Spending review?

[baad bwoy]

So the spending review has now taken place. How will it affect you?

[nakamura]

Haven't seen it yet tbh.

[Kieran76]

No idea, it is just numbers at the moment. They don't seem real to me, I guess I will know in a few months. I think I have been lucky so far in that the recession has made very little difference to my life so far. From a quick glance it would appear the very richest and very poorest people will be hardest hit.

When it comes to talk of the deficit I cannot help but think about Bill Hicks on Rant in E-Minor

"But I am so sick of hearing about... Well your leaders misspent your hard earned tax dollars, so you the people now have to tighten your belts, and we got to start paying it back....because we, your leaders misspent your money"

Tories/Coalition can just say it was Labours fault, but I doubt anything would have been any different if they were in power when all this started. Governments are now like the English F.A. They claim to have the power but we all know it is The Premiership who runs everything and calls the shots.

[NW2013]

There was a funny article on BBC News yesterday where some bloke did a personal spending review and decided to "ring-fence" his beer expenditure.

[abigsmurf]

I love all the focus on how tough it is for the areas of the country that have high employment in the public sector. How it's biased against the north, women etc.

What they never talk about are the massive job losses in the private sector have already happened and that Men, the south, the middle classes etc. have already been hit incredibly hard.

If you're not employed by the government does your job not matter then?

The train fare rise cap being raised is a bad thing. Train companies are already ripping us off, charging a fortune for overcrowded, unreliable trains.

Another farcical thing has been scrapping the harriers so that one of our new carriers will only be carrying helicopters for something like 7 years.

Other than that, nothing really been announced so far that wasn't expected. A freeze on the NHS budget on the condition they make cost saving measures was interesting.

[Anpanman]

The train fare rise cap being raised is a bad thing. Train companies are already ripping us off, charging a fortune for overcrowded, unreliable trains.

Agreed, our rail service is farcical & they rolled out the same excuse year after year for inflation busting increases - it was for improvements to the system!

[prinnysquad]

I love all the focus on how tough it is for the areas of the country that have high employment in the public sector. How it's biased against the north, women etc.

All we've got up here is the thousands of 'Mickey Mouse' public sector jobs created by various governments to employ people made redundant by zillions of manufacturing collapses. Of course people are worried.

Be wary of stealth cuts by proxy. 'School's budgets have been saved.' BOLLOCKS. In real terms, they've been slashed. The expensive provision for things like inclusion/special needs gets a lot of outside funding from Local Authorities, who are facing massive cuts. To avoid getting nailed in inspections, to maintain that level of provision schools will have to take it from their internal budgets, which will mean lost jobs, bigger classes, and a crapper quality for all.

[Kieran76]

At the school I work in we have been told not to go on anymore training courses for the forseeable future as the school needs to save money on supply cover. We have also had to suspend a lot of the renovations that the 100 year old building needed.

['Press Start']

At the school I work in we have been told not to go on anymore training courses for the forseeable future as the school needs to save money on supply cover. We have also had to suspend a lot of the renovations that the 100 year old building needed.

Same for a friend who is a teacher.

[Decider-VT]

Lovely about-face from the Russell Group in the press regarding the 40% reduction in university teaching funds. Last week they were lapping up the tuition fee rise, now they'll have to increase fees just to exist. The students still lose, of course.

[merf]

Just watching the housing allowance bit on BBC news, people saying it's not fair that the max limit for rent is being cut from £2k per week to £400 so poor people won't be able
to live in nice areas, SO BLOODY WHAT, benefit is meant to be a helping hand not putting people claiming it in areas most working people can't afford

How can anybody defend the current/old labour situation as sustainable or fair ?

No wonder country got so screwed and in such a state under labour, £21b was their housing benefit budget.

[Dirty Sanchez]

No idea at the moment - just back from holiday so trying to catch up with the figures. Looks like I'll lose the ?80 a month child benefit.

[abigsmurf]

I'm reminded of the council houses I see walking to Stamford Bridge.

Housing association properties in one of the top parts of London that must be valued at 7 figures. Utterly bizzarre.

Thank god they're housing association not council owned so the people lucky enough to be allocated such nice houses won't be able to buy them for £80k and sell them for over a million.

[Lebowski]

I would say that all these cuts are just pr spin to make the opposition look as irresponsible as possible politicians bending and twisting the truth to meet there own agenda who would of thunk it

[merf]

I would say that all these cuts are just pr spin to make the opposition look as irresponsible as possible politicians bending and twisting the truth to meet there own agenda who would of thunk it

so no truth in them at all, country doesn't have an unaffordable budget deficit where the income it raises is way smaller than its spending commitment, its all simply a bit of a wheeze to make the last lot look bad ?

bit of a simplistic world view and too many episodes of the x-files there I think, occasionaly bad stuff really does happen and polticians have to deal with it for the actual reasons stated, don't get me wrong they aint saints but to simply call the budget problems 'spin' seems a bit naive.