There is no 'Letwin waste review'

Questioned on Friday by ConservativeHome, David Cameron dismissed The Sunday Telegraph's recent suggestion that Oliver Letwin was conducting a new review into public sector waste.  I often read stories that have a detached relationship to reality, was the Tory leader's response to our question.

ConservativeHome was encouraged by the news at the time but the Shadow Chancellor's office assured us yesterday that there remained a strong commitment to find economies in the public sector.  We were told that the situation remains as set out by David Cameron in May.  George Osborne remains in charge of attempts to bring spending under control but works closely with relevant colleagues including Oliver Letwin, who oversees the overall policy process.  The Tories are looking to reduce the size of government in three main ways:

1. Eliminating waste and unnecessary programmes;
2. Getting better value for money via public sector reform (an issue addressed on CentreRight yesterday by Professor Nick Bosanquet).
3. A reduction in the long-term demands on the taxpayer by undertaking thorough social reform - including strengthening families, cutting welfare dependency and defeating drug addiction.

We were told that a 'big bang' announcement of public sector savings was unlikely.  More likely would be a continuation of one-off announcements where tax reforms would be presented alongside the savings to pay for them.

Speaking at a seminar hosted by the Reform think tank, Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Philip Hammond dampened hopes that actual cuts in overall public spending were possible.  A cut in the overall level of public spending would be “politically extremely difficult".  "I don’t think it’s ever been done for a sustained period,” he continued.

ConservativeHome's view: "The Conservative leadership needs to understand that higher taxes to pay for an unreformed state will also be politically extremely difficult.  Although the scale of Labour's borrowing means that tax rises cannot be ruled out, it is certainly not the case that Britain is under-taxed.  Before we're willing to accept tax rises from an incoming Tory government we need to be convinced that everything possible has been done to end the misspending of this incompetent Labour government.  [That's our answer to your reasonable question, Danny Finkelstein]. Again and again the Tory frontbench have talked about "unfunded tax cuts" but everything is unfunded until you choose priorities.  The problem - until recently - has been the Tory leadership's inclination to prioritise unfunded public spending before unfunded tax cuts.  Surrounded by spokesmen for high spending ministries that's always where the political pressure is greatest and why the work of The TaxPayers' Alliance could not be more important."

Comments

[Insider]

Err - it was a Melissa Kite story - of course it had no bearing on reality.

[John Moss]

I'm afraid current spending levels are unsustainable and an overall cash freeze in spending is the minimum necessary, probably for most of the next period of Government, if we are going to get debt back down to manageable levels and make room for tax reductions necessary to get the economy moving forward again.

That may be achievable by cutting programmes like ID Cards, Connected for Health etc, but we shoud get the bad news out now and explain why, giving time for the people to be persuaded of the need for this, just like they were in 1979.

[Iain]

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!

[GB£.com]

The big question is has 'Sharing the proceeds of growth' (ie slower increases in public sector spending) been quietly dropped since the PBR included tight spending plans for 2011 onwards?

No-one seems able to answer this simple question; Will the Tories increase spending less than the plans announced by Labour in the PBR?

[Iain]

If Hammond whimpishly believes that cutting public spending is just too difficult, and that the growth of public spending remorselessly marches onwards, the end result of that is for the state to consume all the wealth production of the country. When we already have the state consuming more of wealth here than Communists managed in Hungary, for the Conservatives to have such little ambition to do anything about it then they truly are the Blue Labour party!

[Malcolm Dunn]

Personally I think this really is an example where it would really pay to be to coin a phrase 'straight with people'.
The level of borrowing planned by the government is simply unstustainable everybody realises that. So if we are honest we do need to identify very,very significant savings or taxes will have to rise. The key point will be whether we announce them before or after the next election.

[Opinicus]

Got to agree with ConHome's comments.

There is so much waste in the State; so many functions that don't need doing by anyone, let alone the State.

Just promise that no doctor, nurse or teacher will be sacked and the political difficulties in the current climate will be nowhere near as great as their timidity imagines.

If six months in to the next Conservative government there is a single "five pieces of fruit a day adviser" employed anywhere in England then Cameron should shoot himself for shame.

[David Belchamber]

I know that the conservatives do not want to frighten the horses (particularly Brown's client state workers) but we just cannot afford big government.

I believe that it is time to bite the bullet and tell the people how it really is and promise "blood, tears and sweat", rather than more and more sepending.

