Cameron on deficit: Three words but few details

I agree entirely with Cameron

Until people see the need to cut, it is pointless going into numbers

I said Osborne was correct, to much abuse and stick, and was told that the Conservatives were alone in the world

Wait and see I said

Well, now the G20 and consequently the world IS ditching the Brown failure, and indeed following Osborne's policy

I doubt there is anyone who will backtrack?

Three words..

New Labour failure...

One thing I have not understood in this government's policy is ringfencing international aid. If we haven't got enough for ourselves then how can we be giving away to others?

I'm happy with the immediate deficit-cutting - I never believed Labour's approach was realistic and I didn't think they believed it either, but I just don't see the aid thing.

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.... and still Labour maintain that everything that is good was because of what they did (e.g. avoid depression from the Global Recession) while at the same time blaming everyone else for anything that went wrong e.g. the massive debt, public sector cost, despite the fact that this all happened on their watch, especially the huge and horribly unaffordable growth in the public sector).
When on earth will reality ever figure in their thinking, or has the legacy of the Blair/Campbell Spin years left such a stain that it cannot be removed.
I'm no great fan of the Tories, or the Lib Dems, but we do seem to be getting a bit of honesty and reality at the moment....not sure how long it will last....

Well whatever it is we will all have to accept it and deal with it. Just as long as the huge sums some of the benefit scroungers have been getting is severely cut and they are forced to go and find work and pay taxes like the rest of us (and I don't mean the genuine claimants) and that immigration is scaled right down as we cannot afford it, then it is a cross we all must bear unfortunately.

We need the Flesh put on the Bones of his ideas, to simply say "there will be painful cuts" is not acceptable.

Fess up Mr Cameron and let us know the worst !

I dont read or see Mr Robinson ever ask the PM or his ministers the tough questions.
I wonder why?

The Conservatives have the reputation for making cuts - but that is because they have to because whenever Labour have been in power, they leave an awful mess behind.

The Labour Party should be ashamed of their appaling legacy, but they seem to have no shame and are already complaining that the coalition might cut back some of the unaffordable spending committments.

Hopefully the office of budget responsibility might restrain Labour when they get in again [as they will because people will forget how dreadful they were]]. Sadly, I expect not...

It isn't clear exactly what's going to happen to who until 22 June. Anything until then is pointless speculation from the media and pointless provocation from the politicians.

The government has obviously decided to ignore it's disdain for punch and judy politics by blaming the last government every step of the way. What was the point of CameraOn's announcement today?

Am I mistaken in thinking it was the banks that got us into this mess? Or did every government around the world coincidentally and simultaneously find themselves in a recession for completely unrelated reasons?

"Unavoidable" except for the bankers and the rich.
"Legacy" which will be used as an excuse to protect the privileged and rebuke the rest
"Together" the public school boy politicians watch as the rest of us suffer

Cameron & his party supported all the economic reforms that Labour implemented. To say otherwise is disingenuous. So, they would have followed the same policies, which would have led to the same outcomes.

What would be interesting to model is where we would be if Gordon Brown had not saved the UK & the world economy - a depression, that's what. Northern Rock, RBS & HBOS would be in liquidation. Many viable businesses would have gone under. Unemployment would have gone through the roof. Granted the deficit & debt would be smaller, but by how much?

Cameron - knew that the debt was projected to be £700BN before the election & it was confirmed in March that the annual interest bill would be £70BN. Refer to the IFS report. Therefore to lay the blame of being ignorant of the situation elsewhere is disingenuous.

Then again, what do you expect from an unelected PM, with little or no care for the people that need to be looked after in this country?

The last Tory government left us with 18 - 24 month waiting lists in the NHS, schools with no infrastructure & the country in a complete social mess. The only people to profit during the Tory reign were the Fat Cats & so it will be again. Thankfully, the general populace will not stand for it, this time!

Cameron, I predict will be a failure within 2 years and hopefully the Con-Dem coalition will be consigned to history with him!

'CLAIMING to have inherited a crisis....!' Come on Nick. even you must acknowledge there is an actual inherited crisis. But as the PM says, he has a job to convince some people - including it seems Nick Robinson - that there is a crisis that needs solving at all.

Re: Cutting public sector pay and pensions.

Good luck! The vast majority of the public sector have had just below inflation pay increases for years - and they've required very sensitive negotiations with the Unions to get passed. Public sector pensions were reformed slightly a few years ago, but again it took very sensitive negotiations and the threat of strike action by all the main public sector unions combined to hammer out a deal.

