My profound apologies, I mis-edited the quote.

It's ok. I've never done that myself.... * whistles ignorance *

I understand peoples concern over International aid. Currently, AFAIK, it's £8billion and is rising by over 30%.

Now, I agree with International aid but it has to be done logically. I'm not sure why India gets aid when it has a Space Programme, we don't even have a Space Programme.

There are other situations that need to be examind too, Human Rights groups are concerned with the aid going to Ethiopia where, unless you support the ruling party, you do not get seeds, microloans and so on. If we are spending money we have to make sure it is spent how it should be.

Another issue with the Spending Review is that the levy being placed on the banks will only raise £2.5billion a year and the CGI is basically begging banks to be considerate with the bonuses banks are going to pay out. I'm not sure that plea will be listened to.

So the welfare state is hit and yet banks, who were major contributors to the crisis, get off lightly. Nice work if you can get it.

The main problem is that the banks have the Government over the proverbial barrel - they don't have to be based in this country, so if the Government starts hitting them hard with levies and taxes, they'll just up sticks and move to a country that doesn't treat them like the pariahs they are. This would also increase unemployment as this would result in the loss of thousands of jobs.

We just have to face it - as a country we've been living beyond our means for a long time - the financial crisis just demonstrated how poorly run this country has been run. Instead of saving during the good times, we've wasted the chance by throwing money away through a broken welfare system and a bloated public sector, while virtually ignoring the private sector. Unless we get a handle on this problem, it's only going to get worse.

We've got it into our heads that money will just appear when needed, like the country is financed on one giant credit card - and now we've realized that we don't have unlimited credit.

What about all the random conflicts we've got involved in. So far we've spent over £9 billion on the Iraq conflict and over £11 billion in Afghanistan.

As for a bloated public sector, well, what choice was there? The entire manufacturing industry was destroyed and so jobs had to be found for those out of work. In the North East over 300,000 work in the public sector, primarily because the shipyards and mines were shut down without any forethought as to what may happen.


I hate the credit card analogy. It doesn't account for all of the waste, nor does it account for all the gambling made by the financial sector.

The welfare state is not to blame for the crisis no matter how much the politicians want to convince you that it is.

The IFS don’t like it. Oddly, it’s the IFS that the Tories usually turn to to back up their ideas. Not this time - so the Government has done the only thing it can at times like these: sent out the errand boy to tell them off.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-11603419

Watching Question Time last night, and other broadcasts where the cuts have been challenged, they are all like a stuck record - all on message and all saying the same thing. They don ’t address the question as put to them, they just put out their message which is a very disguised “tough”.

That's the problem - instead of making the environment for private sector better, successive Governments just inflated the public sector because it was easier to do. However, the problem is that the public sector do not generate wealth - it's a service industry that we pay for and as such it's a negative draw on the the public finances - bigger wage bill, bigger pension requirements etc. If you want to make a country more profitable, you have to encourage private companies to set up here, and also by preventing them being bought out by overseas companies, only to be shut down shortly afterwards.

Let's face it, this country has been mismanaged for probably more than 25 years, and now we're finally confronted with the reality that's been hidden for so long - we're in the s*** up to our necks and unless we sort it out, we'll end up in the second division.

I think we've been in the second division for quite a while. We've got to get over the idea that the UK has been some kind of world power since the second world war. We've been playing second fiddle since 1944, but we don't want to believe it.

Trying to keep up with the Joneses has never been a sensible policy for a country to take.

+1 in spades

we are the leading second world nation on the planet
its about time we started to realise and accept that
then and only then can we start to adapt and move forward

for things to change first i must change
and believe me change is'a'coming whether you like it or not ...

The IFS are impartial, but that is more than can be said for most of the press. The Daily Mail are calling it a attack on the middle classes. Far from it. They are the least effected of all the groups. The coalition MPs are all blaming labour, but the crisis basically wiped out business profits and therefore tax revenues. This has happened everywhere to some extent regardless of whether they over borrowed or not. A few countries emerged relatively unscathed but even they suffered from the collapse in world trade. None of which were caused by overspending which is what the Tories are claiming.

bollocks the IFS are impartial
smoke and mirrors ...

Exactly. We can't even use the kit we have clicky

I guess that's one way to deal with the nuclear arms issue.

Yes - we’re like Watford Football Club. Eye-high in debt, too good to be in the second division, too crap to be in the Premier league. Forever doomed to yo-yo between the two. Forever deluded that we should be to of the Premier league.

And that, my friends, is the only football analogy you’ll ever get out of me.

I don't really see there's a valid distinction between 'first world' and 'second world' any more to be honest. Is France a second world nation? Holland? germany? The fact is we're much closer in pretty much every way to those nations than we are to the actual superpowers like China, India & The US. I don't honestly think the French give a toss about their 'world standing', they just get on with what they want to do and, generally speaking, in any situation they do exactly what is best for them - be that having a nuclear deterrent of their own or not sending thousands of troops to get chewed up in the foothills of the Himalayas.

This idea that we have to be a 'major power' is the last hang over from the British Empire. Which was a pretty amazing thing IMO but it's done, it's finished. You don't see the Italians worrying about it and they had an Empire when we were still poking around in mud huts.

So the banks move away and things get bad for a while. Well, actually things are pretty f'ing bad now and we've got the banks here and it was mostly their sodding fault. If they sod off then at least we won't be reliant on them and that means the next time they [lifted] up, which they seem to be almost inevitably every 30 years or so, maybe we won't catch it in the neck.

Bit of tough love for the nation wouldn't actually do us any harm long term, just think the coalition have directed it with a bit too much vested interest.

Jon

Actually the Italians had a small empire in Libya, Ethiopia and Eritrea though they had appalling losses trying to keep order over the Afar desert tribesmen.


There will be another crisis before the end of the next decade. I expect one by 2017 given current government policy. The tough love clearly has not been applied to the banks. As you say many of the Tories are positively in favour of destroying as much of the state as possible. The crisis gave them the perfect opportunity.