Damned statistics

At least we have some statistics from an independent body with this Government

Unlike the previous, relaunch, small print, Brown confusion

Thought I'd let you say something silly first on this one, Kevin.

Nick

I had to read the article twice as it was a bit opaque. Your colleague James Lansdale on the DP show was more succinct although you both reach the same conclusion in your final paragraph. The problem for what passes for the labour Party is that they only seem to care/think that it is only public sector jobs that matter.

Granted the coalition's - or OBR if you prefer - forecast of growth and job creation in the private sector is a wishy washy and needs a bit more flesh on the bones and specify which industries will provide said growth. As I see it new jobs will be at the high skill end of the spectrum but our education system cannot provide the quality in sufficient numbers. Where is the investment going to come from? how much investment are we talking about?

Nick says "The true political significance of today was, I suspect, that David Cameron predicted that unemployment would fall in this Parliament. If he's right, these forecasts won't matter much. If he's wrong, it's a prediction he will regret ever having made."

No, the independent OBR predicted unemployment would fall, not David Cameron.

Any one who believes that Labour's cuts, had they won the election, would be any less severe, are simply hiding from the truth.

Alastair Darling himself said they would be harsher than under Thatcher.
Most European governments are undertaking similar cuts to get their deficits under control, and the UK had one of the largest structural deficits even before the credit crisis.

'500,000 and 600,000 jobs could go in the public sector' - Thanks to Labour.

'between 600,000 and 700,000 could disappear in the private sector by 2015' - Thanks to Labour.

The more you learn about the state of the economy inherited from Labour, the more you realise what a complete disaster they were.

'So, what's the truth?'

The truth is that Labour inherited a robust economy in 1997 with unemployment below 1.8m and falling rapidly. 13 years later they left us with unemployment 700,00 higher and rising, with vast amounts of 'hidden' unemployment in the form of an overbloated and unaffordable public sector, a private sector on its knees, and a country more indebted than at any time in its peactime history.

Thanks God we finally have a government that will begin to put things right, even if it means implementing tough and unpopular measures to do so.

The honeymoon period is well and truly over.

There is no way that the private sector can start exporting at the rate required to keep the books balanced and therefore more cuts will be required to meet the coalitions targets. If this is the case, this is beginnig to look more and more like a one term coalition government..

It's all about the government's fiscal policy and if it looks like it's failing, or about to fail big time, look out for not so cool heads to be rolling down Whitehall!

Lloyds announcement today 650 job cuts in private sector ain't a great start.

'The government believes - or should that read "hopes" - that "rebalancing the economy" will allow private sector growth to more than replace the shrinking public sector.'

The government believes, as would any sensible person, that a rebalancing of the economy is essential regardless of whether or not the private sector creates more jobs than the public sector loses.

I think David Cameron made a huge political mistake today in his phrasing of the response to Harriet Harman. I distinctly saw him announce that 'unemployment would fall year on year... during the course of this parliament' That statement will come back to haunt him and provide a nice clip in future news reports as unemployment climbs and climbs. Even his government admits that it will climb before it falls and that is the best case scenario if the optimistic forecasts of growth in the private sector are fulfilled. I personally believe these jobs will not materialise in sufficient numbers or fast enough to prevent a massive and costly explosion in unemployment. Nigel Lawson was on tv the other night saying that Osbourne is in much the same position as he was when Lawson made his own cuts in that Osbourne does not know, as neither apparently did Lawson, where the new jobs are coming from. Lawson then went on to say 'the new jobs arrived.' A re-writing of history in some ways as the new jobs came mainly in the South of England and were not sustainable in nature in the long term, hence our current predicament. Call centres for instance, that Thatcherite panacea for regeneration of communities were soon off to the East. The jobs in the financial sectors in the South were built, as we have seen, on a shaky and corrupt system. The trouble with the Conservatives is not that they are nasty but that they have always had a touching and naive faith in 'the markets' being on their side despite all evidence to the contrary.

"... a newly elected Labour government would not have announced a tougher pay restraint policy than it had originally planned. That's doubtful."

And pray, do tell us why is that doubtful Nick?

Without a shadow of a doubt the utterances of the Labour Party Leader candidates is one of spending more of the money the Country has not got to foster growth in the economy so that the jobs of many millions of public sector workers will be saved.

Unfortunately, as Liam Byrne quite correctly pointed out in a note to his successor, "There is no money left" and he had the cojones to write this despite the outgoing Labour Administration conjuring up projects such as the one in Sheffield that was going to cost the UK £1.5million per extra job created by Sheffield Forgemasters - an unaffordable cost that they left for the next government ... if that had been Labour do you, Nick Robinson, suggest that Labour would have cancelled that expensive and unaffordable project on regaining power?

That IS doubtful as, equally unfortunately, lack of revenue has never stopped Socialists from spending other people's money in the fruitless chase of foolishness to preserve the illusion of being the only political party capable of subsidising the poor, the weak and the ineffectual. The Labour government would continue to spend and borrow, and borrow more to spend more. Of that I have no doubt.

"It does not show the job losses that will result from the loss of government contracts"

This is a key point. It illustrates well the interdependency of the two sectors in our modern mixed economy; a reality at odds with the oft heard rhubarb that the private sector "makes" the money and the public sector "spends" it. Hopefully, the likes of Osborne go with the complex truth rather than simplistic fallacy.

"So, what's the truth?"

Yes... and why are you being asked for it, when you're so obviously still singing from the previous hymn sheet?

The OBR states: "We expect employment to stabilise this year and to start rising in 2011. The ILO unemployment rate is expected to peak at just over 8 per cent in 2010, before falling gradually throughout the forecast period, to just over 6 per cent in 2014. The claimant count continues to decline, from 1½ million in 2010 Q1 to just over 1 million by the end of 2014"

You say:

"It does not show the job losses that will result from the loss of government contracts - which is, I'm told, what's shown on the Guardian's leaked forecast."


Yes... and I wonder precisely who told you and what their agenda was... I cant begin to imagine.

Look. Central Government contracts will only be lost if programmes are scaled back or cancelled altogether. Some projects are more advanced than others and cancelling them would involve serious penalty clauses and the inability to use the kit that you've already paid for. Which unless there is a very debatable need for such a platform or a service would be dumb. However, in such terms, I have yet to see such a project or a contract be cancelled, or any such outsourcing deal be even re-negotiated yet, let alone cancelled.

No doubt if there was such a cancellation - Tranche 3b of Eurofighter for instance or the cancellation of the Aircraft Carriers, or FSTA, you'd be the first correspondent to be waving your arms about, wouldn't you Nicholas?

Local Government outsourcing is another matter altogether and chances are, there will be even more of that as councils have to slash the bottom line, which will probably mean quite a number of people being TUPE'd to service providers. But since when has your blog had anything to do with Local Government? Aren't you meant to be focusing on the "Westminster bubble"?

The Guardian's leaked forecast only told half the story.

