By Alex Smith / @alexsmith1982
The Tories are already planning meetings to bind governmental departments to wholesale public service cuts, a year before an election is due. George Osborne, were he to make it to Number 11, would hold a meeting within days of taking power to bind any and all new Conservative government ministers to deep reductions in investment in schools, hospital and policing, according to shadow cabinet sources cited in the Guardian.
The paper also suggests that new Tory officials would be asked to make the cuts as early as possible, before they can grow too attached to their departmenal interests. That suggests a blind, uninformed set of arbitrary cuts, the sort of scything in the dark at projects that affect people's lives we should fear from a Cameron government.
Indeed, the Guardian also says that under the new Tory plans, the Treasury will be guided by the markets, not public need.
Of course, spending reductions are going to be required over the next few years. Yesterday Meryvn King urged the government to sharply reduce public borrowing. So I'm still concerned that the Party line "Labour investment over Tory cuts" is a dead end. It's a ten year old argument not valid for this recession.
We should be fighting the next election on who is best placed to make those cuts to ensure the smoothest possible growth out of the recession; arguing a case for where smaller investment cuts can be mitigated best and why continued investment in the most critical frontline services - such as social and affordable housing - is important.
Instead of "Tory cuts" and "Mr 10%", Labour needs to say "yes, unfortunately we're going to have to reduce funding for some services; but we have a record of investing in the most important frontline services, and your school, your Sure Start centre, your hospital and your local comunity centre are all completely safe."
UPDATE: Here's the latest HQ video on those cuts:
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Don't think much of the idea of giving away drug knowledge. I used to have a client who worked for Pfizer and he told me that for every drug that gets to market, thousands of projects turn out not to be viable. Pharmaceutical firms do need to make big profits to plow back into R&D which is why they rarely pay out much in the way of dividends.
That anecdote from 'In Stitches' seems to confirm my earlier point that it is just wrong to say that there is no money to be saved in the NHS.
I would like to see private firms set up clinics in town centres to treat the carnage that comes from binge drinking rather than allow people to use normal hospitals. Anyone who's had the misfortune of having to go to A&E on a saturday night (non drink related) will know what I mean.
I read a great book called ‘In Stitches – the highs and lows of life as an A&E doctor’ by Dr Nick Edwards. One of the stories was about a man, who every Saturday rang 999 to complain about heart pain, so the ambulance would go get him (from the town centre) and take him to A&E, and surprise he was always OK. The fact that he lived closer to the hospital than the town centre didn’t have anything to do with it!
Anyway the ambulance drivers got a bit sick of been used as a taxi service so the next time he rang they picked him up and took him to a hospital in another town.
Simon not sure I would choose to have hair implants like Elton, I just look at it and think, well it might of cost a lot of money, yet even the rich get ripped off.
I also think you need to read up on class war http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Class_War & http://www.londonclasswar.org/
I do think Class War and socialism will once again begin to increase in numbers no matter who is in power. The gap between the haves and have nots is growing. Even if you do work hard and get a good education there is still a barrier.
The more you see of the political class the more you realise that real change will not come.
If you closed your eyes and listened to Dave Camo, Nick Clegg and Tony 'capone' Blair you would struggle to tell the difference.
Time for change, Yes I think so.
Might need to get you passport ready Guy.
When bankers and lawyers were asked in the book unjust rewards what the poverty line for earnings in the UK was they said it was £22,000, which was just under the gross median earnings. They saw the median earnings as poor pay!
The actual poverty line for a childless couple was £11,284. These are the people that politicians look towards for advice on the economy and yet they are so out of touch.
Was there any wonder why people with low incomes can’t try and get what is seen as the good things in life, and so what if they had to get credit to get them. They had to go through a process to get that credit; the lenders could have said NO, they didn’t have to give out 120% mortgages. It was all driven by GREED.
