Comprehensive (but totally ignorant) Spending Review

George Osborne announced the Comprehensive Spending Review yesterday, on top of earlier cuts.

So yesterday, at 12:30 on the dot, began the most devastating cuts (when added to the previous announced cuts) in post-war times. Not since the 1930's have cuts of this scale been made, the devastating results of which will become abundantly clear soon enough.

This 'slash and burn' approach is not the way to run a government. I was under the (perhaps false) impression that our government exists to represent the people and facilitate the needs of the nation by providing services and funding to it's people. It's a brief description, yes, but the no matter how you phrase it, the principal stays the same; Our government is supposed to help, and not hinder, the people both collectively AND individually. It's wrong then, in this view, to simply destroy the lives and livelihoods of individuals and families for 'the greater good'. I'd go as far as to say that there is no circumstance where 'the greater good' can be fully justified. Then again, I'm a leftist, so I would say that. In this case though, the greater good is the idea that if unemployment has to exceed 10% for a few years to reduce the deficit, then so be it.
I already made a brief point in my last post about the national debt and the deficit, and I while do agree that some cuts do need to be implemented to reduce the deficit and eventually get rid of it (over a period of time) I do not think this should be at the cost of millions of people's lives.

£7 billion was slashed from welfare, making it a total of £18 billion from welfare since they entered office on the fateful day of the formation of the coalition, the selling of the Liberal soul. That's not even melodrama. When you promise to cut tuition fees, and raise the support of hundreds of thousands of students up and down the country, then go ahead and double it and in some cases triple it, then actually - thatcounts as selling your soul to the Tory devil.
You can't scale back the welfare state to this degree, then cut 490,000 public sector jobs. You cut from one angle or the other. This pincer motion will result in mass unemployment, mass homelessness and mass general unrest up and down the United Kingdom.

Let me spell it out. Public sector workers already took a pay cut in the form of a pay freeze (inflation devaluing their pay means essentially they're taking a cut in real terms) cutting money to pension schemes whilst the pension age rises (probably up to 70 by the time I'm ready to retire, grim future) and then slashing 490,000 public sector workers, means something, yes something, WILL HAPPEN IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR TOO. Think of all the areas in the private sector that rely, in some way or another, on the public sector. If you're cutting 490,000 public sector workers, then maybe 300,000 (or possibly a lot more) will be cut in the private sector. The cuts made to other departments will result in similar knock on effects, like the department which handles housing, the housing budget has been slashed by over 60%... that's a huge cut!Especially in a time where theres already a housing shortage. Now, with that kind of budget cut, less houses will be built (an estimated 300,000). Less houses being built means less construction contracts and less money going to the construction industry. Which will result in job losses, numbered at around 280,000.
Add that to the expected 100,000 job losses as local councils make mass lay-offs due to funding shortages now.
That's now 1.17 million people added to the unemployment pool.

But again, we have to add to those numbers, this time with mass redundancies made in retail, financing and core industries. Supermarkets and fast food stores will cut staff without batting an eye when they notice their profit margins dropping rapidly as people now relying on state benefits (which have been slashed) find themselves scrimping and scraping (and possibly homeless). As a result of further decline in demand, core industries like steel will again find large scale redundancies, leading to yet more unemployed. The finance sector won't get by either, lack of consumer confidence and general lack of money means they'll be bitten by the cuts bug too. As tuition fees sky rocket, there'll be less young people in higher education, so that's an influx of young people jobless and with inadequate qualifications.

Now, I'm certainly no expert, but you tell me - how is this beneficial?

Comrade Cable

So I've devoted most of the text on this blog to bashing the tory party (and rightly so), but once again I find myself discussing the Liberal Democrats.

Not sure how many of you caught Vince Cable's speech today, but I was listening to it intently and he said some pretty important things giving some pretty powerful impressions. First up is that Cable placed himself to the far left of the lib-dem party, knowingly, and second is that both the lib-dem and tory leadership let him. He addressed the hall of people as 'comrades', obviously a poke of fun at his critics who cite him as being too far to the left, but what was vitally important was his very blatant criticisms of capitalism and his pointing out that currently 'competition' is only speeding up the crushing of new and small businesses, counter to right wing claims. But his solution is to correct this and make a fairer and 'more free' market, laissez faire, still a liberal economy, and hardly what Labourites and lefty lib-dems were hoping to hear, but then again, lib-dems are prepared to accept it as gospel.

