A Little Bit of Politics.

[f4f3]

So, how long have I given our new ConDem government before passing judgement? Well, about 90 seconds, to be honest, but I haven't commented on them till now. Partly because I was waiting for them to do something, partly because I didn't want to be the one to wipe the spawn off the faces of my Lib Dem friends who'd gone to bed as noble princes, and woken up as frogs.

The theory, as far as I can remember, was that the conscience of the Liberals would rein in the Tories tendency to reward the rich and punish the poor. That the Tories, perhaps, had changed - that they weren't the Thatcherites of old, that they might even had developed a social conscience of their own. I quite wanted to believe that.

However it doesn't seem to have worked out that way. The Liberals have become the nodding dogs of the austerity apocalypse. They agreed with the rise in VAT, arguing that a rise in personal income tax allowance would take the pinch off that extra tax. Despite knowing that VAT is universal, and that income tax is only paid by those working. So, a swift kick at the unemployed with a lie thrown in. (Oh, and a total lack of embarrassment at having campaigned against the Tory VAT bombshell. 

The week after that, Ian Duncan Smith revealed that the age at which a state pension is paid will go up from 65 to 66. His justification for this is that life expectancy is now 84 for men and 89 for women. He didn't say that was for people being born today, not those reaching retirement age today. He didn't say that life expectancy is significantly lower for poor people than rich. How significant is significant? Well it's 63 for men in Shettleston, a couple of miles to the east of me, and in Kensington and Chelsea it's 83.7.

I heard another two things today. One, that the government aims to take a third of people off invalidity benefit. How? Are they going to increase standards of care, introduce new treatments, licence new drugs? Nah, they're going to change the rules so that you have to pass new tests to qualify for the benefit (I nearly said "make you jump through hoops", but I don't want to give them any ideas).

The other was that Theresa May announced a cap on non-EU immigration to the UK, the first time this has ever been done. I feel slightly ashamed, and slightly dirty.

And I'm not even keeping them in power.

Comments

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

"How could the Labour government have mitigated the banking problems further?"

Well, possibly by implementing something similar to the US did. i.e. we'll bail you out, but we own your ass till you pay us back. Instead of entering into the worst investment in history. We will never see the money back for those shares, much less a profit.

VAT might not be perfect but nothing is - at least this way folks have half way an option to reduce its impact on them, which is more than can be said for an income tax hike.

When I refer to the public sector I don't mean the NHS specifically - I mean the civil service. And yes, the tories brought in the management layer that is crippling the NHS, but let's not forget that Labour had 12 years to get rid of it - instead of which they strengthened it - with a decade of obsession with KPIs and pointless micromanaging. Besides, who brought it in isn't the question - who's going to get rid of it is. The civil service is a joke. Our tax system is ludicrously and unnecessarily complex for example. New Zealand has something like six tax codes and the vast majority of the population is the same one. Quangos are worse - look at the mess SLC is in through basically just not doing its job properly for 10 years. It's not alone either - it's just the one that got caught.

I'll agree with your last point - but the issue there is where the cuts will fall, not whether or not they are necessary/appropriate. I'll fight with you to have those cuts fall on the beaurocracy layer rather than those doing a good job well but I won't stand by and say that these institutions don't need a darn good shakeup.

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

Remember that I didn't get the government I voted for either and I'm not agreeing with everything the one we got is doing but I am trying to see the sense in it, and I see quite a lot. I also see a lot that's guided by tory values and well, although I don't agree with those, I can't criticise an elected government (and they won by vote share as well as first-past-the-post) for sticking to the principles they campaigned on. Whether or not the Lib Dems should have joined forces with them I'm split on - at first I thought no, but I'm starting to think yes.... Time will tell on whether or not that was a good thing.

Ultimately we're never going to agree on politics because I don't share your socialist views. This doesn't however make me a rabid tory. Here - I'm just trying to *understand* what the government is doing rather than butt against it, because in one thing I do agree with them wholeheartedly: we're up shit creek and tough measures are required to get us out.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

What was the Tory vote share? 30 some percent? On a sixty odd percent turnout? So about 20% of the people eligible to vote voted for them?
I wouldn't laugh about this so much if you hadn't taken me to task so strongly for describing a win with 20% of the eligible vote as convincing back in November...

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

I didn't make any comment on the quality of the win, I merely stated the fact that they got more votes than anyone else, ergo they won the by vote share. I'm not championing it, merely stating the fact. Sure, more people should get off their arse and vote but short of making it mandatory there's not a lot we can do about that.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

"We will never see the money back for those shares, much less a profit."

In the case of RBS, we bought at about 50.5, and they're currently trading about 44. Last September we were sitting on about £1 billion worth of profit.

I've already said that VAT has a disproportionate effect on the poorer parts of society than income tax. I can understand you not taking my word for it, or whatever selective links I might put up, so if you don't want to do your own research (the share prices above took me two minutes to get) then we'll have to drop this one.

I don't disagree about there being inefficiencies in the Civil Service - Labour identified £65 million worth of cuts there. The argument is on timing and severity - the Tories will cut faster and deeper because they just don't give a damn about who gets hurt - they know it won't be them. Labour proposed staged cuts which would have taken longer, and cost less jobs. It's a matter of priorities.

A darn good public sector shakeup is one thing. 1.2 million lost jobs (the government's estimate, not mine) over five years is another. 2,000 jobs a week. Teachers, nurses, policemen, roadworkers, painters, plasterers. 2,000 a week. 300 a day. 35 every working hour.

Oh, and they also calculate that around 700,000 of those jobs will be in the private sector. Programmers, shop assistants, lorry drivers, accountants...

Cutting that deeply, that quickly, is a price worth paying. So long as someone else is doing the paying.

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

"In the case of RBS, we bought at about 50.5, and they're currently trading about 44. Last September we were sitting on about £1 billion worth of profit. "

And now we're sitting on a massive loss. Way to go investing, guys.

I know you have this image of the tories as being evil bloodthirsty monsters. Fact is they're politicians with a different view point to yours or mine. The fact that they're politicians means they won't cut their own throats because that's not what politicians do.

What I've heard today (and from your post above) is a bunch of politicians bandying scary statistics around and if I know two things gauranteed to be lies it's statistics and anything coming from the mouth of a politician. Multiply by a factor of ten if they're out to score political points with their oponents.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Neil, all of the market went down in the past year, not just the banks.
But at least you've identified a great area for savings - the Office Of National Statistics, who published those lying figures...

[psychochicken.livejournal.com]

You know what. Let's just drop the whole thing. I've said everything I'm going to on the subject and the tone of this is getting unpleasant.