The bankers and to an extent, the share holders who are to blame for the crisis. Most of them will come through this with few scars; the poorer people will again suffer for the greed of the rich!
How can it be right for top execs of the banks to pay less tax than cleaners?
The rich will be affect the least be this crisis, it’s the poor who will suffer the most, and it is them who are at the most risk.
Permanently closing 75% of quangos - who'd notice their absence?
Making at least 50% of NHS "managers" redundant whilst keeping the same numbers of doctors and nurses.
Abolishing funding for all dronelike taxpayer-funded "Guardian reader" public service jobs -e.g. LGBT advisers, anything including the word "diversity" and simply enforcing equality in employment law overseen by company personnel departments.
Ensuring social security benefits are restricted to entitled British citizens only.
I would however willingly fund at taxpayers' expense a remedial course for Gordon Brown to teach him the real meaning of the word "invest" (which he repeatedly confuses with "spend") since the page with this definition seems to have been torn out of his copy of the OED (or OSD) in Edinburgh sometime during the 1970s.
In 10 years' time with 600,000 more real jobs in the economy and 600,000 less public sector sinecures perhaps we might be able to go back to the status quo ante New Labour and start to repay some debt.
Of course, spending reductions are going to be required over the next few years.
We should be fighting the next election on who is best placed to make those cuts to ensure the smoothest possible growth out of the recession
Labour needs to say "yes, unfortunately we're going to have to reduce funding for some services
Seriously Mark, try harder next time.
I trust you will be happy to pay the levels of tax required to balance the budget (in case you're wondering the scale of the deficit, even if we raised the basic rate of tax from 20% to 40% we still wouldn't cover it).
In reply to your comment, even saving a figure in the single billions would seem worth it to me. Also it would save the ongoing running costs.
As I understand it the Corporation Tax reduction you mentioned was worth about £3 billion meaning that the net effect of the tax credit removal was about £2 billion. Spread this loss over thousands of companies and hundreds of thousands if not millions of people and it is amazing to think there are still some who maintain that it is the cause of pension black holes.
He gave, as the main reasons : (i) inflation linking following the 1995 Pensions Act (ii) increased life expectancy and (iii) inadequate stock market performance.
The tax credit had, anyway, been steadily reduced between 1979 and 1997 (from 42 per cent down to 20 per cent).
People never fail to mantion Gordon Brown's £5 billion 'tax grab' ; what they don't mention is the reduction in the main rate of Corporation Tax in the same period, from 33 per cent to 28 per cent : with private sector corporations gross operating surpluses running at £330 billion in 2008, that's worth a cool £16 billion.
The 'pensions holiday' in the early 1990s that you mention was a direct result of Nigel Lawson's introduction of a limit of plus 5 per cent on pension funds surpluses. This was doubly unfortunate because equities were reasonably priced in the first half of the last decade and an opportunity to buy at at a reasonable price slipped away.
You mean oppose Trade Unions setting governmental policy or holding the country to ransom? You mean not letting unions have a say in running companies but insisting that management rightly be left to management? Because I really think it's a great idea getting a few union rep's with a handful of gcse's between them involved in senior mangement decisions lmao.
"Tories will just attack, because it is they, much more than the modern Labour Party which wages class warfare."
Whereas your view of taxing me and the rest of the middle classes is just progressive governance isn't it?
Funny how stealing other people's money is defined as progressive but incentivising people to work and allowing to keep more of what they earn is "class warfare".
Socialism is nothing more than class warfare, envy, jealousy and "we hate you but we'll take your money thanks" from Labour and it's core support. Which is why you'll get stuffed at the next election.
By the way, first chance I get I'm off to some tax haven where you and your grubby little socialist friends won't get a penny in taxation from me.
Is it too much for someone, somewhere in the labour family to just tell the truth about anything without embellishment and spin?
My last post was to point out the factually incorrect comments regarding Cameron's expenses. Were these comments subsequently corrected? Of course not. Whilst this practice continues in the party and on this site, you simply won't have any credibility.