TFR, for gods sake, sooner rather than later. This is getting embarrassing.

...Like watching Elvis in his 1970's jumpsuit era. Not fun.

Trouble too many of the G20 have followed a Brownsian spend,spend and be dammed policy for the last 13 years, given the imbalance which China/India have in place. The prospects for the UK to mount any export lead recovery are low, so the growth must be internal , ie buy more produced in the UK by UK citizens. Ie a reversal of the last 13 years.

Its a tall order to be done with the debt/deficit and interest given to us by our former glorious lead Mr Brown.

2

Very kind, although you still managed to be sillier (and irrelevant) despite being second

A position you must be accustomed to?

Since when were all public sector jobs cuts such a bad thing?

Sustainability Advisor
Employer: BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL
Posted: 23 Jun 2010
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full Time
Salary: BG10: £25,472 - £28,636

"The Green Capital Partnership is part of the Local Strategic Partnership and aims to mobilise the whole city into action to make Bristol a Green Capital. To lead this initiative we have created a new team led by the Partnership Manager"

Just one of many!

Any subsequent growth in the economy and subsequent raise in employment will be down to the Labour government's investment during the recession.
Attacks on the public sector are more severe than necessary due to the Coalition's ideological faith in the private sector. Can't understand why Clegg allowed the LOAN to Sheffield Forgemasters to be cancelled, then set up the £1 billion pound fund for regional development. Odd!

Let's apply a new word to it: 'Povertisation'.

You tax people into unemployment and then you cut jobs to save money to create greater demands on the welfare system, then you cut the welfare system to reduce the living standards of the needy and the unemployed.

LibCon have certaintly been innovative, just not in any kind of positive way. In the end the only way to solve the recession to to increase British employment, not cut it.

Where are all the new jobs? Forget training schemes, we need business start-ups, the banning of damaging practices like M&As and the rebuilding of local communities by de-globalisation measures. 'One-size fits all' doesn't work and simply turns communities into wastelands. Those in charge don't have a clue. Give me an hour with Cameron and I'll sort it.

"... a reality at odds with the oft heard rhubarb that the private sector "makes" the money and the public sector "spends" it."

SAGA!!!!!!!!

5. At 2:19pm on 30 Jun 2010, TheWalrus999 wrote:
Any one who believes that Labour's cuts, had they won the election, would be any less severe, are simply hiding from the truth.
.
.
.
.
.
LOL!!!
Out of interest, Ireland have finally exited from recession today. One big difference is that Ireland’s strategy over the last two years was in great measure driven by Ireland’s Euro membership, which has forced the Irish government to pursue the policy the British coalition government is now determined to follow by their own moral choice.....


For those keeping score, UK unemployment is 7.9%, we’ve been out of recession for six months and our bund spread is roughly a third of that of Ireland’s. So our recession was shorter, our unemployment lower and our debt is cheaper.

Which would you prefer?

All I hear George Osborne mention is fear and how we must follow Canada's example. Canada's 90's recession did not happen in a global financial crisis and they had a stonger market for global export.

Labour do have the upper hand here. If they can repeat often enough that all of the cuts and job losses that will happen are the Tories fault rather than because they left the country in such a mess and left it to the Coalition to sort out then they may get through to the people who don't really pay that much attention to politics. No wonder daves pulling a face just thinking about how much he has to do.

So what's the truth?

You seriously expect an answer to that question after thirteen years of spin.

Expenses
Gold
Pensions
Iraq
NHS
Education
Bernie Ecclestone
Cash for peerages
Dr David Kelly
HMRC losing 25m people's data
The 'economically inactive'
Immigration
Railtrack

When were we ever given the truth on any of these issues in the last thriteen years? We were given a massaged message and fudged numbers time and again and you now want the truth?

First of all this government has to decide what the real picture is rather than the bubble vision version of it given over thirteen years.

If newlabour hadn't spent so long dressing itself in the cunning livery of hell for all that time we might have the truth faster.

There's a long way to go before we know the truth.

10#

Yeah, right. Convenient red blinkers on.

OBR is pants! Do they suppose redundant public sector workers are going to start up wine bars or pottery studios. This rapid downsizing of the public sector will produce large negative multipliers that will stifle or constrict any growth in the private sector never mind what happens to the things these workers do. If anything the government should incentivise people whether sacked or ejected from the disability allowance culture to find work by creating jobs (or allowing the filling of vacancies in the public sector)

"2. At 2:13pm on 30 Jun 2010, sagamix wrote:
Thought I'd let you say something silly first on this one, Kevin."

Shame on you Sagamix. So long as Kevin stays well away from abusing minority groups and poking fun at the disabled I'm aways happy to chuckle at his contributions.

Just a brief message to say that the OBR is by no means independent!

Nick

Should you clarify that what you describe as "the Guardian's leak of a Treasury forecast" is in fact an unreferenced claim about the contents of one slide in a powerpoint presentation by a Treasury official?

Compared with the comprehensive forecast in the OBR report, I think this is a rather dodgy source to base your analysis on.

Remeber under dear old Maggie we had just over 3million unemployed and conditions were not as bad then as they are today. David Cameron was Maggie Thatchers top adviser then. Now he is the P.M. Also remember in the first six months of John Majors goverment they put up 22 stealth taxes.
I wonder if David Cameron is going to beat both these figures.

So an extra 1.2 MILLION unemployed. The Tories are desperate to make as much impact now so they can ride out their next 15 years in the wilderness. Double dip recession AHOY!

"If this is the case, this is beginnig to look more and more like a one term coalition government"

I would be surprised if it isn't a one-term coalition government. There'll be some disagreements along the way that get under the skin of Liberal MP's and/or voters, so we'll be back to the usual two-party choices between:

1) Labour - 4/5 years may still be too soon after all the sleaze and economic ruin for many to vote for them, especially if things looks like they're starting to pick up under the coalition. Die-hard Labour supporters will still vote for them and some Liberals (voters and MP's) may feel more comfortable with them than with their own party or the current coalition.

2) Conservatives - They're going to get most of the credit for anything that goes right under the coalition, so it's really down to how they handle any scandals, the economy and public finances. If people start feeling better off (or like they will do very soon) in 4-5 years, they may well increase their vote to the point where they no longer need the Liberals.

All-in-all, it's for the Conservatives to win or lose the next election. It's likely that the Liberals probably won't play much of a part in 2014/15 - they're only where they are now by chance. Coalitions are, by their nature, a temporary arrangement.

So the Office of Budget Responsibility 'accidentally' forgets to mention all the job losses the cuts will cause in private firms with government contracts.

How convenient.

I thought all that money being spent on the OBR - yet another quango - was supposed to prevent exactly this sort of dodgy spin on government accounting?

