Bolitics The New Condem Government

[markavfc40]

Apparently, if they froze all benefits & public sector salaries for 5 years it would save £8bill in the first year...

and £120bill over the 5 years (8+16+24+32+40).

i think the debt is at a stage where something like this needs to be done.

Thats great unless of course you work in the Public Sector. In theory your asking people to take a hefty pay cut as everything else rises over 5 years there salary will stay the same.

Wouldn't it be fairer to raise taxes across the board so not just those that work in the public sector have to get us out of the shit.

[ender4]

it will take more than 1 term (5 years) of Conservative-Lib to get the Annual Deficit into a surplus again.

You say that as though a budget surplus is the default situation. :?

not default position, but we need to get to a surplus to be able to start reducing the national debt.

just lowering the deficit would still be increasing the National Debt.

[kidlewis]

Apparently, if they froze all benefits & public sector salaries for 5 years it would save £8bill in the first year...

and £120bill over the 5 years (8+16+24+32+40).

i think the debt is at a stage where something like this needs to be done.

Thats great unless of course you work in the Public Sector. In theory your asking people to take a hefty pay cut as everything else rises over 5 years there salary will stay the same.

Wouldn't it be fairer to raise taxes across the board so not just those that work in the public sector have to get us out of the shit.

I think in theory both will have to happen.

Labour has created a much larger public sector over the last 13 years, thus requiring a lot more funding. Just increasing taxes won't be enough to get us out of trouble.

plus if you raise taxes too much the country becomes uncompetitive and attracting more business to the country and more jobs becomes difficult.

[snowychap]

not default position, but we need to get to a surplus to be able to start reducing the national debt.

You posted about getting back in to surplus 'again'.

It certainly made it sound as though you thought that was the norm.

I can't see there being any real kind of budget surplus without there being some huge boom.

You certainly won't get to that position just by cutting spending.

[Clarry]

Apparently, if they froze all benefits & public sector salaries for 5 years it would save £8bill in the first year...

and £120bill over the 5 years (8+16+24+32+40).

i think the debt is at a stage where something like this needs to be done.

It could work maybe if price increases were kept down too and targetted taxation in the private sector. We're all in it together :cry:

[Demitri_C]

i still think though that there is a hell of a lot of people that dont realise how bad it is at the moment.

does anyone know what the deficit was before labour came in?

[kidlewis]

Apparently, if they froze all benefits & public sector salaries for 5 years it would save £8bill in the first year...

and £120bill over the 5 years (8+16+24+32+40).

i think the debt is at a stage where something like this needs to be done.

It could work maybe if price increases were kept down too and targetted taxation in the private sector. We're all in it together :cry:

fine to a certain degree, but if taxes on business go up too much what's to stop them moving their business elsewhere, or moving admin sections to places like India, saving millions for them and also making thousands of people here redundant.

[Clarry]

Apparently, if they froze all benefits & public sector salaries for 5 years it would save £8bill in the first year...

and £120bill over the 5 years (8+16+24+32+40).

i think the debt is at a stage where something like this needs to be done.

It could work maybe if price increases were kept down too and targetted taxation in the private sector. We're all in it together :cry:

fine to a certain degree, but if taxes on business go up too much what's to stop them moving their business elsewhere, or moving admin sections to places like India, saving millions for them and also making thousands of people here redundant.

It is the eternal problem.

Start drilling in the Falklands?

[kidlewis]

Apparently, if they froze all benefits & public sector salaries for 5 years it would save £8bill in the first year...

and £120bill over the 5 years (8+16+24+32+40).

i think the debt is at a stage where something like this needs to be done.

It could work maybe if price increases were kept down too and targetted taxation in the private sector. We're all in it together :cry:

fine to a certain degree, but if taxes on business go up too much what's to stop them moving their business elsewhere, or moving admin sections to places like India, saving millions for them and also making thousands of people here redundant.

It is the eternal problem.

Start drilling in the Falklands?

well yes, i'd do that most certainly, and the argies wouldn't realistically attack, mainly because they are more financially screwed than we are (or they were)

however if it's the falklands oil field, then it's not ours is it?

[snowychap]

does anyone know what the deficit was before labour came in?

Debt or deficit?