[Letters From A Tory]

Surely a big announcement will have much more impact on voter's impression of the Conservatives than lots of drip-fed small announcement on bits of waste in some government departments?

[Oliver Yorke]

More Conservative disarray on economic policy!

[pp]

Johnathan @ 9:56 said:
Just promise that no doctor, nurse or teacher will be sacked...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7742363.stm

If the private sector manages resources better than the public sector (and with genuine competition it cannot fail to do so) then so be it.

It has also been established (I think reliably!) that the amount spent per child in state education is about the same as basic private school fees.

Why is public (tax payer) money tied up in these areas, when the private sector would be delighted to take them on -- and provide a service that the public already prefer to the state offering.

Stop pandering to public sector employees, start pandering to the taxpayer.

[resident leftie]

If run a business and you have any suggestions as to how waste might be cut by BERR, please put them forward. The civil servicen have been put on notice to find ways to cut the burden of waste on business.

[Hannibal Lector]

Mr Cameron it is time for you and your cohorts to act like adults or get out of the political arena. 50 per cent of all government jobs are unnecessary. So cut 25 per cent. The Taxpayer's Alliance has produced the Bumper Book of Government Waste and there examples 100 billion pounds wasted. As a businessman you and the Tory Party fail to impress me one iota. You are like a bunch of 3rd formers playing at an economics paper. Grow up or ****off and let someone who can do, do it. The country has been taken over by Brussels - it is blindingly obvious that the best cut in VAT would have been for home heating fuel but Brussels will not let us. The 15 per cent VAT rate offers insignificant savings and will be brutally replaced with an 18 per cent rate. I wonder if any of you politicians realize how utterly loathed you are. Britain is bankrupt after 12 years of Marxism and it was done on purpose. Brown is a communist - Brown has taken over the banks and he will nationalize land and housing next. We need a decent opposition or a military coup. The alternative is going to be death on the streets of our cities. Wake up you fools and do something about it.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: pp | December 02, 2008 at 10:17

It has also been established (I think reliably!) that the amount spent per child in state education is about the same as basic private school fees.

Please point me at the data.

[Alan S]

Hammond is flat wrong to say that spending can't be cut.

David Smith from The Sunday Times:

'The IMF insisted on a sharp reduction in public spending, more than 4% in real terms in 1977-78. At other times, even without the IMF, public spending has been cut to rein back borrowing; between 1985 and 1990 it was reduced by 3% in real terms and between 1996 and 1999 by over 2%.'

http://www.economicsuk.com/blog/000818.html

[Vincent Wall]

Higher taxes will kill the UK economy.

Lower public spending will force the legions of public sector managers to cut waste or be chopped.

Any sensible Tory will choose the second option.

[Deborah]

From John Redwood's blog:
"The UK public sector needs to deliver more for less. It needs its teachers, nurses, doctors and social workers, but it does not need such a colossal army of pen pushers, time servers, mock managers and reviewers, let alone its battalions of spin doctors and management consultants. If the government wishes to speed the end of recession, it needs to start to get the government to live within its means. That requires changes within every service"

[Jack Stone]

There is waste in the public sector but I suspect that what the majority of members really want to see when they say that they want to see the public sector reduced is the break up of the NHS, an end to state education and cuts in benefits to the poor, old and disabled.
Thank god the leadership doesn`t share the views of the membership on this. If they did Gordon Brown would be Prime Minister until they are wheeling him into Downing Street in his wheelchair.
It amazes me that people on here just don`t understand that people like living in a country with a welfare state, an NHS and state education. They don`t want to live in a version of the United States where its the survival of the fittest and the poor are just left to help themselves.
Margaret Thatcher invented the selfish society and I am afraid the majority who use this site want to see it back again with a vengance!!

[Iain]

" We need a decent opposition "

I think what this shows is that the whole of the Political class has become part of the client state. With Westminster having shed most of its sovereignty to Brussels, Parliament has been left with the task of shuffling, ordering, and organising the client state, get rid of that and they have nothing to do to justify their fat pensions, allowances, and salaries. As turkeys won't vote for Christmas, our politicians and political parties aren’t going to do anything to undermines something that justifies their existence, but it is sad to see the last of the political parties, the Conservatives, have joined the client state, and as such our politicians are no different than the Chav underclass who do nothing constructive and are dependent on the state to hand outs to keep them.