That is why it is caused the "credit crunch".
If you are looking for a culprit, he's currently sitting in a hot tub, watching and 52" plasma and complaining that his dole is not enough to keep him in the style to which he has become (wrongly) accustomed.
While I think some respects Blair and Brown did do some good things - raise NHS spending, actively conciliate in Northern Ireland, enact partial legal equality for gay people (none of which would have been done under the Tories) - I also think New Labour loved business and markets far to much. This has lead to the refusal to renationalize rail, an obsession with false "internal" markets, and a completely catastrophic growth in unjustified administrative bodies devoted to naff business jargon ("stakeholders"/"evidence based"/"branding") and non-transparent "public consultations".
I detest New Labour.
But even New Labour's command and control administrative centralism has had a basically beneficent view of the poor and dispossessed, even if its solutions ("aspiration") are nonsense.
Tories will just attack, because it is they, much more than the modern Labour Party which wages class warfare.
The basic thing about class war is that the working class have never been very good at it. The financial elite have proved repeatedly they are very good at in indeed.
While I abhor the idea of a Tory government, with a substantial poll lead it would be a massive failure if the Tories were not doing advance planning.
Clearly the government deficit needs to be addressed. But ALL Tory governments tend to do this in ways that hurt the already poor and minimally help the upper middle class, and give away wealth to the financial elite.
There is no reason for Labour not to campaign on this issue. And point out that the deficit can be contained by a combination of some cuts (Trident, ID Cards, ending PFI), actively using public ownership of the banks to frustrate the greed of the rich, and, yes, by raising income taxes.
The Tories, as it is, want to punish the poor for the crisis caused by the rich and upper middle class.
The problem we have here is the massive support New Labour has given to business, PFI, privatisations, and cozy deals.
I don't agree in refusing to treat people because of their lifestyle be it food, smoking, or drinking. It is a universal health system or it a selective one; it is not both.
There are plenty of lifestyle choice and ways to deal with them; my way would be treat any threat to long-term health by taxation as a means of prevention rather than endless nannying announcements. I think foods high in fat and sugars should be taxed in the same way alcohol and tobacco are.
Then people can choose to stuff their face with the wrong foods they are paying for that choice in terms of the cost to the Exchequer.
People don't choose to get cancer, I read with dismay that cancer outcomes amongst the over-75s in the UK still trail the developed world after years of extra investment. It is the way the NHS is ran rather than funding that is the issue. Keep the funding, change the way the NHS is ran.
The elderly will need more heathcare not less - this has to come from home care.
This is being experimented with at the moment.
does it work?
There are plenty on the right such as Fraser Nelson and Janet Daley who think there is scope to cut the NHS budget even allowing for the changing population.
Demographics are one issue certainly but so are the other two I mentioned. None of which changes the fact that the NHS spends billions on things which are preventable. If less was spent on A&E for drunkeness and on obesity treatment that frees up money to either reduce the health budget or not to increase it as much as would otherwise be needed.
Certainly with regards to obesity, there is a need for people to take responsibility given the myriad of health problems that they could experience in old age.
As for Labour 'destroying private pension provision', I can tell you as a former financial advisor that whilst the removal of the dividend tax credit didn't help, the contribution holidays that companies took in the good times as well as people choosing to spend rather than save are major factors as well. I lost count of the number of people who told me that they were relying on increased property prices or inheritance to fund their retirement. Not once did anyone ever say they weren't saving because Gordon Brown removed a tax credit.
Are you sure that ID cards can't be scrapped? The Tories seem to think they can be.
I agree with your point about the quangos and that all new investment needs a sound ROI based business case. Those are covered by my main point that everything that isn't absolutley essential (based on a cost-benefit analysis) should be cancelled or postponed. There are many 'nice to have' projects which also need to be pulled until we can afford them.
