This £6.5bn, readers, whilst sounding like a lot of money, is approximately 1% of annual government spending.
1%. Jeeeesus. No more or less than a bloody rounding error. What planet are these wankers on? Which of us would consider that spending 99% in the next tax year of what we spent last year would amount to a "meaningful cut" during a financial crisis? Think of it in terms of your own household budget: what would you have to do to save a measly 1%? Would you notice?
Who, seriously, believes that 15-20% of government spending could not be axed without anything more than a few jobsworths being forced onto the labour market? Are there any amongst us who could justify the taxation of an honest worker who earns 1o grand a year, has this fact mulled over by hundreds of bureaucrats, who then hand the tax back as a "Tax Credit", having taken roughly a third of it as a handling charge?
We are in this crisis not because the government does not take enough in taxation. Oh no. We are in this crisis because the government spends too much of the nation's money. Forget about the bank bail-outs - large though they were, Lloyds is already showing a profit for the taxpayer (in-price below 64p), and we have been running a deficit every year since 2001. Osborne knows we spend too much, by a factor of about double, as does Cameron. But the strategy of liberal appeasement means that they dare not speak sensibly. They must spout gibberish, because our fellow Britons, when asked, opt for higher government spending and a reduction in personal liberty.
We will get the government we deserve on May 7th. And I will be ready to pack my bags for Geneva and do my work there if necessary.
Little George Osborne, deemed a few years ago to be the coming man of the Centre-Right. Yeah, right. Here is your online thesaurus for the word FEEBLE.
Main Entry: "FEEBLE"
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: not strong; ineffective
Synonyms:
aged, ailing, chicken*, debilitated, decrepit, delicate, doddering, dopey, effete, emasculated, enervated, enfeebled, etiolated, exhausted, failing, faint, flabby, flat, fragile, frail, gentle, helpless, impotent, inadequate, incompetent, indecisive, ineffectual, inefficient, infirm, insubstantial, insufficient, lame, languid, low, out of gas, paltry, poor, powerless, puny, sapless, sickly, slight, strengthless, tame, thin, unconvincing, vitiated, weak, weakened, weakly, wimpy, woozy, zero*
Part of Speech: adjective
Definition: not strong; ineffective
Synonyms:
aged, ailing, chicken*, debilitated, decrepit, delicate, doddering, dopey, effete, emasculated, enervated, enfeebled, etiolated, exhausted, failing, faint, flabby, flat, fragile, frail, gentle, helpless, impotent, inadequate, incompetent, indecisive, ineffectual, inefficient, infirm, insubstantial, insufficient, lame, languid, low, out of gas, paltry, poor, powerless, puny, sapless, sickly, slight, strengthless, tame, thin, unconvincing, vitiated, weak, weakened, weakly, wimpy, woozy, zero*
14 comments:
"And I will be ready to pack my bags for Geneva and do my work there if necessary".
So would I, but we have a few schemes just on the starting blocks Iders, so, unless the public prats get up on both hind legs on planning permission, we'll stay here, and claw back what Brown's Bastards have stolen over the last half-dozen years...
It will be a pleasure to get paid for giving the town hall wallahs their pensions for a change.
So would I if I could afford it.
There is an awful lot of waste and corruption in government though.
Idle, have you seen Killem's favourite Easter greeting card linked on Scrobs's blog? I cracked up.
givernment spending?
Typo? Or the invention of an apt word.
I now feel no shame in avoiding paying tax,something I would not once have considered. With vat and the capital gains I pay each year I feel I am paying for enough five a day leasbian somali outreach officers to salve my conscience.
There are many issues on which the Tories are feeble. Just about every issue I care about.
They are the new left. Labour are the ultra left. BNP are old Conservative.
I can't see us keeping our AAA. 20%interest rates on the way. Mad Max time.
But yes, you are right. It's the British voter that is the problem. He was never properly educated but he was allowed to keep his vote.
And whose fault was that exactly ? And why did they engineer it to happen ?
I lived in Geneva for a couple of years in a previous incarnation. Despite lots of nice views, Switzerland is a very tightly controlled country, but not yet quite a police state.
This comment appeared last week in the Daily Telegraph blog pages in response to an article here on this mystical 1% by Jeremy Warner. The third paragraph is the meat of the matter and co-commenters suggested the writer be given the contract.
Jeremy
If the figure were £60bn, it might warrant investigation, but £6bn? 1% of public spending? This is a rounding error.
If my Board ordered me to make a 1% cut in overall Operating Expenditure I would find it in less than the time it takes to make a cup of tea. That’s not because I have a wasteful organisation but because I have hundreds of items of expenditure and it is always possible to make minor adjustments or postpone some items to the following year.
In fact, government waste is so chronic that I would happily, and free of charge, spend a year at the Treasury finding and eliminating waste. I can confidently promise the electorate at least £50bn in cuts without them even noticing and I would be surprised if I could not find over £100bn.
That is not because I am hugely talented: any businessman accustomed to justifying every penny of shareholders’ money could do it with his or her eyes shut. Do we need this? Why? What will happen if we get rid of it? These are the questions nobody asks in the public sector, which is why there is a gargantuan pool of funding for the new government to tap into after May 6th – if they have the political will to do so, of course
I can't believe they are not pledging to scrap tax credits for the very low paid. Just raise the allowance, you bloody idiots!
I shall go to Ireland and become "an artist."
Too far from the sea, Geneva, Idle. I couldn't lived in a landlocked country.
Long lunch?! See you in June I hope!
Oh ye of little faith, elby. I must have called you five minutes after you posted your comment. So glad we were able to share a pint or two in Bruton's finest (and second finest) hostelries.
Geneva has sailing, for those missing the sea. It also does a bouillabaise in season. Costs a bit, but that's the Swiss Franc for you.
It's a fair cop, guv (guv guv). Delighted we got to meet up, and some more pub crawls of Somerset definitely in order! Granted on Geneva, though it is the looking out to sea - especially on a West coast - that works so well for me. Bouillabaisse, however, would work a treat.
Salut to you and yours, and, all being well, see you and the Good Lady Idle in June.
"...our fellow Britons, when asked, opt for higher government spending..."
As the fellow* said, "A democracy...can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. "
* Alexis De Tocqueville, or maybe PJ O’Rourke, or possibly Alexander Tytler; whoever it was, they were right.
Of course it is ridiculous that a 1% cut is even considered controversial; the public sector is very wasteful; and yes the Tories are a totally craven waste of space. Would that we all could piss off abroad but circunstances do not permit. Also it should be noted that not all public sector workers are superfluous. The state gets a good deal from my public sector partner who is academically and professionally qualified (unlike many I worked with in the City) and works up to seventy hours a week for significantly less than newly qualifieds earnt in the City over ten years ago.
Ah. Tax credits. My ex worked for the DWP for years, and before tax credits were introduced, staff at offices in the bigger cities were called in for a presentation on them, and to give feedback.
Unanimous across the country - they won't work, and for starters, the IRS (as they were then) are geared up to TAKE money off people, not hand it out. Also, tax credits are a benefit - Brown just wanted to dress it up.
So this goes back up the line - this WILL BE A DISASTER.
The rest is history.
Not sure I can take a month of this though.
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