The New UK Spending Cuts

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

So you didn't vote in the election?

Don't really have any right to start whining that things aren't going the way you'd like them to then do you?

That's a clichéd argument. Sometimes there is no one (electable) you can vote for that you agree with. Especially since all the parties fought as hard as possible to take the centre from each other.

 

[t_rexaur]

That's a clichéd argument. Sometimes there is no one (electable) you can vote for that you agree with. Especially since all the parties fought as hard as possible to take the centre from each other.

That doesn't excuse a person from not voting though. Even if there's no one they agree with there's always the lesser evil, as it where.

Besides it's not as if the Parties stick to what they preach. You may as well just vote at random most of the time but at least you are still voting.

Yes, because I was seriously suggesting that website coupled with the fairly arbitrary search criteria I did had every possible vacancy for young people in the whole of the UK. There's a job out there for her somewhere, maybe she's not applied to the right places, maybe she needs more qualifications, maybe she needs to spend time doing volunteer work to get experience, maybe she needs to move to another area to get one, but there will be one.

That said, if she really is struggling to find a job after posting her CV everywhere, maybe she should make sure her CV and covering letters are good. Lots of employers turn them down for the silliest reasons.

Spoken like someone completely out of touch with the current work environment. The only good idea you suggested there was voluntary work. Think about it for a moment:

How are more qualifications going to help if employers want actual experience?
How can you move to another area to look for work if you have no money because you can't get work?

And finally, you do realise why employers throw out CV's for any old reason don't you? It's because they get so many!

 

[The Rockerfly]

Someone has to make these cuts, if Labour party wee still in power they would too

Luckily no one in my family is in the public sector so no worries but I feel bad for families who do and I think we have some truly hard times in the future

 

[k-ossuburb]

This doesn't belong here, it belongs in the Politics and Religion forum.

 

[Giantcain]

Well, fuck this shit. I'm going to colonize Mars.

Mind if I go with you but bring some sort of orbital laser with me?

 

[Giantcain]

now i love to hate a Tory
and i come from a working class family who basically earn very little
but these cuts are necessary
in my view
they need to happen whether we like it or not
it's just convenient that it's the conservatives who're putting it in place so we can continue to hate them

a lot of bad shit is going to happen
this we know
but there aren't many other options
and even the ones there is are shit

I hate them because all they have done to my tow is stunts its growth repeatedly.

 

[jimborious]

So you didn't vote in the election?

Don't really have any right to start whining that things aren't going the way you'd like them to then do you?

That's a clichéd argument. Sometimes there is no one (electable) you can vote for that you agree with. Especially since all the parties fought as hard as possible to take the centre from each other.

I agree that its cliched but its still true, better to vote for a party you agree with 50%, than to not vote at all.

I voted Con in the election but i didn't agree with them completely, it was them or the LibDem's and in the end i decided that the Con's where the party who's maifesto came closest to my own opinions. Now if i hadn't been sure which to vote for should i have not voted? In that situation i think it would be better to pick one of the two at random than not vote at all.

 

[gallaetha_matt]

Someone has to make these cuts, if Labour party wee still in power they would too

Luckily no one in my family is in the public sector so no worries but I feel bad for families who do and I think we have some truly hard times in the future

Okay I've had a five mile run and lifted a fuck load of weights. I'm calm. I am in control. I've burned off all my anger. I'm read to come back to this with intelligence, a cool hat and my typical scouse wit.

Maybe labour would've made the same cuts, we'll never know. The thing is, if Labour had made the cuts you'd know that they'd put the money right back into the system. It's already been established that the Tories are putting billions of pounds right back into the same banking system that started that mess.

(Look for one of my earlier posts with the actual link if you're interested, I can find it again but my laptop is hella slow and that'll take me a good twenty minutes. I have a good rant a-brewing here.)

I'm also pretty sure that Labour wouldn't axe 500,000 jobs from the public sector, either. It's all well and good saying that this government is 'brave' for 'finally tackling the economic crisis' and that Labour 'were burying there heads in the sand.' But the fact is, Gordon Brown was making good headroads into getting us out of the recession. We weren't out of the woods, no - but things were starting to get better.

(I just looked around for evidence of his policies, I know I read a few back when he was PM. But Brown was so reviled by the media that nearly everything I find is an opinion based rant against him.)

The Tory cuts will throw us right back into the deep end - I mean the way out of economic crisis is for people to start spending again, right? How can we spend with no jobs or benefits? How can we afford anything when the Tories plan to raise the VAT?