[Michael McGowan]

For someone who has apparently made millions in the property market, there is something other worldly and so 1990's about Philip Hammond. Where is the money for all this public spending going to come from, when the Tories will probably inherit a real public debt burden well in excess of 100% of GDP? The foreign exchange markets seem to have cottoned on to the weakness of the UK economy when the pound is tanking even against the dollar, which is hardly in rude health. Is Hammond going to take the Argentinian route and simply print the stuff? Or does Dave have plans to join the euro?

[GB£.com]

Could a number cruncher tell me how much could be saved by imposing a 20% pay cut on all public sector workers earning over 60k would save?

The private sector is imposing pay cuts on high earners in return for keeping their jobs. It is time for the public sector to do the same, and that should start with MPs taking the lead.

[Edward Huxley]

My MP Philp Hammond is a nice chap and a good constituency MP. I had great hopes when he was promoted to the front bench, but his latest statement is a great disappointment. Of course cuts can and must be made. When times are bad businesses and households have to do it, so must governments.

No wonder most people can`t see much difference between New Labour and Blue Labour

[Graeme Pirie]

We need to get away from this fear of "cutting spending".

Brown does a great job with his "the tories want to cut services" line & it's high time DC formulated the bottle to take on this claim.

Brown has DOUBLED spending since he's controlled the purse strings. What have we seen from it other than a massive beaurocratic government, interference everywhere, a nanny state that doesn't work, a benefit society, broken homes???

What was so bad 10 years ago? My younger days were spent before this spending splurge - I had a very good education, the NHS was always there when I needed it and the bins were collected weekly. These days education has gone downhill, the NHS is plagued with MRSA & bin collection have halved.

So there's PLENTY that can be cut out. Reduce the tax take by 50% and size the public sector to suit.

[RichardJ]

What about the non-jobs?

[The Bishops wife]

"Could a number crunchier tell me how much could be saved by imposing a 20% pay cut on all public sector workers earning over 60k would save?"

Its difficult to be certain, as the Government is shy about publishing the true costs of the public sector. Many Millions for certain, the single it would send however would be priceless.

[The Bishops wife]

Signal I mean Signal...

the signal it would send however would be priceless.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: GB£.com | December 02, 2008 at 10:41

The private sector is imposing pay cuts on high earners in return for keeping their jobs.

I'm really pleased to hear this. Do you have any data supporting this statement?

[London Tory]

If the Conservative Party has not instigated a 'Waste Review' it certainly should do. I would not allow Letwin to touch anything of political importance with a barge pole. He is too interested in his merchant banking duties, and who could forget his glorious stint as Shadow Home Secretary, when he left us 50 points behind Labour as the Party most trusted to deal with law and order.

The man is a muddle wrapped up in a burble.

[gnosis]

three words come to mind ,p*ss up and brewery.

[snegchui]

Private sector paycuts in return for job security.
Are these real income paycuts (with concommittant pension rights et al being reduced) or are they really reduced or no bonus moves. And last option, are they reduced income payments but increased bonuses...

[PJ]

Jack Stone:

"It amazes me that people on here just don`t understand that people like living in a country with a welfare state, an NHS and state education. They don`t want to live in a version of the United States where its the survival of the fittest and the poor are just left to help themselves."

Are you claiming that the US doesn't have welfare payments, state education or that the US government doesn't spend very nearly as much as a percentage of GDP (more in cash terms per head) on medical care schemes (such as medicare and Medicaid, not to mention tax incentives). I think you'll find they do.

The point is that state education and the NHS are monopolies. If people really prefer them, let them choose to use them, but if they prefer not to, then give them the equivalent funding to spend elsewhere. If there were a choice, we'd soon find out which people prefer. The advocates of state taxpayer funded monopolies are desperate not to give people a choice for fear that they might prefer the alternative.

Incidentally, surveys have consistently shown that a majority of people would prefer to educate their children in the independent sector, if they could afford to. Give them the money it would cost to educate their child(ren) in the state sector and they would be able to afford to as more providers were incentivized to compete for their business (and more competition would undoubtedly drive down the cost of independent schooling). Figures also show that the number of people choosing to use independent medical services, when given the NHS-equivalent funding to do so is rocketing.

[PJ]

snegchui,

I worked (in the UK) for a major US electronics firm. When business went down, everybody took a 10% pay cut for two years. Even when that was restored, there was no annual pay rise for another year.

Two years later, the market turned down again. There was another pay freeze and half the UK office were made redundant.