As for cutting welfare benefits, surely the easiest way is to retrain the Job Centre / Benefits Agency staff "on the ground" who make the decisions on whether to award benefits or not. After all, if someone on JSA isn't showing interest in finding a job, or a single person in receipt of HB is living in a 10 bedroom mansion, it's the job of the local staff to impose penalties which are already defined in the terms and conditions of the benefits.

As someone who has paid income tax and national insurance for 45 years (so far); I do not believe it is fair and equitable for any government to make changes to Basic and Additional Pensions, just before they are due to be paid out. These pensions should be accrued benefits that cannot be changed on the whim of any short-term government.

I'm not sure that the intentions are as obscure as you suggest, Nick. To me the key element was the emphasis both on the shrinking of the economy (4% last year), and on the overspending, both on public sector employment and on current expenditure in the last five years. This points to a benchmark target for the cuts: winding the economy back to 2005/6. You can find the figures more easily than I can. But this suggests to me among other things a series of real public sector pay cuts (including cuts in parliamentary pay and perks) of the type seen in Greece and Ireland among others. To meet the fairness criteria, how about an immediate 10% cut in all public sector salaries over £75k, and 5% over £35k, with a three year pay freeze at those levels and suspension of all bonus schemes for the same period? Maybe 20% for those over £150k?

Scary, eh? But will less be credible to the markets? MPs should take the equivalent cut, and Ministers should offer up a further 5% of what is of course a top-up ministerial salary. Plus a firm ceiling on parliamentary allowances 10% below the recent average.

Tom

Ok the elections over now David, you can come clean and be honest. Fellow voters don't say I didn't warn you off these chumps (Clegg also) and how they will destroy our economy (see my pre-election posts!).

Mr Robinson claims that three words stand out from today's speech by the Prime Minister. I can think of only one: Dogma. Simply put, as Private Eye and others have highlighted, cuts to the public services on one hand are being "balanced" by tax breaks on the other. This is Convervative party policy of small government, seemingly inherited from the Republicans in the USA. What replaces big government - big business? We are constantly told that the private sector leads the way, but has anyone recently got a train in England? The privatised industries and servies are often a shambles, no better than public alternatives but often more expensive. This is what will replace the public sector. In my field of higher education we will see a "brain drain" of talent to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, countries that are investing in such areas in order to help growth in future. Political dogma will destroy the core of this country and give us third rate public services which will be part private-run.

And what about the banks in all this? Not a mention, even though they caused this mess and the Conservatives are letting their rich chums in The City away with massive incompetence and reckless behaviour while the rest of us pay for it. That's the way to bring us along with you, Dave. New Conservatives? Sounds like Thatcher is back. God help us all.

Words: "unavoidable", "legacy" and "together".
I don’t know if the financial situation in the UK is “unavoidable”. I don’t know the state of the country’s financial ledgers, especially financial institutions. When were they last audited? How pure is the capital (vs. derivatives and credit default swaps)?
What I do know is that UK banks (for the most part) are not lending, seem afraid to lend; and this will remain the case until someone tells them to audit, identify bad debts and write them off. Banks can only lend when they know how much money they have i.e. when they know the balance sheets are pure.
This problem must be addressed if only to ascertain how “unavoidable” the situation truly is.
“Legacy” is an unfair word. It wasn’t Gordon Brown or Alastair Darling who started the financial crisis or maintained it. The financial problem began in the United States with the Lehman Brothers crisis and mushroomed from there. I’m positive that Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling wanted to solve the problem, though I’ve always disagreed with bail-outs. Bail-outs fix nothing because they fail to address what necessitates the bail-out in the first place i.e. fails to fix the root-rot.
“Togerther” I guess means the start of the UK austerity program. What alarms me about this is that evidently Britain has moved away, is moving away, from the EU and its tight fiscal restraints. The Coalition Government seems fixated on loose regulations and allowing the capital markets to drive freely. This should have established itself as a “no-no” in the face of American non-regulation and its trillions of dollars of debt. It seems to me that the UK wants to attach itself to the American non-regulated mess (though why The Coalition Government would want to tie themselves to this sagging nag I don’t understand).
As for Canada, I'm Canadian. We had minimal deficits to cut; in fact, we have recently raised interest rates to stop inflation from taking hold, but then not every country is lucky enough to have Jim Falherty as Finance Minister. Canada had no bail-outs. Canada was (and remains)financially regulated and its capital is pure. We have tight audits. We have active lending.
As for the hospital that was blown up, that was Calgary General Hospital, and it was blown up – not because of financial auterity – but because getting rid of this building was part of the Alberta Government’s Plan to rationalize health services by removing redundant facilities.

