on the "rich" aborting Trident and " hammering" the Bankers is small potatoes and the way to get increase taxes on the middle classes. No party wants to do that before an election.

That only leaves cuts in public spending. The Conservatives have given only scattered information on that topic and Labour tells us that they are not going to cut costs in NHS, Schools or public services.

So where do we stand? Cuts will have to be made, but when?......Now says the Conservatives, when we are out of recession says Labour.

I do not know the answer to that, but Labour has one big advantage......they can say whatever they like as it is extremely likely that they will not be in power to implement it.

[anotheoldgit]

Nobody has suggested the obvious:

Cut the number of MPs!!!!!

[Sqad]

AOG....when you have to find at least£75 billion a year.....reducing the number of MP's MIGHT bring you in £1million..............long way to go AOG

[jake-the-peg]

Since when is £20 billion chicken feed?

Look everybody knows there will have to be cuts. It's very likely that substantially the same cuts will be made whoever is in power.

What differentiates the parties is when.

Dodging the question by saying "I don't know when" is therefore like saying I don't know which party to vote for.

So let's here the right wing support Ozzy explain to me in simple words that a poor benighted left-wing liberal would understand why making drastic cuts now will not throw thousands more into unemployment, shut down struggling small businesses and consequently drop tax take and increase the welfare bill.

Or of course you could always back Brown and Darling over Cameron and the Ostrich on this one issue

[Sqad]

"Dodging the question by saying "I don't know when" is therefore like saying I don't know which party to vote for."

That is totally illogical jake and you know it. There are many reasons as to why one would vote for a particular party.

[Dodger666]

Benjamin Franklin in 1789 "'In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes."

What is now certain is we shall be having cuts in public spending, both at National & Local level, but we taxpayers shall be paying much more for the privilege.

This country has been sold down the river. The millions that died in WWI & WWII must be turning in their graves wondering what it was all for.

[rov1200]

Even if by some miracle we can erase those bankers bailouts the problems piling up in government benefit handouts will not go away. How can a person earning £50,000 a year be entitled to the new child benefits which they do? How can the country have 8 million unemployed and yet we are still admitting immigrants to take their jobs, which they do? How can we set up all these regional assemblies but still employ the same numbers of MPs as before?

Therefore the long term solution is
to cut benefits
to cut non European immigration to zero
to cut the number of MPs
to pull our troops out of Afghanistan
to cancel Trident and warships.

And to remove all the politicians who have got us into this mess. We could subcontract the work out to German financial experts. The only way we got a decent English football team by employing an Italian one.