The US directors of this company were some of the most decent people I have ever met in business. The business was well-run. They just had no alternative if the business were to survive in a competitive climate

That's what it's like in internationally competitive industries - unlike in the featherbedded public sector.

[Ash Faulkner]

"Margaret Thatcher invented the selfish society and I am afraid the majority who use this site want to see it back again with a vengance!!"

Now I think Thatcher achieved a lot, but not even I would claim she created a whole human emotion. She must be some sort of demigod, surely?

[GB£.com]

"I'm really pleased to hear this. Do you have any data supporting this statement?"

Yes, in the City (boo hiss say the lefties) where many bank workers have been told to take 15-20% pay cuts or to bugger off.

Time for the public sector to follow that lead?

[Malcolm Dunn]

Why are you a Conservative Jack?

[GB£.com]

http://www.contractoruk.com/news/003828.html

"Several City banks have threatened to terminate hundreds of IT contractors if they refuse to accept hefty pay cuts."

[RichardJ]

Jack Stone is a troll and has been since about 2006, ignore him.

[john parkes]

"How do you get to Dublin?" ...."Well I wouldn`t start from here!" Perhaps it`s time to try Irish logic in the UK.
Why not let someone start with a blank sheet of paper and map out just what responsibilities our State should carry. If we were to begin by limiting them to the sort of matters that can only be dealt with on a collective basis, such as national defence, we might then make a list of other priorities, showing only those areas that should be the responsibility of government. Then we might look at the `wish list`. There seem to be many candidates for it that really should be funded by those who want to take advantage of such items. In those cases, we might then start looking at tax breaks for those who provide the wherewithal; and surely this would be less costly than some of the things for which the public purse now pays.
Rather than approaching the problem from the other direction, and trying to cut what already exists (and be subjected to endless whines from the self-interested) a radical solution such as this might give us a chance to invent a State system that is affordable

[Sally Roberts]

Malcolm, the answer to that is, he isn't one!

Look folks - the truth is that the state of the economy is dire and we have to think very carefully about what is or is not value for money. My local council, Hammersmith & Fulham as we all know have been doing this very effectively. Cutting waste and providing a decent level of services for residents - and cutting Council Tax three years on the trot!
We could go down Labour's tax and spend route but we will simply end up bankrupt which means that everyone will suffer.
To make economies is not to be selfish or heartless - on the contrary to do so in a measured and sensible manner is thinking about the long-term good of all.

[pp]

re: John Parkes

Absolutely!

ps.

lefty - may main reply got stuck in the system somewhere - this is a link to a story about the cost of state education http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/3090528/Cheaper-to-educate-a-child-privately-say-headteachers.html

[resident leftie]

Posted by: GB£.com | December 02, 2008 at 12:34

http://www.contractoruk.com/news/003828.html

"Several City banks have threatened to terminate hundreds of IT contractors if they refuse to accept hefty pay cuts."

Thank you. The public sector is not a high reward / high risk arena, with the exception of a few at the top. Aside from the the fact it's probably against their contracts, do you really want to cut the salaries of school heads, consulatants, army officers and senior police personnell? If would be electoral suicide.

The Editor's idea of a public sector pay freeze is much better. You get to keep your job, but you have to tighten your belt.

[GB£.com]

I'm sure nobody wants to cut anyone's salary RL, but if it means the difference between the country going bust etc, and a pay cut is so much better than losing your job.

However, obviously, if enough savings can be made with a freeze, then clearly that is a more preferable option.

The choice therefore is one of maths, not what we would 'like' to do.

[Patriot]

To suggest that it is impossible to find cuts in public spending is so wrong it borders on the bizarre.

When we eventually have to go to the IMF with our begging bowl, as we will, they will insist on it, with good reason.

Talk to most ordinary people in the street and they will immediately list savings that could be made - billions fighting illegal wars, billions of non-productive spending in Quangos, more billions on management consultants who have reduced much of the public services to box ticking exercises in non-productive futility, probably £20 billion which will be spent on the olympics, £8 billion promised to educate "the world" and another £6 billion promised to prevent aids, billions wasted on NHS computer hardware which frankly isn't fit for purpose and other government IT projects, financial aid to India - a country which has its own space program, financial aid to China for heavens sake!!!!; the list goes on...

The British public are desperate to hear that the Conservative party recognises these things and is committed to restoring fiscal sanity. We have to, have to, balance our household budget. It isn't rocket science.