At least the truth is coming out: ConDem cuts = mass unemployment

@6
Everyone keeps blaming Labour for the economic situation, but lets not forget the money they had to pump into the economy because of the terrible underspend of the Thatcher and Major years. If the Tories hadn't got us into a position of Victorian hospitals and 6 month waiting lists a mass spend would not have been required in order to bring us up to Euro standards.

And who would have thought that contracts with third party private sector companies would be first to go under any public sector austerity plans?

Well, anyone with a modicum of sense would, which seems to exclude this inevitable one term government we currently have.

I'm not sure I comepletely understand what the OBR is. I didn't realise that opposition parties could set up impartial bodies such as this?

Glad to see private sector employment will be up. It'll be much safer for everyone out there to be huddled in their offices earning a pittance than out in the street where lack of health care/police/public services can cause them any harm.

All this laying into Brown is becoming a bit stale. If there was a noxious waft left in the commons toilets Brown would get the blame for it.

Leave him alone. There's now a new government, so be happy.

How hypocritical of the Guardian to be criticising this government. They're the ones who wanted the likes of Danny Boy Alexander in power.

And before cries come of "they're allowed to say what they want, it's a free press", all I can say is that they've set themselves up for such criticism for being so blatantly power hungry by publicly switching allegience to Negative Nick in the midst of the election. Such politiking from a paper is completely unecessary and I'm sure is a reason for why people will leave the paper in droves for 100% impartial competitors.

And by the way. Where did we get from "the Bankers caused this recession, they are evil and greedy and blah, blah ,blah" to "its the public sector who are to blame, lets get them, make them pay"!!

20. At 3:24pm on 30 Jun 2010, modest_mark wrote:
5. At 2:19pm on 30 Jun 2010, TheWalrus999 wrote:
"Any one who believes that Labour's cuts, had they won the election, would be any less severe, are simply hiding from the truth.
.
.
.
.
.
LOL!!!"


You proved my point.

Hmmm...

Hidden figures showing worse than the "independent" OBR. Georgey Boy must have nodded off during that part of the presentation because he failed to mention them.

The notion that the private sector, at a time when our main trading partners are running lemming-like in the same direction, will deliver these 2.5m jobs is naive to say the least. And what sort of jobs? No doubt low paid or part time or probably both. Now those lucky enough to get one one these "jobs" will most likely have to claim some form of benefit as well as those that don't.


Georgey must have some idea how much the welfare bill will no doubt explode...why doesn't he share his views ?

All this against the background of big, big questions:

1. How are 25%+ cuts to be delivered ? Still no answers to that.
2. That old chestnut that won't go away...double dip.
3. Where is the growth coming from.

Oh...and ministers briefing their mates in the media with simplistic, populist policies before announcing them in the House...new politics?

Mind you we need to do this we're told...no alternative. After all we need to be in a position to bail out our friends in the banks when it all goes belly up again.

Honeymoon over...welcome to Cameronland. Enjoy your stay. Lib-Dems: follow signs for political wilderness.

The days of the honeymoon are over for the government. I am not predicting a landlide for Labour, but at the next election, there will be a lot fewer votes the Tories, and certainly for the Lib Dems. We as a country have been CON DEMMED. And certainly the NHS is no more protected than what is was when Major was in power in 1991, when my Mum said that the Government took money out of the NHS to pay for the Gulf War.

As ever you have to say...well so what?

What part of Harriet Harman believes that we should borrow ever more money to maintain a huge public sector until, inevitably, we cannot borrow anymore and the whole thing goes off a precipice? Only the Guardian Newspaper, currently losing £140m a year, understands these types of doublethink economics and I strongly suspect that there won't be a Guardian around in 5 years time!

Sure, this is very unpleasant for all concerned and I don't want to make light of anyone losing their job. But surely, a managed shrinkage of the State is infinitely preferable to a sudden, catastrophic collapse with all that entails i.e. mass redundancy, nobody getting paid at all and, in all probability...civil unrest. Nasty medicine but it is to cure an illness created by Harriet Harman's government and its philosophy of an ever expanding and controlling State, happy to fling money at any perceived problem.

The Guardian, rather like New Labour, is for the financially and economically illiterate! They are happy to steal from the children and grandchildren, blighting their prospects and reducing their standard of living in order to live beyond our means in the present. They just don't seem to be able to understand it..and these are supposed to be the "concerned, progressive thinking types". What's progressive though about deliberately leaving your children worse off than you? I thought that it was the Right that was meant to be selfish and "nasty"!

An alternative, breathe it quietly, is that public sector workers, other than those on very low wages could consider a pay cut as an alternative to job losses. After all it's what the private sector went through 18 months ago which is probably the main reason that unemployment did not get close to the predictions last year. People should be given a choice...pay reduction or job losses and let's see what they say. Somehow, I suspect that the Flatearthers in Unison will only see it one way!

Rockrobin @ 22.

No "Great" tag line at the end...things are worse than I thought.

All new goverments always tell porkies about the previous administrations and make the figures suit what they are saying. This UNELECTED coalition govermant is no exception.It's alright for some people to say that the cost to people who will lose their jobs is o/k but I wonder if these people would be saying the same thing if it was their job on the line and their house/mortage which stands to be lost. David Cameron says 'we are all in this together ', but it seems some are in it more then others.
David Cameron, like all previous Tory goverments does not give a fig for the working class,they are just canon fodder to him.

The real problem, unfortunately, is a million miles away from any combination of statistics.

If 10 people from a specialist unit with the public sector are given the sack, from where in the private sector are they going to get a job?

It is well know that many employees in the public sector, especially in administrative roles, have a terrible time trying to find jobs in the private sector.

Not only is it hard to find anything like an equivalent job, but they have been trained within a completely different working culture, with a different ethos, non-standard working practices and so on.

If 600,000 are made redundant over the next few years, many of those are going to find they are taking lower paid jobs, assuming they can find one at all.

The government are saying that vacancies will increase in the private sector. But if those vacancies are all for plumbers, and the people made redundant are all administrators, the statistics could be absolutely equal, but that will help no one.

David Cameron is right. For Labour to have any credibility they need to engage in the debate about what cuts they would have made to reduce the deficit. I can understand why they don't want to say much but its not very effective opposition.

Everyone should recall that Liam Byrne confimed before the election that Labour would need to make expenditure cuts on a scale greater than those of Mrs Thatcher's government in the 1980s. So what would the cuts have been?

The truth is that Cameron can't get away with rhetoric forever and neither can he blame the labour party for everything which seems to be the strategy he falls to whenever he gets cornered. He's manipulating the statistics. OBR - independent? What a laugh. They're in the lap of the Tories, and they have shown it today with their panicky mishmash of propaganda to prop up the sorry Tory tale.

We are in a much better place today for the labour party being there over the last 13 years and I find their carping on this subject offensive and I am sure it will get on others nerves too before long.

Don't tell me the Tories care about the unemployed one way or another - I was there when they pushed unemployment up to 3,000,000+ and it wasn't a pretty sight for ordinary working families.