I haven't fallen for it. I'd like to trust Vince Cable, heck I think he's a brilliant man and would love to see him as a labour minister, but even if this really are his own words - the fact that Dave and Gideon are happy for a major minister to blurt out policies and intentions (sometimes) counter to the official line is evidence enough that Cable is being used as a lib-dem 'leftist outlet' of sorts. It keeps enough of the further left lib-dems happy to let the con-dem's continue their work.
As ingenious as it is, it's also damaging. Damaging to the progressive liberal agenda and damaging to Labour's chances of converting leftist lib-dems.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/sep/22/vince-cable-no-marxist

Buyers Remorse

So it's the Liberal Democrat conference today (Sept. 19th), and it'll be Clegg's big task to lighten the mood, because at best, that's all he can do.
Vince Cable can put on a brave face, talk about 'necessary austerity measures', but as ex-Labour, and a man of the progressive centre-left, Cable will be cringing at every cut passed onto him from Dave and Gideon via Clegg. Lib-Dems are starting to speak out, because sure, they wanted to be in government, but they're realising that as junior partners they have less than a quarter of the power, but taking half the blame. The centrist lib-dem supporters will no doubt be praising their party, as they're not being mentioned in papers alongside the words 'failure' and 'a joke' for once. But the far left of their party (yes, apparently it does exist) are not so easily swayed by smooth talk and are beginning to question the policy of 'sell thine morals, for only good can cometh', and as a result have become the target of leadership candidates and brothers, David and Ed Miliband. David put forward his pledge to win thousands of lib-dem voters in the coming months, which may seem ambitious, but the natural trend so far has been a drifting of support, amongst the general public, away from the government, backed up by the influx of new Labour Party members in the aftermath of our election defeat (some 25,000 last I heard... which means maybe a few thousand more by now?) and the polls constantly showing increased support for the Labour party at the expense of the con-dems.

And considering the Labour Party doesn't even have a leader (although Harriet Harmen has done a fine job filling in) I can see things only getting better. I personally endorse Ed Miliband, but I'd be happy with David or Andy Burnham - all three are equally fit to lead. When the winner of the leadership election is announced on the 25th, they'll be quick to make sure any dissidents fall into line as the party unites behind them. We have no choice, if we don't unite and remain that way until the next election, then we might never recover from the defeat.
But if we can hold up our end, then chances are those floating voters will *fingers crossed* turn to Labour as a viable and proper alternative. The lack of satisfaction that many Liberal Democrats (MP's included) are feeling is leaving them with buyers remorse, which can be only to the detriment of the con-dem coalition. But you have to hand it to them, managing to stay inert and useless this long has to be some sort of record?

The Ongoing Digital Battle

 

 Continued backlash by civil rights campaign groups 38 Degrees and Open Right Group (ORG) among others towards the Condem's pressing ahead without consultation.

For many of us, the Digital Economy Bill wasn't the end. We had problems before it, and we still have problems... Only more... The bill was a victory for privatisation, big business, restriction.. And a defeat for free speech, human rights, common sense and consumers.
In the digital age it's vital that people recognise the importance of our actions and the regulations we impose because they can and will affect the future of Britain's growing digital based economy and the rights of consumers online. Internet access is quickly becoming a human right, some European countries have already declared it in law.

But what I have a problem with today is the blatant violation of consumer rights and trading standards in that most Internet Service Providers (ISP's) are able to get away with murder time and time again. Ofcom and independent watchdog's have received masses of complaints, and rightly so, as ISP's go unchecked in their deceit. Internet users are, sometimes unknowingly, ridden roughshod over by these internet 'moguls'.
File sharing, often portrayed as a terrible thing by conservative media (the kind where you wouldn't be surprised if they branded the internet as a cancer causing travesty to humanity), is used by so many people for such a range of different reasons. Consumer's aren't told about the ISP's right to tell you anything the hell they like whilst doing something totally different, for example your 'unlimited' bandwidth being capped or receiving speeds less than half of what you're paying for.
I think it's vital that we call for stronger and solid regulations on ISP's, removing these voluntary regulations' and put more control in the hands of the users. The government needs to recognise that the internet plays such a huge role in modern Britain, and the people need to recognise that if we don't act now, the government will without consent and and not necessarily in our favour.

Sit, stay, roll over, play dead!

It seems that big business has the Condems neatly wrapped up. 
I've already blogged about the despicable privatisation of education by Michael Gove, but now they've taken another step in that horrible direction in the form of Andrew Lansley's 'reforms'.