Basically the government needs to start acting and planning like a business. All expenditure must be tracked,
must be justified and people need to be held to account if if things go wrong and projects over-spend.
Thx
David
they may well be useless
who is to know.
Let's have the facts............and that question/point is made to the government. transparency please.
The reason the Tories don't want to cut the NHS budget is down to demographics. The population is aging and they will need more healthcare not less.
That's not to say that the whole Whitehall, LHA, PCT mess is not going to be sorted out; there is a strong case of more autonomy for hospitals.
If Labour propose cutting the NHS; it would be irresponsible in much the same way they have destroyed private pensions provision. It's only postponing higher spending later.
First you say it is a no-brainer to reduce spending, then further in say it is unlikely spending can be reduced and then propose spending cuts on non-public sector (i.e. the private sector).
The public sector has swollen by 750,000 employees since 1997, it's productivity despite investment has fallen which means for every £1 we put in, we get less than a £1 in value. It is destroying wealth. It is worse than destroying wealth, it is denying wealth creation in the private sector by taking their money.
Look at the organisation above the front-line services. I would freeze recruitment and salaries for specific government departments NOT the front-line. Let natural attrition work for reducing budgets, any vacancies must be filled internally. Personally, I would end index-rated budgeting in favour of zero-based budgeting every year.
The LEA's take anything from 15% to 20% of the education budget and what for? Very little of any value it would seem yet it pays Chief Executives £150,000 a year and every borough must have one of those. Let schools set their own policies, hire their own teachers and decide what their catchment area is; then get rid of every LEA - that's tens of billions saved.
You argue for scrapping ID Cards, well, the contracts have been signed to implement them, those contracts must be honoured according to the terms and conditions so costs will have to now be paid. Very little now could be saved except the inevitable cost over-run of government IT.
As for Trident, no-one is going to vote for unilateral nuclear disarmament. There might be a case for a reduction of 4 submarines to 3 but that's it.
No one is suggesting running down front-line services except Labour's fabricated attack on Tory policy. When this government spends £160bn a year on quangos and consultantss; that's where the fat is. That is what should be trimmed.
Even simple things like all new investment must be accompanied with a business case where a quantifiable return on investment can be demonstrated and scrutinised; if it cannot then no money.
Government has become centralised, bloated and very inefficient and there are tens of billions of pounds of savings there to end this ridiculous command and control government machine.
Also I agree that cutting things like education and SureStart would be short term false economies.
However taking one area, there is surely savings to be made in the NHS. As far as I can tell, David Cameron made this a no go area for cuts for 2 reasons, firstly the obvious emotional attachment he has to the service given how much his family relied on it for his late son Ivan and secondly because it is a counter-intuitive way of showing that the Tories have 'changed'.
Perhaps Labour should be counter-intuitive seeing as imo it can't be right that an institution that was set up to look after people when they fell ill now spends billions on people who drink themselves into unconciousness on a weekend or who haven't got the willpower to say no to too many pies.
I'm sure that sounds harsh but I think the NHS should cut back on treatment that could so easily be prevented by people's own actions.
Just to show I haven't crossed over the manichean divide of 'private good, public bad', I wonder why given that CEO compensation has gone up between 3 and 5 times in recent times, company profits and share prices haven't followed suit. Seems like it's not just the public sector where we don't always get value for money.
Mervyn King "made clear that now was not the time to start fixing Britain's borrowing problem and that the speed of any deficit reduction programme would depend on the speed of recovery."
We know we can't go slashing things left, right and centre, but we need a long term plan for getting the debt down and simple Us Vs Them is not helpful
in the detail. Say Cameron wants to get rid of the Tory old guard....so the his Tories are the more acceptable face of society. Great......but that though is only skin deep.
How will he make sure that those folks will be public spirited and by that I mean devoted to public service.
Cameron's depth is "skin deep".