We're all in this together, what trott. The good thing about today, is that he will have to eat his words in the future. Oh, and the wide mouthed Osborne with him (as seen on PM Questions today).

Nick wrote:

"The OBR forecasts do show - as David Cameron claimed - that public-sector job losses in the next two years would be 150,000 higher under Labour but this comparison rests on the assumption that a newly elected Labour government would not have announced a tougher pay restraint policy than it had originally planned. That's doubtful."

Well, Nick. Forecasts are always speculative.
Why and on what proven basis, do you suggest that the Labour government would have announced a "tougher pay restraint policy than it had originally planned"?
Are you saying that Newish Labour would have been misleading the voters before the election, with an INTENTION to make things tougher later?

"The OBR forecast predicts net growth in private sector employment - of around 1.3 million. It does not show the job losses that will result from the loss of government contracts - which is, I'm told, what's shown on the Guardian's leaked forecast."

Nick,
What use is that "I'm told" comment? Is that the sort of "evidence" that could be brought into a court of law?
If governments do not let contracts to private companies, there will be hits. But maybe the folk who sold to government will focus on more interesting markets. How can you predict the outcomes?
(OK. If you've been pushing all that ID nonsense, you may have a problem, but personal identification is as important in the private as in the public sector. I guess you could even build a submarine to meet the needs of a Russian oligarch.)

"Of course, all these are mere forecasts.
The government believes - or should that read "hopes" - that "rebalancing the economy" will allow private sector growth to more than replace the shrinking public sector."

Just as Brown seemed to believe that growing the public sector would "balance" the economy - despite having allowed a massive credit bubble to develop.

Political analysis? Westminster widdling.

34. At 3:54pm on 30 Jun 2010, capt-price wrote:
All this laying into Brown is becoming a bit stale. If there was a noxious waft left in the commons toilets Brown would get the blame for it.

Leave him alone. There's now a new government, so be happy.

He inflicted thirteen years of misery on us, so that takes up to 2023 to get even...so let's round it up to 2025

I need some help.

Treasury documents seem to show that Coalition cuts would have exceeded Labour planned cuts by 30,000.

So Labour planned and was happy to chop 500,000 jobs. That would have been a "good thing".

Coalition will take some more.
So, we all agree that 500,000 job losses that Labour were happy to deliver were "good" for the employees.
Every party seems to believe that was the way to start to chop out wasteful borrowing/spending from a discredited administration.

It's just those extra ones that we need to work on, to get them right, isn't it? Let the people decide which bits of local or central government could be chopped and I'd be amazed if you couldn't wipe out the additional 30,000 public sector jobs within 48 hours.

(Although, I'd actually quite like some of the people to stay in polace, but have pay related to what they actually DO.)

Now let me understand this is the OBR forecast of what unemployment will be in roughly 5 years time.

This from economists who struggle to accurately predict what will happen in 5 months time.

It is at best an educated guess, where the educated bit is solely because there are lots of people in the OBR with degrees.

It is completely meaningless and trying to base policy on it is insane

39#

Your mum probably told you that if you pulled a face like that, when the wind changes you'll stick like it.

Doesn't make it true though, unless you fell head first out of the Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down.

39. At 4:03pm on 30 Jun 2010, RJWTimes wrote:
The days of the honeymoon are over for the government. I am not predicting a landlide for Labour, but at the next election, there will be a lot fewer votes the Tories, and certainly for the Lib Dems. We as a country have been CON DEMMED. And certainly the NHS is no more protected than what is was when Major was in power in 1991, when my Mum said that the Government took money out of the NHS to pay for the Gulf War

That's it then, just 'cos your mum said....

Unbelievable

Good story Nick about what various people have said about something that may or may not happen in the future. After going through the recent events it is amazing how quick we are back to believing the forecasts of these experts.

As I see it we are basically broke. One side says we need to downsize and live within our means the other side wants to keep spending until repossession or a lottery win.

I am still sick to the core that Labour sunk so much money into propping up the banks. Money that would have safeguarded public services.

Why defend what Labour would have done? We have no way of knowing as they could not be bothered to have a spending review and tell us before the election. Charlatans the lot of them.

A footnote perhaps I didn't put in was that Irish unemployment is rising, business loans are falling and the deficit remains high, despite all the cuts...

With the G20 embracing austerity measures and the credit crisis not yet resolved, I am bearish on trade growth over the next few years.

It's almost inevitable that economies become flabby during a prolonged boom period - easy money and overconfidence fuel a false belief that growth is real and enduring.

And then, like all bubbles, reality kicks in and... 'pop'!

This bubble was bigger than most and the correction will inevitably be greater. Although I hope it is not the case, these figures could be on the low side.

Surely a decline in public sector employment is something to welcome?

I thought that was the whole point of the coalition's new economic model. If you approve of the model, as I do, then this is the logical consequence.

24 Watriler
Your post reveals the underlying problem with the Tory/Lib strategy that wine bars, pottery studios, more shops, lap-dancing clubs,businesses selling useless financial products are the best we will get. These jobs of doubtful moral/social value will replace carers for the elderly, police on the beat in poor neighbourhoods, teachers and classroom assistants in state schools. The reason this will happen in Tory/Lib Britain is because the well-off will get to choose these useless private goods because the Govt. has chosen not to exercise the option of purchasing the collective goods from higher taxes. Of course I have forgotten about the 'Big Society', funnily enough I haven't seen or heard a lot of it round my way, just a lot of greedy middle class people breathing a sigh of relief that the cuts won't affect them too deeply. We won't get a genuinely transformed/rebalanced economy because we don't have enough under-employed engineers, biochemists, computer scientists to build a different economic future (incidentally, I started to count how many of our current MPs could open a business of the future based on a serious background in science or technology -the first hundred, with a few honourable exceptions, seemed more suited to the wine-bars etc).
Oddly enough I didn't much like nulabour but they got the 2008/9 call on the banking crisis right and I worry that they may have been right about the timing of the cuts - world demand looks stuffed -so no exports then, and in that case why would you invest in a shrinking domestic economy. Wine bars might open only to close in a few months (when the redundancy pay runs out) and shops might be charity shops (is that the the Big Society?)

The crux of all problems in every Economy is the present "Debt Based Monetary System". The Public Sector Borrowing requirement would be zero and the National debt would never exist if the State was the sole creator of Money. Allowing any Bank or Building Society to create new money (in the form of loan debt) is an absurdity. The spiral of loan/debt is analogous to a pyramid scheme. President Andrew Jackson and President Abraham Lincoln ran the US economy quite successfully with just the US Treasury creating new money. They knew they could do without the deceptively named privately owned Federal Reserve, which is actually a consortium of Private Banking interests. Our Taxation would be less than 3% if we scrap the "Debt Based Monetary System". - Drexler.

40 Anglophone.

About as sensible as it gets!