We don't have much time left before Brown will have reduced this country to a hopeless basket case.

Millions died in two world wars to keep Britain from this kind of fate.

Get a grip.

[David Belchamber]

"It has also been established (I think reliably!) that the amount spent per child in state education is about the same as basic private school fees".

Posted by: pp | December 02, 2008 at 10:17

This is a rather large generalisation, pp.
Fees in small days schools - or larger grammar schools in the North - are not all that much more than the cost of a place in a state school but of course fees in the big boarding schools are much higher.

One thing that is rarely mentioned is that independent schools have to generate income in excess of their projected annual expenditure to provide for major repairs and capital expenditure. I believe that the state cost per pupil only covers normal running costs.

In addition, these schools have to make even more money now in order to show "public benefit" (the charity commission totally ignores the fact that independent schools save the taxpayer well in excess of £2billion per annum) to provide even more bursaries than before for pupils whose parents cannot afford the fees.

[Saltmaker]

As an aside to this debate, I'd just like to say to Resident Leftie and Comstock that I am pleased to see them return from self-imposed exile over the arrest of Damien Green.

[pp]

Lefty - if the BERR comment was aimed at me, I have better things to do with my time that to give free consultancy to the labour party - I have no interest in helping them reach their objectives, and a strong interest in twarting them wherever possible.

Anyway, if they had the inteligence to understand what they were being told then they would have the inteligence not to need to be told!

The best thing this government can do for business (and the people in general) is hold a general election.

There is only so much time to cut the leeching public sector down to size, if it is left too long then there will be nothing of the private sector left worth saveing.

[snegchui]

GB£
"http://www.contractoruk.com/news/003828.html

"Several City banks have threatened to terminate hundreds of IT contractors if they refuse to accept hefty pay cuts."

SO effing what? This has been going on for a number of years (at least 9) and is not news. The banks set up a cartel-like environment via Resource Solutions about 8 years back, and twice in two years cut contractor rates by 15% in 2000 and 2002.There may have even be more after that, but I am unaware of them.

The reason I call it cartel-like is that Resource Solutions set up an environment whereby all contractor-hiring by a number of City Financial Services Firms was outsourced to RS, thus causing little spots of mayhem when key contractors trying to renew were told their agencies were no longer recognised by RS on behalf of the bank - even to the point that vacancies were advertised externally with RS before internally at the banks. This meant the contractor jumped ship to RS, which some could, others couldn't because agencies had terms saying compensation had to be paid if said contractor was employed in that position by anybody else.As RS got in with more and more of the major banks, the threat was "You leave here in a snit, you don't work in the City because we are just about everywhere that is worth working"
I am sure it is legal, well it must be.
I thought you were referring to permanent employees, and the issue I was having is that I though it was almost impossible to force an employee (as opposed to a contractor) to take a pay cut. You can demote, harrass, freeze the pay, but you can't cut it without going through redundancy.

Thus trying to claim this Private Sector lead is a good example, I would say instead that the moment I see Board Members of said City Financial Services Companies taking pay cuts and forgoing bonuses, I will believe it, until then I say this is an example of exploitation of a workforce (admittedly a lot better paid than average) but still a one sided exploitation.

As for the US firm, I am surprised that it happened, if the employees were permanent (established). This is not denigrate the US firm, because I have heard many good things said about American bosses, they especially tend not to be snooty and can be very empathetic, tough but empathetic. However I have seen some Geckos in my time, but I think they are here because their nastiness is so counter-productive they couldn't survive in a US firm back in the US. Business, after all, requires civility udderwise just like 20's Chicago.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: pp | December 02, 2008 at 15:20

Lefty - if the BERR comment was aimed at me, I have better things to do with my time that to give free consultancy to the labour party - I have no interest in helping them reach their objectives, and a strong interest in twarting them wherever possible.

It wasn't "aimed" at you. Does one of your p's stand for paranoid?

I have a friend in the civil service who is looking for feedback from entrepreneurs as to how BERR might cut red tape.

It would be implemented by the civil service. If you are so party minded that you would rather not see improvement than have it potentially credited to Labour, then you are certainly not the person I am "aiming" at.

A Tory friend of mine suggested "How about abolishing BERR"!

[resident leftie]

Posted by: Saltmaker | December 02, 2008 at 15:16

As an aside to this debate, I'd just like to say to Resident Leftie and Comstock that I am pleased to see them return from self-imposed exile over the arrest of Damien Green.

