The cuts will slash an average of 25% from all department budgets – save for the NHS and overseas aid, which the coalition has protected – and that average figure will only be reduced if more than the target of £11bn can be cut from the welfare bill.
All affected public services now face a nervous summer awaiting the outcome of the comprehensive spending review, on 20 October, which will dictate the precise cuts in each area. The chancellor indicated that schools and military spending would be the first to be protected after the NHS and aid but that means that higher and adult education, the police and prisons are now even more in the firing line.
The amount the UK owes stands at (about) £135bn. These cuts will save a mere £11bn. I wonder where the other £124bn will be found?
The Mad Axeman
Cutting civil service jobs is one thing, but when you do away with those whose job it is to catch tax fiddlers, you're cutting your nose off to spite your face. Raising the threshold at which tax fraud is investigated is another reason why the amount of tax fiddling is at unprecedented levels in this country. By comparison, benefit fraud is small fry, but resources there haven't been cut near as much. From this I conclude that tax evasion is a respectable crime. This rot has been going on since Thatcher's time: her government shed loads of tax inspectors' jobs, people who clawed back in fiddled taxes around 5 times their salary: why would you cut such jobs? Making serious efforts to plug tax fiddling would significantly contribute to our deficit payments, but that is not part of the plan.
ReplyDeleteInstead, we have been presented with a slash and burn attack on all public services in his budget, with the exception of defence expenditure, which will be "protected". The Afghan War has cost £11 billion so far, and this year will waste another £4 billion. Renewing our Trident nuclear weapons system will cost an astronomical £70 billion, more than the total amount the government wants to cut from its budget deficit in the next five years. In fact, Trident (a relic of the Cold War) has been specifically excluded from the defence review.
It is the defence budget that should be cut, rather than public services, and our troops brought home to help end the spiral of violence in Afghanistan and end the tragic loss of British lives. Opinion polls show a lot of popular support for our armed forces, but also an unwavering (and increasing) opposition to the war. Clearly people support the troops but not the war.
Cuts are not an economic inevitability: they are an ideological choice. Politicians of all parties have been sharpening their axes to slash public spending, forcing those on lower incomes, who depend on public services the most, to pay the highest price for the recent excesses of the bankers.
There is a choice: we should ask those best able to pay to foot the bill through fairer taxation. We are not all in this together: some had more responsibility for this crisis than others, and some benefited more from the boom that preceded it. Those who enjoyed the largest benefits must pay up now. For that to happen, fair taxes, not cuts, must become the new big idea to replace today’s callous and uncaring cuts fanaticism. Otherwise, it’s just back to the 1980s.
"When the house of a great one falls,
ReplyDeleteMany little ones also suffer.
Those who have not shared in their good fortune,
Often share in their misfortune" Bertolt Brecht