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Gideon wields his axe [The UK's Comprehensive Review Thread]

andyandy

anthropomorphic ape
andyandy
Joined
Apr 30, 2006
Messages
8,377
So, seeing as tomorrow Gideon will announce cuts that will reshape the state for years to come, it seems worthy of its very own thread....

Lots of this has already been leaked in advance, so what we could expect:

10% cut in defence budget (trident put off)

80% in university budget

BBC made to cover £500million cost of free licenses for elderly out of its own budget and possibly BBC worldwide sold

Welfare slashed in many possible ways (housing, disability, job-seeker etc etc)

Token big bank tax

Withdrawl of universal benefits for higher incomes

Justice slashed by 30% (prisons reduced, legal aid decimated)

So, predictions and then from tomorrow reactions.....
 
oh forgot,

Royal Mail privatised

and just announced - housing/council house provision halved....
 
More cuts in the NHS England (above what has already been put in place and ignoring the costs of the ideological restructuring).
 
Darat said:
More cuts in the NHS England (above what has already been put in place and ignoring the costs of the ideological restructuring).
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The NHS is an interesting one - they are reportedly going to announce a real term increase, but less than needed to cover the real term growth in expense - which will require a cut in services. The GP reorganisation is just a backdoor way of getting the big medical conglomerates into a bigger slice of the NHS pie. And I suppose, a way of devolving any ministerial responsibility away from service reductions.
 
lionking said:
Sorry to just pick one out, but is this a big deal? Australia Post was privatized years, if not decades ago. The only difference anyone noticed was that the service improved.
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well, i suppose it depends how well regulated the privatised service is....if they are forced to maintain a universal service etc. then "we" the public probably might not notice much difference. Of course that rests on the premise that the private sector can do things better than the public sector....which isn't always the case.
 
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This publication by the Institute of Public Policy Research (which describes itself as progressive) recommends breaking the NHS ring-fence promise. (It also recommends cutting more slowly--closer to Labour's 6 year plan--and having a 65:35 cut:tax ratio--which is also close to Labour and LibDem pre-election manifestos.)

Even allowing for a slower pace of departmental spending cuts, it is a mistake to ring-fence large areas of spending. The Labour government promised to protect spending on schools, the police and the NHS from cuts in real funding; the Coalition government will protect spending on the NHS and will increase spending on international development to 0.7% of GDP by 2013–14. This creates enormous pressures on other areas. Health spending is 17.5% of total government spending and 32% of departmental spending: protecting it from a 10% aggregate cut in spending means other departments must, on average, suffer cuts of 15%.
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I thought that was interesting. At the moment, I believe that "ring fence the NHS" carries similar sacred-cow status as "no rise in income tax rates" did from 1997-2009, and hence it will not be abandoned. The situation is somewhat more fluid than the prior era though.
 
andyandy said:
80% in university budget
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Well, we don't want too many oiks getting educated, do we?
BBC made to cover £500million cost of free licenses for elderly out of its own budget and possibly BBC worldwide sold
Click to expand...
So, increase the outgoings of the Beeb and make them get rid of a profit centre, thereby making it harder to do so, and to produce programmes etc. Oh well, it should please Rupert Murdoch.
Welfare slashed in many possible ways (housing, disability, job-seeker etc etc)
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Hands up those who are surprised by this? What, no-one?
Withdrawl of universal benefits for higher incomes
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Damn you, Gideon, we'll have to cut back on the extra-virgin olive oil!
Justice slashed by 30% (prisons reduced, legal aid decimated)
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Why not just cut legal aid altogether? It's already been drastically slashed. Oh well, it will cut down on people suing the police, so that should save a few more quid.
 
andyandy said:
So, seeing as tomorrow Gideon will announce cuts that will reshape the state for years to come, it seems worthy of its very own thread....

Lots of this has already been leaked in advance, so what we could expect:

..Snip..
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Irrelevant. Labour and the deficit and the tough decisions and the immigration (repeat for next five years). /end thread
 
Undesired Walrus said:
Well, it may sound all that easy, but our 'defence' budget isn't just tied up in Afghanistan and Iraq. Kosovo for example.
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I'm sure we could make do on £10billion.....

One of the most scandalous announcements in recent memory was made yesterday to almost complete media silence - one of the two aircraft carriers (built at a combined cost of £5billion) will be in service for 3 years then mothballed. I'm not sure what's worse, wasting £2.5billion or the fact that this isn't considered a story. The entire expenses scandal cost taxpayers about £1million - in dodgy claims, this is 2500 times worse and there's no interest.
 
Defence 8% cut

University funding 80% cut

That pretty much says it all.
 
I actually managed to cut more than Osborne, though that was by decimating defence funding which unfortunately would damage the UK's dick-swinging abilities so is unlikely to happen!
 
andyandy said:
The NHS is an interesting one - they are reportedly going to announce a real term increase, but less than needed to cover the real term growth in expense - which will require a cut in services. The GP reorganisation is just a backdoor way of getting the big medical conglomerates into a bigger slice of the NHS pie. And I suppose, a way of devolving any ministerial responsibility away from service reductions.
Click to expand...

The Independent article about it: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-s...e-pledge-to-protect-it-from-cuts-2109412.html
 
You need to do a calculation in to the impact of those number of job losses in a very fragile rural economy with very few alternatives.

I'm more than happy for, say Arborfield base (Army, I know) to be cut instead. Or perhaps something closer to London, eh? You'd never notice another 5-10k jobs in a city of 10m.

Do you know the population of, say, Elgin? Or (what the heck) the entire of the former Grampian region?
 
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