At best, the Tory solution will grind us to a halt for the next decade or more. This is not a good thing. How can you defend it?

Benefits are there for people who need them in the short run or are so disabled they have no chance of working at all. I don't really think anyone else needs them. It's this attitude where people believe that the government is responsible for taking care of them that makes me mad. The one thing I noticed is that although the gov. is cutting benefits, wellfare, departmental spending and raising VAT they are maintaing many infrastructural projects. For me that's what government is about. Not for everyone one who cant be assed to make a reall effort to get a job to lean on them.

You are worth what you are worth. If you squandered your chances at education, sat on the doll, striked on petty issues with your union then you are worth very little to society. You do not add any value. Why should wealthy people who often worked hard and fought tooth and nail for what they have pay for other people shortcomings? Why should there be more incentive to stay on benefits than to go back to work? That is part of what this government is trying to end and as far as I'm concerned this is all well and good.

I know I will get flamed for this by many people who feel they are entitled to aid from their government or who claim to be looking for a job, but what the heck.

Somebody answered this already far better than I could, but I thought I'd quote you directly so I know you'd see my response.

Firstly, my analogy wasn't the meat of my argument. It was the sauce if anything. Just there to make my argument more palatable and nothing more.

You say that benefits are for people that need them in the short run and for disabled people, not scroungers, right? These cuts are going to hit these people as well. Cutting benefits so as to discourage scroungers is like dropping an atom bomb on a city to stop street crime.

Here's the thing as well - a lot of wealthy people haven't fought 'tooth and nail' for what they have. Often they are born into positions of power or they are fortunate enough to know people that can give them a leg up. Most of us don't have and will never have that privelege, for every Richard Branson you read about forming their own company from nothing, there's a business that crashed because it didn't have the right connections.

Then you said 'you are worth what you're worth.' This is a dangerous stance to take. I myself am lucky enough to have an education, I was lucky enough to get a job with a massive financial institution and job within the service industry, so I have extensive work experience to call upon in a variety of roles. I work hard, I'm good with people, friendly, well-endowed (because y'know, they check that, or they did at my last interview nyuk nyuk nyuk) and I would say I'm sort of intelligent too.

I've also been out of work a month due to my contract expiring with my previous employer. I was due an extension but 'due to the economic crisis' they couldn't afford to keep me. So I'm currently on benefits and finding it pretty damn tough out there to find jobs (I'm at the job centre every day and I have a CV at two major recruitment agencies, before you say I'm not doing enough).

Should I therefore just accept that I'm not good enough and wait for death to claim me? That seems to be what you're suggesting. Because by the very nature of my unemployment I am therefore 'worthless' according to your logic.

Even if that's not what you're saying (I know you're not attacking me personally, I'm just using myself as an example instead of just saying 'some guy I know' argument sauce again) what about the people that weren't lucky enough to get my start in life? The people that worked hard at school but couldn't afford the ridiculous prices they charge at universities? The people that are born into poor families (or no families at all) who couldn't even get to school in the first place due to other responsibilities at home? What about a single mother saddled with a kid she can't afford, but trying to do the right thing and raise him properly?

Okay that last one was a little bit weak, but I needed a third thing - rule of three's and that.

I've argued my point - I think. I welcome your response.

 

[Vanguard_Ex]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11569160

That link speaks for itself I think, if you're not scared yet - here are the main points that shocked me.

* About 490,000 public sector jobs likely to be lost

* £7bn in additional welfare budget cuts

* Police funding cut by 4% a year

* Retirement age to rise from 65 to 66 by 2020

* Regulated rail fares to rise 3% above inflation

So basically the retirement age is still going up when it should be going down. A lower retirement age would create jobs for younger people (like say, me!) and stop them from having to fall on state benefits to survive (like say, me!). It says this won't start until 2020, but we know what most companies are like. They'll gleefully force their older members of staff to keep their jobs, since this will save them the trouble of searching for younger workers to replace their older members of staff.

While we're waiting for any decent jobs, benefits are getting slashed. So we'll have nothing to live on while we're unemployed. We can't pick up work from the public sector anymore - they're going to be closing their doors for a while. Osbourne (that sluggy, chinless bastard) says;

Mr Osborne told BBC Breakfast he expected many more private sector jobs to be created over the four year cuts programme.