Claiming to have inherited a crisis?

So are you saying that Brown, Darling et al have not made a mess of our economy and that evrything they said prior to and post the election is true? Unfortunately I would doubt the veracity of anything coming from the lips of a labour politician. Experience would bare that out.

Surely more like "Having inherited a crisis". Would have been the more appropriate.

Apparently ''it's worse than expected'' is the conclusion of the coalition's assessment of the public finances. Which suggests the Tory and LibDemocrats hadn't done their sums, or homework, correct in the first place.

...the foolocracy remains.

"His message, in other words, is that of an economic wartime leader claiming to have inherited a crisis that we must all now act to resolve."

Nick, go on then, put yourself out there. Rather than merely repeating, why not give an opinion? HAS Cameron inherited a crisis? Is he making it up and in fact the economy is in tip-top condition? Can't be both. I rather side with the former argument. If you agree, whose fault is it?

Surely you get paid enough to have an opinion?

I'm actively looking at job adverts in New Zealand and Australia.
So long suckers! The ConDems are going to ruin the country.

The four words that stood out for me were 'Debt interest £70 billion per year.'

That's just an exhorbitant amount of taxpayers money going to creditors of who we know little or nothing about.

If nothing is done about the debt this could go even higher and so could interest rates.

So the British public would eventually end up paying their taxes to fund the interest on the debt and be left with few or little in the way of public services to show for it. Nice new buildings but can't afford to run them.

I guess getting this through to a sceptical public in a language they will really understand and accept is going to be the major task over the next few months.

Nice to see the people who caused this crisis i.e. bankers and speculators won't be asked to tighten their belts.
Same old case of privatise the profits and socialise the losses.

You can't print what I'd like to say.

Problem is that ZaNU_Liebour have spent 13 years conditioning the UK
that you can keep on spending more than your income regardless of any conseqences.

when labour came into power in '97 they had so such problem to overcome
just avoid messing up or giving the impression that they would mess up, unfortunatley thats exactly what has happened.

NR nice that you had half term with your family and children , spare a thought for those that could not because of state interventions just because they were a father and nothing else another ZaNU_Liebour Failed policy

I do hope Cameron isn't gearing up to do something ill judged and reprehensible.

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Hugh Lanning, deputy general secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, told the BBC Mr Cameron's speech was "trying to paint the public sector as a problem".

"But the debt wasn't caused by the public sector - it was caused by the banks and the financial crisis and we would like to see them share some of the pain, not just us."

The public sector certainly didn't cause the debt but the size of the public sector and it's poor management are both part of Labour's legacy. In the same vein the banks behaved as they did because Labour encouraged them to.

I am reminded of Shakespeare's words "If it were done, when tis done twere well it were done quickly".

Cameron has a honeymoon period and it is surely in his interests to paint a very dark picture at present and to blame it on Messrs Brown and Darling.

If there are to be cuts they have to be soon and I personally expect that there will have to be major cuts to Public Sector pensions and a move to go to defined contribution rather than defined benefit.

Also expect to see a pay freeze at higher levels in the Public Sector like the Cabinet has taken. Also the announcement of salaries above the Prime Ministers and the release of past spending will allow friendly papers to drip feed Labour waste stories for the next few weeks.

I don't expect a full scale class war but it won't be pretty.

So, after a few days of power the Tories have decided that the poor - benefits claimants and most public sector workers - need to tighten their belts, while for the rich the party continues, as they enjoy a u-turn on CGT.

Dave is saying, "There is a burden to be borne, and you, the plebs, shall bear it."

What a surprise.

I thought it was the banks and financial sector which got us in to this mess so why are the public sector taking all the hits?

Also, doesn't the private sector also depend on the public sector for growth....

Cameron seems to be pursuing a very false argument.

Cameron appears to be looking to provoke a double dip to the recession. This will have the desired effect of forcing up unemployment, force down wages and letting the conservative's paymasters forget about ridiculous things like fair treatment of employees.

I agree with DC too even though i am in the public sector and could be wiped out with the likely cuts that are being debated.