I think debt was around 41% of GDP and PSNB (deficit) for the year up to the end of April 1997 was about £25,000 million.

snowy cannot be held responsible for the accuracy of these figures.

[blandy]

Look at the way they have immediately changed the vote rule on "vote of confidence"

. They haven't, Ian. That's a complete misunderstanding.

The vote of no confidence is and will be exactly the same - a majority of 1 vote and the vote would be won.

What this is about is what to do after such an event. There's no formal rule at all at the moment, though convention says the Gov't should resign and call an election.

The plan is to introduce a new rule that is particularly relevant to coalitions, but not exclusively so. There will be fixed term parliaments, but were there to be a vote of no confidence (won by 1 vote or more) the pm could then try and form an alliance with an alternative party to carry on - unless 55% of MPs vote to prevent that. It's a safeguard for both/all coalition partners - on their own, none of them can opull the rug and destabilise the country.

Where there is some suspiscion of a degree of self interest is the precise figure chosen - it tends to protect the tories, while notionally protecting the Lib Dems.

[JulieB]

fine to a certain degree, but if taxes on business go up too much what's to stop them moving their business elsewhere, or moving admin sections to places like India, saving millions for them and also making thousands of people here redundant.

So to mitigate against this... Why not get the banks to lend to businesses sensibly to expand and continue to trade hopefully increases their revenues so that they employ more people who need less benefits and consequently pay more tax...

The problem is banks aren't funding businesses hardly they are either re-capitalising their balance sheets or lending it back to the government by buying bonds/gilts at decent rates. Hence yesterday's goverment bonds sale of £1.1M was oversubscribed by the tune of £1M.

It all goes back to the lack of credit available to the economy - ask any fund manager - decent UKcompanies can't get credit - instead as I said before RBS in the name of short term gain are lending to flipping Kraft to buy out Cadbury's!!

[Clarry]

So to mitigate against this... Why not get the banks to lend to businesses sensibly to expand and continue to trade hopefully increases their revenues so that they employ more people who need less benefits and consequently pay more tax...

Absolutely spot on.

[kidlewis]

fine to a certain degree, but if taxes on business go up too much what's to stop them moving their business elsewhere, or moving admin sections to places like India, saving millions for them and also making thousands of people here redundant.

So to mitigate against this... Why not get the banks to lend to businesses sensibly to expand and continue to trade hopefully increases their revenues so that they employ more people who need less benefits and consequently pay more tax...

The problem is banks aren't funding businesses hardly they are either re-capitalising their balance sheets or lending it back to the government by buying bonds/gilts at decent rates. Hence yesterday's goverment bonds sale of £1.1M was oversubscribed by the tune of £1M.

It all goes back to the lack of credit available to the economy - ask any fund manager - decent UKcompanies can't get credit - instead as I said before RBS in the name of short term gain are lending to flipping Kraft to buy out Cadbury's!!

by the looks of things though is this not the banks flexing their muslces and saying to the UK 'you need us more than we need you' or something to that effect.

I wonder if we let one of the banks go under whether they would sit up and listen.

they are taking the piss though.

I work for a 2 man internet company, who at the time of requesting just an increase to our overdraft facility, we had a profit margin of around 65% each month.

they wouldn't even give us an increase of £1, because they said they couldn't.

it's bullshit, now we are in the situation where we have to tighten our belts to fund our own website development. we can't even get an overdraft increase of £5k to help with cashflow.

[JulieB]

it's bullshit, now we are in the situation where we have to tighten our belts to fund our own website development. we can't even get an overdraft increase of £5k to help with cashflow.

If you accept debit/credit card payments then there is a short term solution out there because you can get an advancement on the payments to help out.

If it's any use PM me & I'll pass you to a colleague. This scenario is exactly what the product is designed to do.. help with cash flow.

[drat01]

The plan is to introduce a new rule that is particularly relevant to coalitions, but not exclusively so. There will be fixed term parliaments, but were there to be a vote of no confidence (won by 1 vote or more) the pm could then try and form an alliance with an alternative party to carry on - unless 55% of MPs vote to prevent that. It's a safeguard for both/all coalition partners - on their own, none of them can opull the rug and destabilise the country.

