It looks as if the 'failed old parties' (TM Malcolm Pearson) and the MSM are busily trying to persuade the public that the next general is all about something fairly minor, i.e. whether to try and increase tax revenues by £6 billion or not (via National Insurance); the Tories reckon they can not increase taxes by that much and cut government spending by £12 billion more than Labour.
Of course they could, (and to be fair, history shows that Tory governments tend to spend slightly less than Labour ones). Labour then hit back with the tried and tested mantra 'The Tories will cut frontline services and cut spending on teachers, nurses, doctors and coppers' and the Lib Dems sort of flip-flop between the two.
Just to put the figures in perspective again:
Total UK government expenditure = about £700 billion a year.
Let's add up half a million teachers; 375,000 nurses in England (= 450,000 for whole of UK); and 170,000 coppers = 1,120,000 people, let's quesstimate their average salary at £40,000, so the total cost of those would be £45 billion, plus a hundred thousand doctors or GPs @ £100,000 each = £10 billion, so the grand total is £55 billion per annum.
In other words, out of total UK government expenditure, rather less than ten per cent is spent on actual teacher, nurses, doctors and coppers. A government would have to be pretty mad to start cutting expenditure by sacking those those people, surely it would get rid of the quangocrats and bureaucrats first?
Just sayin' is all.
Are you all set?
1 hour ago
8 comments:
Look, we all know there are regiments of people working for the State that do nothing but implement 'policies' that have little or no practical use. All racism, sexism, homophobia, immgrant services, 5-a-day vegetables, social exclusion, climate change, waste management, etc etc, type people could be culled from the payroll immediately. Whole departments shut. Buildings and contents sold. The savings are potentially huge. With no cuts in "schools'n'hospitals" at all.
But that won't happen as these things are the shibboleths of the liberal political class and are therefore untouchable. They would rather close a primary school for example than get rid of the local Racial Equality section of the council.
Nothing can be done until the money finally runs out and there is blood on the streets. The Righteous brigade will defend their pet causes until the last drop of taxpayers money is gone.
The next general down?
Sovereign debt blowout
S, exactly. Teachers and librarians and street cleaners are there as sacrificial pawns.
JH, I have amended typo.
"Nothing can be done until the money finally runs out and there is blood on the streets."
Which would hand them a victory. Contingencies Act, anyone?
Those 'massive' Tory/Labour Cuts in full with hat tip to Guido:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jpah1MxmhQc
Civil Contingencies Act will be useless if there is no money (or worthless money) to pay the Police/Army. Eventually the money WILL run out, either because no-one will lend the State any more dosh, and/or because they start printing it again, and kick off an inflationary death spiral. Collapse of sterling etc etc.
It's all too depressing to think about . . .
The only fun I get nowadays are making up varied answers for pollsters asking my opinion. Everytime I tell them Brown has my vote.
In truth I have no idea how I'll mark my ballot when the day dawns
Well I would be sacking Teachers, Nurses and Doctors and they're all providers of personal service goods rather than coppers who are a force and thus relevant to what the state does (force).
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