Very droll!

I posted on this issue early on, and nothing has changed that suggests I add should anything. After people started comparing the UK to Zimbabwe, I thought I would leave people to stew in their own froth until they realised that once again it was their chums in the constabulary who had overreacted.

[a-tracy]

Re 1134 Private sector proposing pay cuts to save jobs:

18 Nov 2008 ... siptu, the biggest union at Aer Lingus, has proposed the radical downgrading of terms and conditions to save 1300 jobs.

09 Nov 2008 Pritchard is UK chief executive of CLSA, a brokerage firm that has asked its 500 senior staff across the world to consider taking pay cuts of between 15% and 25% to avoid redundancies during the economic downturn.

24 Oct 2008 ... Thousands of staff at digger manufacturer JCB have voted to take a £50-a-week pay cut to save 350 jobs. [I don't know if this included senior managers I would guess they did fall in line]

But just how widespread are pay cuts? Things are certainly looking gloomy. A survey by the Federation of Small Businesses found that a fifth of small and medium-sized businesses had reduced staff numbers while a third were considering it; another third were thinking about cutting employees’ hours and 14% had already done so. Stephen Alambritis, the federation’s head of public affairs, expects matters to get worse if Christmas trading is poor. “If Christmas turns out to be bad, you will start to see [pay cuts],” he said.

[GB£.com]

Top links a-tracy. I'm sure more and more examples have already and will appear as private sectors workers 'muck in' with pay cuts now to reduce the likely number of redundancies.

And these are cuts not freezes. A sensible approach to tough times. Well in the real world, ie the private sector, that is.

It could be said to be unBritish not to agree to a cut now to save jobs and companies.

[grumpy old man]

Res Left and GB£.
The Singapore Govt. have a system where top public employees have reduced salaries in hard times. I am not aware of rioting in the streets and general strikes over this arrangement.

[Sally Roberts]

Leftie Old Bean, welcome back indeed! I have to say that Acting Commissioner Plod and his Chums are certainly no chums of mine! A small gesture, maybe, but I resigned from my post as co-ordinator of a local Neighbourhood Watch so furious was I at the Damian Green affair! Sadly of course this means that our Safer Neighbourhood Team (a bunch of very decent and hard-working officers) will now have to find a replacement.

[David Sergeant]

Of course public spending can be cut without damaging services. That isn't the problem, the problem is that as soon as the Conservatives talk about cutting spending Labour rush to a receptive media with "calculations" about the number of nurses etc to be cut. Hence, the Conservatives don't talk about it and you get all the frustrated contributions above.

It needn't be like this. Over the 18 years Conservative governments vastly increased public spending - unlike the previou Labour government that cut it. Despite Labour's increased spending things are hardly better, the best example is education where, by international comparisons, we have actually gone backwards. In other words a good dollop of Tory management, say in education, should demonstrate savings without a reduction in service.

Above all there is the point that the Tories didn't cut public spending but increased it substantially. If this point was hammered home from 1997 onwards election results would have been different, Michael Howard might be P.M. Reading some of the above it seems to me that a large, but loud, proportion of the Conservative party don't want to be associated with increased public spending so the point is rarely made. Hence, we can't talk about it and Labour are wrecking the country again.

[snegchui]

Grumpy Old Man:
You specifically say top public employees take paycuts in times of economic hardship. Does this go all the way down the tree, if not how far?
Rioting in Singapore is not a productive activity, there is nowhere to run to.
I would also say that the social infrastructure (welfare and family-values) of Singapore (much smaller country) is a lot more resilient than here, if a tad compulsive by our standards

[snegchui]

David Sergeant:
"Above all there is the point that the Tories didn't cut public spending but increased it substantially. "
Whenever I make this point, disbelief follows as night the day.
Directed public spending has its place, cash-showers don't.

[resident leftie]

Posted by: Sally Roberts | December 02, 2008 at 16:37
A small gesture, maybe, but I resigned from my post as co-ordinator of a local Neighbourhood Watch so furious was I at the Damian Green affair! Sadly of course this means that our Safer Neighbourhood Team (a bunch of very decent and hard-working officers) will now have to find a replacement.

I suspect somehow they will miss you!

[resident leftie]

Posted by: grumpy old man | December 02, 2008 at 16:14

The Singapore Govt. have a system where top public employees have reduced salaries in hard times. I am not aware of rioting in the streets and general strikes over this arrangement.