One would imagine that when the Condems talk about modernising and making things more efficient that their policies would be a little progressive and forward thinking, but no. Lansley has decided to abolish the Food Standards Agency, a watchdog set up in response to the growing concerns of consumer groups and after the BSE (mad cow disease) crisis which occurred, I should add, under Tory watch after they loosened regulations. I'm sure I don't need to go to much into the whole crisis, but some 150 have been killed by vCJD caused from eating infected meat, with a further 5 cases diagnosed every year (average). The FSA was set up to prevent anything like this happening again, and has been vital to strict regulations in regards to food. I don't think that strict regulation being imposed on the food industry is overly active government, and the FSA have battled with the food industry and helped make what we buy in supermarkets healthier, battling fast food companies and the ingredients they use.
To abolish the FSA for protecting consumers, that's everyone who eats (so, everyone) is groundless and can only been denoted to Lansley and the Condems yet again servicing big businesses and industry. Gove and Lansley have already mastered sit and stay, soon they'll learn play dead.
It worries me that this "government" (and I use that word with a pinch of salt) is managing to get away with this. They take advice from the Taxpayers Alliance, a group that has no relevance and certainly does not represent the tax payers in terms of their make up (upper middle class leadership, and can boast only several thousand members.... not exactly much in comparison to the tens of millions of actual taxpayers) and their vehemently conservative outlook, as well as media moguls like Rupert Murdoch - the Ernst Stavro Blofeld of the media. And when a regulatory body such as Ofcom challenge the relationship between the Tories and Murdoch the Tories turn around and squeeze them, threatening their very existence.
There's a big difference between pluralism and elitism.

I'm of the opinion that a government is there to serve the people, not the other way around. And removing protective watchdogs is NOT in the people's best interest. That's not a matter of opinion, it's fact, plain and simple.

Savage Cuts ignorant of regional needs

 To see the map through Tory eyes, ignore the black shaded regions.

Well, quite turbulent times we're in.
The emergency budget was announced yesterday by Gideon, and to be frank it was ignorant, smoke and mirror, damaging and ideological.

It's quickly becoming the rule of thumb that whatever Dave and Gideon tell you, believe the opposite. Apparently raising up to 20% is a fair thing to do....where as the poorest fifth of the population pay about 12% of their disposable income in VAT while the richest fifth pay about 4%.... so raising the VAT means that poorer people are paying more....that sounds fair right? I mean, after all, this is a 'progressive coalition' in Gideon's own words!

It's becoming a cliche on this blog, but.... it's just the same old Tories. Employers favoured over employees - Employers won't be paying the NI rise...however despite their earlier claim, employees will. How clever of them, only mentioning the employer so as not to draw attention to the issue.

But what worries and angers me the most is the utterly absurd claim that the load bearing for cutting the deficit will be spread evenly across the country. In the North-East 1 in 3 work in the public sector. That's a large figure, consistent with Northern Ireland and Wales. These three regions are also going to be the three to suffer most. Northern Ireland accounts for only 2% of the economy, and the North East only 3%. Cameron can encourage business all he wants, but the North East largely relies on the public sector, and is not an attractive place for investment. On top of this by throwing out Regional Development Agencies (in the North East's case - One North East) he is scrapping the very organisations that have been building and developing the private sector.
Consider this in light of the average full-time salaries in 2008:

Top three:

• London £46,462
• South East £32,819
• East £30,318

Bottom three:

• Wales £25,677
• North East £25,551
• Northern Ireland £25,550

We can see the striking difference there. When you tally up the facts; that these three regions are poorer, receive less funding, have a lower household income, suffer much higher rates of social deprivation, much more reliant on the government and public sector amongst many other things - then we can begin to see why the economic output per person is around 25% less than the UK average. Freezing public sector pay is therefore unfairly hitting the regions most dependant on public sector for jobs.


A £500 million 'super-hospital' in the North that had been in planning for 5 years and on the eve of fruition, was scrapped by Gideon, despite life expectancy and health in the north being again lower than the national average, whilst in London and the South, the wealthiest areas, two such hospitals are going ahead.



These emergency budget was aimed at striking down the poorer, and the more deprived regions. It was aimed at bolstering the private sector where the private sector flourished, and cutting the public sector where it's needed most. The budget is ignorant of regional inequality and indeed will exacerbate the problem, whilst pushing for further inequality in the distribution of wealth, tax breaks for the richer, and sly cuts in services and tax hikes for the poorer. All employers will be better off receiving tax breaks...whilst their workers are paying more and receiving less.