• 44. At 4:18pm on 30 Jun 2010, ARHReading wrote:
David Cameron is right. For Labour to have any credibility they need to engage in the debate about what cuts they would have made to reduce the deficit. I can understand why they don't want to say much but its not very effective opposition.

Everyone should recall that Liam Byrne confimed before the election that Labour would need to make expenditure cuts on a scale greater than those of Mrs Thatcher's government in the 1980s. So what would the cuts have been?

The bit you may not understand is “When” to make cuts, labour were quite honest about this they said, growth would determine where and when cuts were made, as the economy got stronger, and private jobs assured and created, public sector cuts would be made, this was to be carried out over 5 years halving the deficit and doing only what is necessary, this is in stark contrast to the flippant Tory decisions without any evidence to back up their claims except their friends in the OBR.
We do not have to remove the deficit just reduce it,
They just want to turn people onto the street and let the strong and the rich survive.
but that is all well and good but does any of it really matter anymore, if you read the statements of many economists it looks like a double dip recession or new credit crunch, is due anyway, the banking crisis isn’t over by a long way, This bleating from the conservatives about labour waste etc will be shown for what is……………irrelevant hot air and an attempt to blame hard working people who have served the country for a situation created by the city. The big issue is the banking industry and capitalism always was and always will be.

Nick

Is the lack of transparency of where public sector jobs are to be cut down to political obfuscation or has this not been determined yet? Why such a simple question could not be asked at PMQs I do not know. Well i do, most MPs are intellectually challenged and stringing a few words to gether to form a coherent sentence is beyond them. But you could ask such a question Nick at Cameron's next press conference.

I see that more jobs have been lost at Lloyds Banking Group in England. Yorkshire and NW England are really being hammered with jobs lost especially with the halifax brand. The Bank of Scotland brand is relatively unharmed - part of Gordon Brown's deal with Lloyds? I am never sure if these are public sector jobs or not.

Potentially if the banks really are broken up between casino and high street the loss of synergies could well prompt a big recruitment drive especially if regulatory demands require more stringent reporting. Of course smaller institutions would lead to lower pay packets for the highest paid, so Chief Execs etc will not be too chuffed.

If the coalition is able to reduce red tape for business it will attract investment. The export market is a problem in that the main market, Europe has seen dramatic falls over the last year whilst the Far East has grownalbeit market share is small. At times like this you wish the world lived in harmony and that trade sanctions did not exist with nations such as burma, Iran, north korea to name but a few. it would make a difference to the global recession.

24. At 3:29pm on 30 Jun 2010, watriler wrote:
OBR is pants! Do they suppose redundant public sector workers are going to start up wine bars or pottery studios. This rapid downsizing of the public sector will produce large negative multipliers that will stifle or constrict any growth in the private sector never mind what happens to the things these workers do. If anything the government should incentivise people whether sacked or ejected from the disability allowance culture to find work by creating jobs (or allowing the filling of vacancies in the public sector)

Watriler,

There isn't any money to pay for new jobs in the public sector.
As Labour Minister Liam Byrne wrote, "There isn't any money".
So what will you offer the people who enter "created jobs"?
Peanuts? We can't even afford to import those!

Make up some money and dump the problem on our children and grandchildren?

It wasn't the "private sector" as a whole that caused the problem.
It was the badly regulated and reckless bankers. Who lived in a make-believe world because they were NOT externally or self-regulated properly.
Can't blame folk in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, tourism, retailers or all the other sectors because some governments didn't bother to control a finance industry that got out of hand. Can you?

Brown grew the public sector faster than the tax-take would or should have allowed.

Seems that, under projections from either Labour or Coalition leadership, almost all the Brown-boom jobs will go.

So Brown boomed. The bust be will dealt with by others. Even though he knew that the horns would have to be pulled in, but didn't have the COURAGE to announce to the electorate before the election exactly how hard it would be...

Hence Harriet's attacks based on doubtful statistics, but with no "clauses" to admit that under a "refreshed" Labour administration, things would have been as tough as anybody has ever experienced.

My hope? That private companies will just get on with what they do. Not such a quick return as in the past, but maybe well prepared for when the global economy re-quickens. As it does. As long as heavy-handed governments get out of the way!

"peejkerton wrote:
@6
Everyone keeps blaming Labour for the economic situation, but lets not forget the money they had to pump into the economy because of the terrible underspend of the Thatcher and Major years. If the Tories hadn't got us into a position of Victorian hospitals and 6 month waiting lists a mass spend would not have been required in order to bring us up to Euro standards."

Oddly enough people blame Labour for the current economic situation because they are (mainly) responsible. Why is it that even after 13 years of Labour their supporters STILL blame the previous Tory government.

Your point about Labour needing to borrow to cover an underspend under the Tories doesn't really make sense either as you seem to have forgot that Labour BORROWED money to spend on public services. They wanted to look like they were spending more on public services but also that they were keeping taxes down.

Previous Labour governments taxed and spent the last one borrowed and spent. If Labour had increased taxes to spend on public services we wouldn't be in as bad a situation we are now.

And who would have thought that contracts with third party private sector companies would be first to go under any public sector austerity plans?

Well, anyone with a modicum of sense would, which seems to exclude this inevitable one term government we currently have.

So where exactly is this private sector growth going to come from?

The economy is currently working severely under capacity, and until that slack is taken up there will be no new investment or additional employment. Further, with domestic unemployment up, courtesy of the destruction of public services, there will ne a negative impact on consumer confidence and consequently a reduction in domestic demand.

Meanwhile, the great majority of members of the G20, who are competing with one another to see who can cut their structural defecits quickest, will not be beating a path to our exporters doors looking for the sort of trinkets that our manufacturing base has been reduced to. [NB - loved the refusal to lend Forgemasters £80m to enable one of our few successful world class manaufacturers to compete in a burgeoning industry on the world stage - only here could somebody shoot themselves in the foot, and say how clever they are]

To spice it up further, the problems in the Eurozone over the vulnerability of several member nations accounts means that the pound is appreciating, making our goods and services ever more expensive in the very markets where the vast majority of our sales are made. So, plenty of opportunities to increase sales there then - not.

So, to all those who think that taking the axe to a specific part of the economy without any thought to what will replace it has all the hallamarks of a certain other government of 30 years vintage. Said governemnt, then, took the view, in a post industrial world, that basic heavy industry was so yesterday. Scrap it, and the resulting hole in the economy would be filled with bright eyed and bushy tailed entreprneurs just champing at the bit to build a brave new world.

Instead we got recession with interminable Howe green shoots being spotted everywhere like ghosts in the mist, whilst 3.5+ million people languished in unemployment. Then came the Big Bang in the City - obscene short term lucre, followed by the inevitable bust. As if that was not lesson enough we then had the the Lawson boom, followed again this time by the Lamont bust - with all that lovely negative home equity.

And here we are again, playing the same tune, on the same broken down gramaphone player, last seen in 1997, and now hauled out once more to play its haunting melody of doom, despondency and ruined lives.