Hey! We can expect more jobs in the private sector! Because that worked the last time we tried it, didn't it?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiership_of_Margaret_Thatcher

So ladies and gentlemen, smart, young, talented people - McDonalds and the service industry beckons to you. Because you're not likely to get employed by anyone else over the next seven years or so.

Oh and if you can't drive yet (like me!) you can expect to pay more in rail fairs in order to get around.

If nothing else though the police budget has been cut, so if you'd prefer to turn to crime you're less likely to get caught.

I've recently become unemployed. This new budget looks set to hit me hard. I'm especially annoyed since it has echoes of Margaret Thatcher's time as prime minister. Anybody who knows their history knows how that turned out (if you're American, she had a lot in common with Ronald Reagan, except instead of 'reaganomics' she just raised VAT, increased interest rates and drove millions out of their jobs). This all seems very scary.

Anybody else affected by the new budget cuts? Anybody else (like me!) looking for jobs outside the country? How do non-UK people feel about the new budget? Has your country tried anything similar?

This is normally where I'd put a joke, but I'm so terrified that I can't even think straight. Plus it's very early in the morning.

The Conservatives are living in their own little world. We folk who weren't born into great wealth or even land ownership aren't really going to suffer, we're just lazy and/or needy. After all, Osborne in his infinite wisdom pointed out that the number of children that a couple has is a choice. So what about twins, triplets etc., and people who have been appointed as godparents and had to take up that duty?

This is the problem with the people who now run our country: they don't have a fucking clue. They patronise us because they are so wildly ignorant they have no idea what they're really doing.

 

[The Rockerfly]

Someone has to make these cuts, if Labour party wee still in power they would too

Luckily no one in my family is in the public sector so no worries but I feel bad for families who do and I think we have some truly hard times in the future

Okay I've had a five mile run and lifted a fuck load of weights. I'm calm. I am in control. I've burned off all my anger. I'm read to come back to this with intelligence, a cool hat and my typical scouse wit.

Maybe labour would've made the same cuts, we'll never know. The thing is, if Labour had made the cuts you'd know that they'd put the money right back into the system. It's already been established that the Tories are putting billions of pounds right back into the same banking system that started that mess.

(Look for one of my earlier posts with the actual link if you're interested, I can find it again but my laptop is hella slow and that'll take me a good twenty minutes. I have a good rant a-brewing here.)

I'm also pretty sure that Labour wouldn't axe 500,000 jobs from the public sector, either. It's all well and good saying that this government is 'brave' for 'finally tackling the economic crisis' and that Labour 'were burying there heads in the sand.' But the fact is, Gordon Brown was making good headroads into getting us out of the recession. We weren't out of the woods, no - but things were starting to get better.

(I just looked around for evidence of his policies, I know I read a few back when he was PM. But Brown was so reviled by the media that nearly everything I find is an opinion based rant against him.)

The Tory cuts will throw us right back into the deep end - I mean the way out of economic crisis is for people to start spending again, right? How can we spend with no jobs or benefits? How can we afford anything when the Tories plan to raise the VAT?

At best, the Tory solution will grind us to a halt for the next decade or more. This is not a good thing. How can you defend it?

We can't keep spending though, the debt is a stupid amount. I'm not defending the Tories but whoever came into power would have to cut costs somehow.

People should find more work in the private sector, not hard. I do see where you're coming from, cutting jobs is not the best way to encourage spending. Still, an interesting economic case study

Thank you for taking my post calmly though, too many people rage at political debates on the internet

 

[Jonny49]

Well, fuck this shit. I'm going to colonize Mars.

Mind if I go with you but bring some sort of orbital laser with me?

All are welcome on the Mars Colonization Express!

 

[Enemy Of The State]

They're closing RAF Kinloss and scrapping the HMS Ark Royal.

We're fucked.

 

[Private Custard]

I'm really angry at the defence cuts.

The Ark Royal is being retired and two new carriers are being built at the moment. The trouble is that the Harriers are being retired any time now, and we don't take delivery of the new Joint Strike Fighters until 2020.

Yep, right at the time we're fighting wars and looking suspiciously at the Argies over the Falklands, we're gonne be floating all of our carriers around the worlds oceans with no fucking aircraft on them!!!

I'm right in the middle of RAF territory too, being surrounded by RAF Wittering (Harriers), RAF Cottesmore (Harriers, but closing soon), RAF Marham (Tornados), RAF Conningsby and Scampton (Typhoons). The cuts are gonna be felt around here :/

So many places we could save money, but they're too worried about offending everyone but their own citizens!!