He needs a better cleanser,
Of course we do, those potatoes wouldn't market themselves would they, and just how would we get by if this government quango didn’t organise “national chip week” for us.
You can only invest when you’ve accumulated some capital.
Your party has bankrupted us with low grade financial management, so its back to a hand to mouth existence….. AGAIN.
Brilliant.
more likely in the denial !
There is so much of NuLabour's Britain that I would get rid off in an instant if I could that would carve lumps off public spending. You will wail about how this will decimate public sector service, my response is the more public sector service we get the less self-reliant people become.
Labour has massively increased the role of the state, employed millions in the public sector and yet where's the improvements to match? Productivity across government departments has dropped over the last 12 years, form filling and red tape has gone mental.
I'd get rid of the whole tax credit system tomorrow if I had the chance. A complete waste of time, overly complex, a disincentive to work and employing loads of civil servants moving forms about.
The Tories are having a meeting? Damn right they should be and getting ready to cull state spending. The state is TOO BIG end of story.
The OECD spokeman when asked about the report that shows the UK in the worst position of developed nations said they would advise spending cuts over tax rises. Mervyn King has said pretty much the same.
Why is it you think ideologically that smothering the public with state services is good for them or the country as a whole?
I'd also point out that as a member of the middle classes, the people you always seem to want to screw out of a bit more tax, we don't want the state involved in every thing thanks. I've said before and I'll repeat now, the middle classes are generally of the view that the state DOESN'T know best and we'd rather it butted out and left us in peace and quiet.
I'm hoping for large scale cuts asap after the Tories get in. The state is too big, Labour has left my kids with a massive debt and once again the Tories will come in having to clear a mess up caused by Labour's finacial incompetance.
At the moment people who work for the public sector know that:
1) Most operational departments don't have enough staff to be truly effective and the staff that are in place are often stressed due to over-work
2) A lot of money is wasted on marketing, consulting, unnecessary red-tape and information gathering for government statistics.
So in terms of the public sector I think that a redistibution of spending is possible, but probably not a reduction. Money could be used better but probably can't be saved without running services down further.
Where money can be saved, and in huge ammounts, is by scrapping some of the proposed spending on other non-public sector areas, for example:
1) ID cards can be scrapped: it is a huge unnecessary white elephant
2) New Trident can be scrapped or scaled back
A tough cost-benefit analysis needs to be conducted on all major projects. Some tough decisions need to be made, with ANYTHING that isn't absolutely essential being either cancelled or postponed.
indeed, The 10% line has less traction now. The PM has to open up....but he cannot .... he is phobic.
The devil will be in the detail.
These unaccountable useless "bodies" (1167 of them) are nothing more than ways of extracting more taxpayer money and funneling it off to New Labour comrades.
Do we really need a Potato Council?
Read and weep
Also the Guardian's article confirms in the face of Tory assurances that certain budgets are already ring-fenced as a matter of policy.
You imply the Tories would hold a meeting within days of taking power to bind any and all new Conservative government ministers to deep reductions in investment in schools, hospital and policing, according to shadow cabinet sources cited in the Guardian.
The Guardian in this article did not assert the NHS would have its budget cut, so Alex you can chide Brown all you like but you are also misrepresenting Tory policy.
It is all heat and no light Alex, it not just disingenuous but a total volte-face from the PM who only a few weeks ago promised more transparency.
I am paying attention to both sides of the argument; are you?
It's a default position with Labour, lie first, when found out, tell half the truth.
The fact is that Labour have been shown to be pathologically incapable of showing any kind of spending restraint. The track record for pruning and reforming the State has been proven time and time again by the Tories.
The Tories have already stated that Education, International Development and the NHS budgets are safe. The rest, rightly, should be looked at in great deal.
The choice is simple, higher taxes or spending cuts and there is no other alternative any longer. The public are hurting already and it would contemptuous in the extreme to think that only a series of window-dressing efficiency savings are going to fool anyone.