If only those inflicting this carnage, in the name of financial probity, were subject its effects, then some shred of credibility might attach to their hand wringing fakery, but it won't. Why not must just shoot us, and put us out of our misery - they shoot horses, don't they?

During the thirteen years of New Labour rule the manufacturing sector in the UK lost 1,000,000 jobs.

A good proportion of these people found employment in the public sector under the many initiatives the New Labour government funded.

Sadly, the source of that funding has stopped as, according to a New Labour minister at the time, the money has run out and so, inevitably, many of those jobs will be lost.

Would it not have been better not to have discarded those manufacturing jobs in the first place?

I have reason to doubt the OBR growth forecasts but compared with the New Labour achievement - remember `things could only get better' - they are a paragon of integrity.

I think Harriet is trying to build treasure for later years but for any former Labour minister to get up and cry stinking fish at the coalition is an act of the most grotesque hyprocrisy.

Former New Labour ministers should all quit politics and spend the rest of their lives doing good works unpaid among the poor for the shame of what they have done to this country and its people.

Laura Keunssberg on Twitter

BBCLauraK

Treasury confirms Guardian leak was genuine but was a draft made before the elex

So these are Labour's projected job loss figures. Oh dear

Fubar @ 19

"SAGA !!!"

What's up with you? Just pointing out the interdependency of the two sectors.

E.G.

Govt decides to use some tax revenue to build a road.
Hires a private firm to build it.
Private firm hires people to do the work.
Pays them and they pay tax on it.
They spend it and pay tax on that.
Private firm makes a profit on the contract.
Pays tax on its profit.
Govt collects the various bits of tax above.
Decides to use it to build a road.

See what I mean? See the point? (apart from if we carry on like this we'll end up with too many roads).

Point is just the interdependency of the private and public sectors in our modern mixed economy - point is that "private sector makes the money and public sector spends it" is simplistic and unhelpful ... and yes it's the right word so I'll go for it again ... Rhubarb.

38. craigmarlpool

Yes, Cameron seems to have entered the land of the Cloud cuckoo in record time.

Public confidence is the key to our recovery in the private sector, but Cam’ & Co seem to be oblivious to this.
Heavy job losses & cuts are bound to dent the Public’s confidence, & this in turn will affect the Private sector.

How on earth will this “create” 2.5M jobs in said sector?
I hope the boys have done their maths properly & realised that many of the public sector workers will be entitled to benefits when they hit the Dole office, so the savings won’t be quite as big as they say they will.

You are right; if the jobs are created, they will be likely to be low paid jobs that will need assistance from the state, but that sounds rather familiar doesn’t it?

#40
Last paragraph is very sensible.

Last week in my local paper a union rep raged againt the public sector reductions but a couple of pages later there was a story about a private sector employer whose workers had accepted a 10% pay reduction to save their jobs.

Why can't the public sector have a incremental pay cut from bottom to top rather than a wholesale reduction in numbers?

Unison is of course wholly political and will never listen to reasonable bargaining about pay/conditions.

Why not a ballot in the public sector for wage reductions as opposed to job losses?

The government should also get together with leaders from the TUC/CBI and come to some agreement about the way forward.

Leaving Unions /Business on the sidelines won't help.

Political predictions look like dangerous things but predicting that unemployment would fall in this Parliament would be the proverbial no-brainer if just one thing could magically happen - that the Government gets out of the way of the private sector, particularly in the sense of employment bureaucracy.

That is all that is required, which superficially sounds relatively straightforward but in practise is very hard to achieve because a huge number of 'interested parties' would rather maintain the status quo ... so we won't be rocking all over the world.

Well my back-of-an-envelope calculation as the bouncing Baronet was delivering his homily of 750,000 was about right.

But the hope that the private sector will create 1.3 million jobs is just so much pie in the sky. The private sector hates employing people and will do everything it can to avoid taking on a single worker. And even if it does in any number they are likely to be in low-grade jobs. Because the higher grade jobs are few and far between.

With all the humbug about the public sector, most of the victims will be low paid personnel whose loss of tax contribution, economic activity and (even reduced) benefit claims will mean that the taxpayer will just lose from another pocket instead. So all that will happen is that less will be done with the same amount of money.

There are inefficiencies in the public sector to be sure but there is a lot of work that needs to be done. It makes much more sense to cut out the stupidities but redeploy people to areas where their contribution will make a difference. Then we get better efficiency. Fat chance of that.

The main things to cut are excessive public sector pay in the quangos and other stupidities including the BBC. It sets a very bad example even if it will not save too much overall. You could do that by a 10% cut in salary on the margin above say £50k. Then if those fat cats walk, they can be employed by their chums in the private sector but otherwise don't pin any hopes on the private sector. It's not in their interest as their agenda is profit not jobs.

Look forwards to 4.5 million unemployed and 3 million claimant count. This is why Osbourne is hacking at the benefits bill today.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Nick

In the main article it says that if Labour stayed in we would have 70,000 fewer public sector jobs next year, and 150,000 the year after (total). However, in yours you are saying that the figures are 70,000 and 150,000 more jobs lost than we are going to have under ConDem. This makes it sound as if under Labour we would have lost about 190,000 public sector jobs next year (140,000 estimated losses by Tory, plus the extra 70,000 you refer to!)

Can you please confirm which is right, or whether this is just another way of twisting damned statistics?

"diane wrote:
The truth is that Cameron can't get away with rhetoric forever and neither can he blame the labour party for everything which seems to be the strategy he falls to whenever he gets cornered."

Cameron has been in the job a matter of weeks so I think it is fair enough that he blames Labour for the problems he is currently facing day to day.

Labour were still blaming the Tories for problems after 13 years in power - and people still blame Thatcher for problems after decades.

For all those who rightly bemoan the greedy bankers etc, please remember this wee nugget. Which Glaswegian banker was Gordon brown's best friend who often popped in to 11 downing Street whenever he was in London?

Yup, step forward Fred Goodwin (now Sir for some obscure reason). Do the Labour trolls seriously expect me to believe that all they talked about was Scottish football? No mention of RBS in any context whatsoever? Was such a friendship appropriate? A conflict of interest perhaps...

How cmany of the Private Sector jobs that Mr Cameron hopes will replace lost public sector jobs will be at the minimum wage? Please note that only single people with no dependents will receive just the minimum wage. Any benefits that top up this obscenely low hourly rate will come out of taxes - many pensioners pay income tax and will contribute to this shortfall. The minimum wage merely subsidises skinflint employers... The kind of people Mr Cameron represents!