Where there is some suspiscion of a degree of self interest is the precise figure chosen - it tends to protect the tories, while notionally protecting the Lib Dems.

OK So it IS protectionism for themselves - its absolutely and utterly disgraceful, and I can imagine the condemnation that would have happened if Labour had introduced this rule. It's a fundamental change to the constitution and was never mentioned prior to the election and conveniently the figure of 55% is one for the ConDem alliance. It shows one thing that the arrogance of the politicians is still there and may well have increased

On a side issue - the "new blue" LibDems are squealing and kicking in Sheffield because they can't form an alliance to screw - sorry run the council. There are a lot of issues that the council are addressing and the ConDem alliance at Westminster is stopping the Greens from joining the LibDems

Lastly an excellent piece from Mark Steele in the Indy

Mark Steel: Don't be fooled. This is Tory rule

Right – who knows a way of making "Conservative and Liberal Democrat Coalition out out out" scan properly? Events haven't been made easier by the news coverage, which involved reporters telling us "Oh my God it's historic and the two of them look so lovely together, and they're in the GARDEN, ooooo I haven't cried so much since I last saw Breakfast at Tiffany's." After the press conference the BBC's reporter gasped "It's EXTRAORDINARY, and when was the last time you could hear birdsong during a press conference?" I thought she'd carry on "It's as if the thrushes and blackbirds have arranged their own coalition and all the fluffy animals will be in the cabinet and the Home Secretary will be a lovely smiley caterpillar."

A much more stable solution was to keep the chaos going for four years, when it would be time for another election. So every day the news would say something like: "This morning William Hague offered the Lib Dems two places on the British Council of Buddhists, and the job of England football manager to Danny Alexander, but in a dramatic twist at 3.00 pm, following pressure from Paddy Ashdown, Peter Mandelson appeared at the Treasury and hung himself, thus removing a crucial obstacle to a pact with Labour

Then Caroline Lucas of the Green Party could have nipped to the palace to say to the Queen, "Tell you what, I'll take over shall I?" and run the place while the other parties didn't even notice. Instead there's this "new" arrangement, in which the Tories have said to the Lib Dems: "We pledge to do exactly what we were going to do anyway, but if you can find some spare chairs we'll let some of you watch." And when the Tories say they're willing to consider electoral reform, you know for some that means we should get one vote each for every field we own.

So while I understand how so many were repulsed by Labour, and appreciate the vagaries of our voting system, it would be only fair if everyone who voted Lib Dem "to keep the Tories out" was made to queue up to get a good slap. Because this will be a Tory government. For now, both parties hail the partnership as a success. A Tory commentator said yesterday: "The friendly greeting given by David Cameron to Nick Clegg at Downing Street was a highly encouraging start." Well what did he think Cameron would do? Say: "Oi Clegg, never mind shaking hands, be a decent fag and toast me a crumpet while I chat to Nick Robinson"?

But nothing that made the Lib Dems distinctive, such as cancelling Trident or offering an amnesty to asylum seekers, will be even up for discussion. Instead they'll be boasting: "The new Budget is a positive example of coalition rule, in that the Conservatives made the economic decisions, but Vince Cable decided on the font it was published in. There were tough negotiations but the closure of the nation's libraries will now be outlined in Times New Roman, so both sides have made compromises, proving this arrangement does work."

But one issue apparently agreed upon by all the main parties is a government had to be found that would satisfy the markets. Because to solve the economic crisis caused by the people who run the markets, we must pick a government that doesn't upset the people who run the markets.

A consensus has been created that the deficit must must MUST be cut, as if to oppose cuts in welfare and public spending is as futile as trying to stop the laws of physics. So we'll now have a period of new modern politics, in which a Prime Minister from Eton and a Chancellor from St Paul's in coalition with a chap from Westminster Public School force the bulk of the population to pay for a mess they didn't create, rather than upset the richest one per cent who've enjoyed an unprecedented rise in their wealth. On the other hand the Liberal Democrats have already achieved one of their major aims, which is the introduction of the Single Transferable Voting system.

The way it works is fairly simple: you vote Liberal Democrat and you get the bloody Tories.

[drat01]

i still think though that there is a hell of a lot of people that dont realise how bad it is at the moment.

does anyone know what the deficit was before labour came in?