Overseas aid should be slashed dramatically. A healty chunk of aid given to any African nation is swallowed up by their governments long before the poor ever see it. We give aid to China.......fucking China! They're an industrial Behemoth. Sure they can't build a decent product for shit, but they're cheap, and there's a billion workers, so they're totally dominating. Why are we giving them aid? A lot of blame for our engineering industries going down the pan can be laid at the door of countries like China.

Also, we're paying Christ know how much to be a member of the EU. In 2007, the cost to us was a staggering £96,000........per minute. That's almost as much as an ITV competition phone line! All we're getting from the EU is a lot of extra pointless laws. We've paid to carry the weak countries, we've paid to let everyone else fish our waters and put our own fishermen out of business......the list is endless. We need to knock it on the head and get out while we still can.

And, this may be a bit contraversial, we need to kick out anyone that is not a British citizen, that isn't working and is instead choosing to live off of the state, i.e. US.

This massive hit from the government stinks of panic and haste. More thought, and less fear of offending the rest of the world is needed. We should be sorting our own house out first.

EDIT: Our country has (give or take) 60,000,000 people in it. Our national debt equates to £130,000 for every man, woman and child living here. Offending the rest of the world is the last thing we should be worrying about.

 

[x EvilErmine x]

I agree with gallaetha_matt, his sentiments mirror my own. (That's got nothing to do with him being a fellow scouser though...no really it hasn't)

Basicaly the conservatives (and most high level politicians for that matter) are out of touch with the majority of the population because at the end of the day when has the prime minister ever had to do a job where it was so low payed that he, on a worryingly regular basis, had to choose between eating and having heating?

I'd bet any appendage you care to name that the answer is never. More than likely he's never even known someone in this position. That's the wonderful thing about being born into privilege, the poor and disadvantages are just statistics on a piece of paper or tucked quietly out of the way where they are not seen and heard. And no this isn't wrong or out of order because they are all just dole scum and criminals anyway so they dont even count as people, well not people worth talking about anyway, are they? No i know that not ALL of them are like this but you must admit a lot are, and it seems to be these people who are the ones making all the decisions.

The entire system is fucked, and needs to be overhauled...but it wont happen because the people with the most to loose are the people who are in positions of power and they are the only ones able to make the change.

On a slightly related tangent...

What it politics wasn't mainly about wealth or privilege? (and it is, i would love for you to prove me wrong on this).
Imagine if you will a new system...where a politician was just the same as you or me or another person who goes to work and earns a wage. Get rid of the high wages and pay them all the national average wage (Well maybe give the prime minister and the cabinet a couple of extra thousand a year....after all we all need something to aspire to). I mean if it's meant to be enough to live a fairly comfortable life on then why shouldn't it be enough for them. Also make them renounce any directorships or financial ties to any businesses or company's for the term that they remain in politics.

That to me would fix alot of things, you would get rid of the people who are not in it for the good of the country being the biggest thing.

 

[Dogstile]

Sure as shit beats Labours "Lets stick our heads in the sand and pretend everything is fine" approach. Thankfully we got the morons out before they wrecked the country this time (I'm looking at you Callaghan).

Oh and to the "There are no jobs out there for young people" comment. You are wrong. That is all.

Good argument, "Youre wrong and that is all you need to know.".

I want to try that out, youre wrong.

(Did it work?)

Oh psh. I'm barely qualified to do anything yet when I applied for a part time till job I got it.

What? Do those not count anymore? What you people shouldn't be saying is "there are no jobs". You should be saying "there aren't any jobs I think myself too good for available".

 

[Danzaivar]

Spoken like someone completely out of touch with the current work environment. The only good idea you suggested there was voluntary work. Think about it for a moment:

How are more qualifications going to help if employers want actual experience?
How can you move to another area to look for work if you have no money because you can't get work?

And finally, you do realise why employers throw out CV's for any old reason don't you? It's because they get so many!

Qualifications wouldn't help if they want more experience, that's where the volunteer work or internship programs come in. And you don't move to another area to look for work, you look for work in other areas then move when you get the job (If you move, there might be little in terms of jobs there, if you look around first, you can go where the offers are). Rent a place just before your work starts, if you can't afford the rent (and don't have family that can lend you it) just get a short term loan to cover the first months living costs.

It's awkward as hell but it's doable. And yeah the CV situation is dire, but that's why you gotta make sure it's as good as it can be.

Just gotta make the best with what you got, really.