It's really interesting to watch PMQs with a new PM at the peak of his powers for this parliament before the messy compromises of Government start to appear. It was really lucky for the PM that the 'Independant' OBR 'just happened' to publish a new forecast the day after a leak just in time for the PM to use at PMQs :-)
It's really good to see people are excited about the change as well although an old cynic like me has seen it all before. It reminds me a lot of MT in 79 and TB in his 97 debut.
I did think that the PM went in really hard on Harriet and, to me, indicates the worry he has about the political risks this government is taking. If he pulls it off it will be smiles all round -but what the OBR report is really saying that there will be a lot of private and public sector job losses that will be mopped up by a FORECAST of job increases by using the measures implemented in GO's budget. This relies on exports growing by 40% over the budget cycle. This is a big ask as we export mainly to Europe who are having their own cuts -i.e. less money to buy our products. We also need to compete with Chinese and US imports who are still likely to have a fiscal stimulus.
The figures in the OBR report also mean a high level of job turnover. This means people will lose their jobs and have to seek and find a new one as a direct result of the measures in the budget.
This is a lot of voters to stress out over the next few years -and if the jobs aren't there in the timescale forecast it will be a difficult one to explain.

# 59

Understood - but since the election the world has changed. And had Labour won the election they would be cutting expenditure now too. The questions still remains - what? Until we get some answers we haven't got a credible opposition.

#40 the guardian will not last that long , its been propped up by vast amount of HMG funding for job adverts for public sector jobs,

Wonder where the private sector advertise these jobs ?

Not the Guardian thats for sure.

32. peejkerton wrote:
'Everyone keeps blaming Labour for the economic situation, but lets not forget the money they had to pump into the economy because of the terrible underspend of the Thatcher and Major years. If the Tories hadn't got us into a position of Victorian hospitals and 6 month waiting lists a mass spend would not have been required in order to bring us up to Euro standards.'


Euro standards?
The UK has had one of highest rates of hospital infection in Europe, increasing sharply from the late nineties through to the best part of the last decade.

Euro standards? Like Tunbridge Wells and Maidstone Trust hospitals where around 90 patients died thanks to negligence and lack of due care?
Like Mid Staffordshire Trust where upwards of 400 died due to lack of proper care?
Ditto Basildon and Thurrock University Hospitals (±400 avoidable deaths in a year).
Ditto Lewisham Hospital NHS Trust
Ditto Scarborough and North East Yorkshire Healthcare NHS Trust
Ditto Stoke Mandeville Hospital.
etc. etc. etc.

All sharing common contributing factors like the transfer to PFI funding and the obsession with government targets and cutting costs and lack of adequate monitoring.

Quoting newly built hospital figures and shorter waiting lists can't hide the fact that the quality of hospital care differs radically across the regions and local Trusts. Only in their last term of office did the Labour government start to get to grips with the scale of the problem, and only after being galvanised by a series of scandals.

Lastly, there were already plans to consolidate hospitals under the previous government which would have seen perfectly good ones going to the wall.

Suggest using another example to support your argument.

#63 Paul wrote:
"And here we are again, playing the same tune, on the same broken down gramaphone player"

Of course your contribution was well-written, but if you re-read it carefully you will see that we have not acknowledged the complexity of the state we're in.

The public sector is less efficient than the private.

There are issues of timing, of course, and there are services which are best provided by the public sector, of course, but a mature analysis would at least try to understand, if not agree with, the economic case for a vibrant, and less taxed, private sector.

#66 sagamix wrote:
"Point is just the interdependency of the private and public sectors in our modern mixed economy"

Correct, of course.

But for a mixed economy to work the private sector needs access to capital (a functioning banking system), better regulation, lower tax, infrastructure investment, a better educated workforce, and a level playing field (sorry about the cliche) in the cost of labour recruitment.

Would you sign-up to all of that?

Labour have not delivered this agenda, and nothing in their public pronouncements of the last few weeks suggest they understand.

#67.

Which is why old Georgey Boy must have had forecasts of the welfare spending done...its going to be very scarey...hence no word from him on it and a rush to slash it now.

I would rather people had jobs looking after the elderly, disabled and infirm rather than part time in some sweat shop and claiming benefits.

Of course the Tory strategy relies on a large pool of unemployed to drive wages down...don't be surprised to hear future announcements on the minimum wage.


New politics ? No old politics...about thirty years old.

Very confusing. Having just spent 2 months claiming they were the best 'cutters' ever and that their opponents wouldn't know a cut if it leapt up and bit them, did I just witness Dave saying that Labour cuts would have been worse (or is that better?) than his own. This takes spin to levels beyond even the 'Dark Lord'.
Ken Clarke arguing prisons are bad for us? Indeed we live in @interesting times.'

68 Cominsenz.

Spot on!

At present, we are all basking in the calm before the storm. There seem to be a few ripples but, hey, it's nothing we can't handle.

Come November, reality will kick in and attitudes will change.

I don't underestimate what is about to happen - 25% cuts is very, very serious money.

65 Glassfet

Cricky, so the Tory/Lib Dems wanting to cut quicker and deeper presumably the figures are going to be better or worse. Look forward to your update figures once you've done the calculations.


Kevinb 15, 47 & 51. - Presumably trying to say something like "Lets face the music and dance". Only a guess mind.

We may get "independent" figures - but same old spin. teh point for thiose affected surely is not what the position might have been - given various dodgy assumptions - had Labour won the election, but what WILL happen as a result of this budget - something with Cameron, Clegg & Osborne preferred to brush over

All this talk of an increase in unemployment statistics misses the point. In the current economic climate anyone losing their job could possibly face months - or even years - out of work and severe financial hardship, but this seems to be ignored by politicians and political pundits.

To paraphrase Stalin: "One person losing their job is a human tragedy. A million people losing their jobs is just a statistic."

It is becoming obvious that mass unemployment is a price the coalition government is prepared to pay to reduce the national deficit.

Lets not forget the taxpayers money spent propping up a failed banking system. For all of the criticism against Brown, in my view his support for the banks was his biggest disaster.

I don't necessarily agree with the view that all public sector workers are on the make, in the same way that I don't think all bankers are unashamedly reaping the benefits of the financial disaster they played a significant part in bringing about.

Remember, the unemployed tend not to spend money in the private sector, so whilst a lot of you on here seem to be wishing other peoples jobs away, it may come back to affect you.

I hope it does.

66 - "Govt decides to use some tax revenue to build a road.
Hires a private firm to build it.
Private firm hires people to do the work.
Pays them and they pay tax on it.
They spend it and pay tax on that.
Private firm makes a profit on the contract.
Pays tax on its profit.
Govt collects the various bits of tax above.
Decides to use it to build a road.

See what I mean? See the point? (apart from if we carry on like this we'll end up with too many roads).

Point is just the interdependency of the private and public sectors in our modern mixed economy - point is that "private sector makes the money and public sector spends it" is simplistic and unhelpful"

Where, in your example, is it NOT the public sector spending the money and the private sector making it?

Suppose the example was:

Government allows private sector to build road at private company's expense in exchange for right to collect tolls.
Government needs to collect less tax because it isn't spending as much.
People have more in their pocket so can afford tolls.
Private company is encouraged by low taxes and offers to build more roads.
Everyone is happy, except you.