I'm very happy with an arrangment whereby top level earners take a pay cut. It's called the 45% tax rate!

[Jack Stone]

Margaret Thatcher changed our society from being one where people did look out for there neighbour, that did believe in society to one obsessed by money and only interested in material possessions.
Margaret Thatcher did some good things but the effect she had on our society was destructive. She turned a society that cared into a society where people were only interested in themselves and we are still paying the price for that today.
David Cameron talks about mending a broken society well I am afraid like it or not it was Margaret Thactcher and many of her policies that broke it in the first place.

[sjm]

I would like to give two example of waste in the NHS.

a. Over the last 11 years, Primary Care Trusts have been re-organised more than 7 times. Imagine the administrative costs involved, to get us, as a senior Officer in our local PCT admitted to me recently, roughly back to where things were in 1997. And with yet another pointless change of name.

b. Some years ago, without giving any reason, the then Health Secretary Alan Milburn abolished Community Health Councils. Several separate bodies were set up to replace the CHCs' duties - many of them did not work, and we are in the middle of yet another bureaucratic muddle.

This Government has repeatedly turned things upside down in the public services without thinking things through - how many £billions has been wasted on idiotic change that could have been spent on proper care, or handed back to the taxpayer so that s/he could look after himself?

[snegchui]

Jack Stone:
Go play hopscotch in a minefield!!!
A society that cared so much:
"unofficial strike by gravediggers "
"NHS ancillary workers formed picket lines to blockade hospital entrances with the result that many hospitals were reduced to taking emergency patients only."
"Power cuts : Hospitals etc affected"

The above just 3 examples of how caring that society was, the inconvenience, at least, complete loss of dignity and harm at normal, and death at worst seen as a small price to pay for gratification of individual wage demands.
Pay one, then the next starts. And this was better and more caring and more socially aware than Thatcher, who is to blame for all current social ills . On your bike.
The drive to current selfishness lies with the victim mentality of so many today that seek for an external source of failure, thus absconding from any responsibility for their own lives.

As was shown by Sunny Jim, the carefully thought out identification of cause and effect

"Crisis? What crisis?"

[Opinicus]

Well there should be....

He's a total waste of a shadow cabinet space.

[ChrisD]

Oh give over about the Taxpayers alliance!
They don't have to be elected to government, or run this country while making sure it provides the most decent of public services!!!

Tim, most of us have no choice but to use the NHS, and put our children through the state education system! We also have family in the military services, public spending matters even when our debt levels should be causing us a lack of sleep and the economy has disappeared over a cliff after being give an ample shove by this government.

""The Conservative leadership needs to understand that higher taxes to pay for an unreformed state will also be politically extremely difficult. Although the scale of Labour's borrowing means that tax rises cannot be ruled out, it is certainly not the case that Britain is under-taxed. Before we're willing to accept tax rises from an incoming Tory government we need to be convinced that everything possible has been done to end the misspending of this incompetent Labour government. [That's our answer to your reasonable question, Danny Finkelstein]. Again and again the Tory frontbench have talked about "unfunded tax cuts" but everything is unfunded until you choose priorities."

Never underestimate ConHom to miss the political point and hand the government the upper hand, even when they are trying to spend their way out of debt while adding to it. They are at this moment trying to instigate about 35billion pounds worth of cuts under radar. Made all the more hypocritical because of their previous political shannigans towards the Tories about spending cuts and financial black holes.

Why dig unnecessary political black holes for the Tories which feed into a previous narrative when the government are going to have make the case and take the flak right now?

Honestly, why do you insist in getting into the hole to help the government dig with a great big Tory insignia pinned on your back?

[Iain]

" Over the last 11 years, Primary Care Trusts have been re-organised more than 7 times. "

sjm, the reorganisation waste at the NHS has been put at £3billion by the economist/journalist Liam Halligan in his article 'Ten years of going round in circles', its well worth a read....

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1543779/Ten-years-of-going-round-in-circles.html

And when you see the level of waste that has occurred with Labour's incessant meddling, I am surprised the Conservative party isn't using examples like this to show the electorate that public services could be lot better for a lot less cost.

[Susan]

During the past two months I've heard Osborne & Cameron both say, on separate occasions, that ID cards would be scrapped. Why isn't this being pushed in front of the electorate? An unequivocal statement of intent, splashed all over the media, would be acclaimed and the scrapping would also contribute to the necessary cutbacks.