Ah that old chestnut

A quote and a picture

Here is the debt graph from that site. (this is that debt web site - setup and run by the Spectator - Boris Johnsons thingy!) We were more in debt in from 1993 to 1997 under the Tories. Blair got rid of the debt quick enough with a surplus from 1999 to 2003, and the economy boomed under Labour. Blair then started to borrow to fund essential job creation and infrastructure. They have put their prediction in blue, as a scare ploy, which is meaningless.

Heath left high debts and then Wilson Callaghan managed it well enough. Then Thatcher got it down a little by using North Sea Oil revenues, not by anything else, and for only a year was in surplus. All those riots, public unrest and devastation for one years surplus - wow!

66% of the debt will be paid back in around 3 to 4 years time under Labour. They gave hard figures. The Tories gave none.

There is too much emphasis can be put on debt.If the debt is used to create economic growth which brings in more taxes then fine.

A very interesting viewpoint. A lot of people are using the same mindset of debt like they owe some money to the big bad boys from the council estate. A look back at other countries and history shows it to be a different thing all together - but hey that don't get the Mail writing headlines nor will it get Osborne and whichever Lib he has to follow him trying to explain

[OutByEaster?]

They have put their prediction in blue, as a scare ploy, which is meaningless.

Click here for current debt

The meaningless scare ploy looks pretty accurate to me, what am I missing?

[blandy]

66% of the debt will be paid back in around 3 to 4 years time under Labour. They gave hard figures. The Tories gave none.

. I think the independent IFS said that none of the parties had anything like explained how they were going to even reduce the annual overspend, let alone get into annual credit to pay it off. The Tory black hole was the biggest, and the lib dem the smallest.

I also think it's interesting that all the parties agreed the number 1 priority was to get the overspending down. Labour, Lib Dem and Tory alike. The differences between them were small in scale compared to the level of debt - an argument over 6 billion out of 170 billion a year.

I agree with Mark Steel's article (I nearly always do) in the indie about who will suffer, and it's not the people responsible, and nor will it be the politicians.

I voted lib dem and got the tories. Same would have happened if I'd have not bothered, voted UKIP, Green or anyone else. They weigh Tory votes here, they don't count them.

That said, the small consolation is that some of the Tories worst plans and excesses will be reigned back by being in a coalition with the LDs.

There's probably more difference between the extremes of say the Labour party (or of the Tories...etc) than there is between the left (for a tory) Cameron and the right (for a LD) Clegg.

Of all the realistic outcomes from the election, what we ended up with was perhaps the least bad.

Labour will go away and hopefully have a think about itself, and where it went horribly askew, the Libs get some influence and the Tories get prevented from doing a few of the mental things they'd otherwise have done.

And if it shows that co-operating to run the country works (please let it be so), then that's another positive. A major Labour error was Blair and Brown, later, ignoring their back benches and Cabinet ministers, never mind sane opposition views - that can't happen in this Gov't.

[Juju]

So to mitigate against this... Why not get the banks to lend to businesses sensibly to expand and continue to trade hopefully increases their revenues so that they employ more people who need less benefits and consequently pay more tax...

The problem is banks aren't funding businesses hardly they are either re-capitalising their balance sheets or lending it back to the government by buying bonds/gilts at decent rates. Hence yesterday's goverment bonds sale of £1.1M was oversubscribed by the tune of £1M.

It all goes back to the lack of credit available to the economy - ask any fund manager - decent UKcompanies can't get credit - instead as I said before RBS in the name of short term gain are lending to flipping Kraft to buy out Cadbury's!!

I work for a bloody bank, who has annoucned a further 2600 job cuts and am likely to be affected. And in the same breath, they announce htey are going to move jobs offshore to India.

So the jobs haven't gone away, they just dont want British banks to pay british people, who then shop in british shops and pay britiish taxes. No, they want to spend less on salaries, taxes have to go up to pay for the benefits we will be claiming! In the short term, all it means is increased profits for the govt, who are the major shareholder, who will er, be paying the unemplyment benefits... its madness!

Its the banks that started it, and are still behind the scenes, today, driving nails into the coffin of UK Plc.

The bloody barstewards.