70 - "But the hope that the private sector will create 1.3 million jobs is just so much pie in the sky. The private sector hates employing people and will do everything it can to avoid taking on a single worker."

That's such an idiotic thing to write taht I'm going to repeat the most idiotic part of it as most readers will probably have thought "that CAN'T have said what I thought it said":

"The private sector hates employing people"

Is that how some private firms employ tens of thousands of people. because they hate doing it?

The firm I work for has expanded from 60 to 115 people since I joined 5 years ago.

You are talking complete and utter tripe about a subject you clearly know nothing about. Any private sector company will take on employees who make the company more profitable.

The OBR should be known as the Three Stooges. It is hardly independent when it was formed by the Conservative Party before the election and then put in place after it. It is based in the Treasury. I seem to recall that Alan Budd was closely associated with Thatcherism.

If we want independence then let's have three economists with no government association but then their views might differ wwhich we could not have.

Having said all the above why is so much store set by the views of economists with their appalling past record and wide spread of forecasts? After past failures most are now erring on the side of extremee caution.

Jobsagoodin, you should rename yourself Jobsabadin. Because if you think 500,00 or 600,000 job losses are down to labour you live in your own little fantasy world.
This is Thatcherism coming back to bite us in the but and you all know it. You can bet the public sector jobs that go will be the likes of refuse collectors or porters and not the high paid executives.
It's a wonder Cameron and his little chum haven't invented a new Poll Tax, be warned.
The 80's will be back with strikes and high unemployment because of coalition policies

43. At 4:13pm on 30 Jun 2010, Joss wrote:
The real problem, unfortunately, is a million miles away from any combination of statistics.
If 10 people from a specialist unit with the public sector are given the sack, from where in the private sector are they going to get a job?
It is well know that many employees in the public sector, especially in administrative roles, have a terrible time trying to find jobs in the private sector.
Not only is it hard to find anything like an equivalent job, but they have been trained within a completely different working culture, with a different ethos, non-standard working practices and so on.

If 600,000 are made redundant over the next few years, many of those are going to find they are taking lower paid jobs, assuming they can find one at all.
The government are saying that vacancies will increase in the private sector. But if those vacancies are all for plumbers, and the people made redundant are all administrators, the statistics could be absolutely equal, but that will help no one.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Super argument (like Alan B) However you are forgetting that the Coalition have had a commonsensectomy rendering your excellent analysis ineffective.

Could the BBC please provide the statistics on which bloggers complain about comments causing them to be referred? This is feasible from a technical point of view - I am not asking for IP addresses as their handle will still keep their anonymity.

So the Gideon Osborne came to the dispatch box to deliver his emergency budget, he kicked off by saying it would be the most open and honest budget ever delivered too the house..LoL! nobody believes that now! the nasty party were planning a cull behind closed doors.

How can this admin be taken serious now! when they so clearly mislead the house and the public about their devious plans.

I think there should be a public demonstration, calling for the tory party to be honest and tell the truth.

Who really believes that the private sector can offer better services than the public sector?And who now isn't suspicious about the tories just feeding loads of cash to the very wealthy friends.

They've duped the public again and lied their way to government.

We want the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

My wife was recently told that her department (which funds OAP & Youth services) would not face cuts to their frontline services. Instead, her whole department would have their salaries cut. The Government has been so underhanded; by trying to come out on top, smelling of roses as they state 'we have not cut frontline services'. Instead, they have wiped out the salaries of those who run the department. Did they expect these people to work for free?

Today my wife was told that her whole department was being disbanded in ten weeks time. As the Government are planning on cutting all working targets and timetables (and any legal action, should these targets not be met), this is the current situation: It is more financially viable for three people to do FIFTEEN people's jobs, therefore operating a terrible, useless service, which will have a knock on effect to the service providers (those that run the care homes), and ultimately those who use these services (vulnerable teens and OAPS). My wife was told today that its CHEAPER for the governing council to be fined £50,000 regularly for failing services, than to actually employ more people to keep standards up.

So what's the future for the service providers? Will they be funded directly from the Government? A large part of my wife's job is ensuring that these service providers are actually complying to the rules (i.e. not fudging the numbers, not embezzling their funds, and providing a decent service to those who need these invaluable centres). With nobody to oversee these services, expect to read more stories about corruption, exploitation and neglect. It is simply insane.

How will the private sector clean up the blood from the ideological based massacre on the public sector? If you lose jobs in the public sector or any business, you lose more jobs from the businesses that service that business and its employees. The only reason I can think of is that more unemployed means more job insecurity and desperation to work for lower pay and conditions. Or the services and their funds could be diverted to the private sector so someone can make a profit with public money. If not these then how else will cutting the public sector help the private sector?

16. At 3:08pm on 30 Jun 2010, Nick wrote:
Since when were all public sector jobs cuts such a bad thing?

Sustainability Advisor
Employer: BRISTOL CITY COUNCIL
Posted: 23 Jun 2010
Contract: Permanent
Hours: Full Time
Salary: BG10: £25,472 - £28,636

"The Green Capital Partnership is part of the Local Strategic Partnership and aims to mobilise the whole city into action to make Bristol a Green Capital. To lead this initiative we have created a new team led by the Partnership Manager"

Just one of many!

Nick,

Completely stupid, isn't it?

Make up a job, pretend it is really vital and whine when the people who have no choice about whether it's really necessary get a bit fed up.

So there's another 25,000 saved.

Just how many 25K and upwards government jobs make any real difference?

Tiring. And costly...

48. At 4:27pm on 30 Jun 2010, fairlyopenmind15 wrote:
I need some help.
Treasury documents seem to show that Coalition cuts would have exceeded Labour planned cuts by 30,000.
So Labour planned and was happy to chop 500,000 jobs. That would have been a "good thing".
Coalition will take some more.
So, we all agree that 500,000 job losses that Labour were happy to deliver were "good" for the employees.
Every party seems to believe that was the way to start to chop out wasteful borrowing/spending from a discredited administration.
It's just those extra ones that we need to work on, to get them right, isn't it? Let the people decide which bits of local or central government could be chopped and I'd be amazed if you couldn't wipe out the additional 30,000 public sector jobs within 48 hours.
(Although, I'd actually quite like some of the people to stay in polace, but have pay related to what they actually DO.)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Yoiu do need help don't you.
Your problem is you're caught in an endless loop of 2 party politics. You seem to assume that anyone who opposes the right must be a Labour supporter. Blair was as tory as any you're likely to meet, and Brown, dear old, much maligned Gordon, had only 3 years in charge, most of which was dominated by a recession. So we can guess but we shall never know. When we have had an alternative to tory policies we will be able to make a judgement.

A lot of faith in economists here. Remember economics is not a science, its mostly guesswork. So the OBR are guessing what will happen - a vaguely educated guess maybe but a guess just the same. Its all just a gamble with people's lives and for the sake of ideology.