I can see why Brown and Darling have gone to ground. We probably cant do it but in the commercial world such withholding of bad news from the stock exchange and/or shareholders is an offence that could lead to prosecution. Are we not shareholders in our country?

Let's get on with the pain and just make sure that any remnants of the last Government are totally sidelined. They are all guilty of collusion in this situation.

I think we all understand already there is a crisis. We have heard a load about the credit crunch for years now and all the main parties highlighted the possibility of cuts in the election campaign. It is time for Cameron to come clean about the cuts and end the uncertainty.

"Famously, the Canadians used dynamite to blow up a hospital as the most painful symbol of how things had to change. It is clear that won't be happening here; what isn't clear is what will."

Yeah. We probably cant afford dynamite anymore thanks to Gonzo Brown.

Well, Cameron's certainly doing his bit to cut costs, mostly thanks to Gordon Brown who cut the PM's salary by about 40k/year just before he left the building (but only to take effect after he left, and not so that it effected his own pension).

Labour's legacy is one of utter destruction, and sheer vindictive spite to anyone who's not one of their supporters. Economic terrorism, pure and simple. Scorched earth policies were clearly in place and being actively followed, especially in their last few months.

Now it's up to the coalition to try and sort out the horrific mess that labour left behind them. It won't be easy, but it has to be done.

I'll never forget or forgive what labour's done to this country.

Finally its been said, "while the public sector has boomed, the private sector has gone bust". Well said David Cameron! For the vast majority of us in the private sector who've experienced job losses, wage cuts, companies going bust, the public sector has behaved like Nero fiddling while Rome burns.

The endless recruitment of non-job after non-job, year on year above average salary increases, sick days twice the norm, pensions and benefits that we in the private sector can only dream about. Well the whole unaffordable mess is about to come crashing down and the public sector will get the dose of real world medicine that the rest of us have been taking for years.

Bring it on!

Party politics aside, I would like to see a very clear, straightforward and unemotional explanation of exactly how we got into this situation.

There certainly shouldn't be any sacred cows when it comes to cuts. Personally, I would think it grotesque that we should continue to fund Trident replacement while at the same time reducing the quality of education. If we can't afford good schools and universities, we certainly can't afford a nuclear weapons system. If true efficiency savings can be made in education, that's fine but if we compromise our investment in the future we will be really serious trouble.

Regarding another sacred cow, I'm in favour of international development spending but only in cases where it can be shown that funds aren't being stolen. I've seen this up close in sub-Saharan Africa and know that much of what we give finds its way into the Swiss (and British) bank accounts of those in power. This is largely because DFID is chasing % of GDP based expenditure targets. It can only hit these targets by giving money away and not being too bothered about what happens to it.

The International Development Budget needs looking at we cannot be subsidising our economic competitors that have nuclear weapons and space programmes etc such as India and China that is another failed ZaNU_Liebour policy

David Cameron has accused the former Government of getting its future forecasts for growth wrong. What we mustn't lose sight of though is that Alistair Darling's forecasts during the recession where spot on!

Remember he said in the Pre Budget Report of 2008 that he forecasted that we would come out of recession and into growth in the last quarter of 2009. No one would believe it at the time, experts thought he was playing politics, trying to lift the pressure off Labour at the time, but come out of recession and into growth we did in late 2009.

Is David Cameron by giving this speech, saying we can't achieve what Alistar Darling forecasted, engineering a doubledip recession? That would be crazy but his policy/views on the Public sector vs the Private sector are just as crazy I'm afraid.

That because the private sector has done so badly, the public sector must be cut down to size too to match the failed private sector? Very very bizzare!

By all means, make sensible/reasonable cuts to deal with the deficit, but to say that because the private sector has failed, the public sector must have an almost engineered failure is wrong.

The Conservatives have always told us that the market sorts itself out, that the private sector will always perform better than the public sector, well it hasn't in the last few years and it looks like from Mr Cameron downwards, the Tories are trying to change the rules of their own game.

Finnally, the only reason why the private sector does enjoy some success, even though it may be short term success, is because individuals in the private sector are motivated by trying to earn as much as possible with big bonuses, where in the public sector, pay is limited. If that level of pay was on offer for success in the Public Sector their would be an outcry from the public and media alike, but that is the main difference and as we have seen in the finance sector, some sucesses is just a false economy, and very very short term in the way it appears as a success etc etc.

Labour should be absolutely ashamed. They've left this country with an enormous debt that's going to dominate this Parliament and they have the nerve to say that they're 'proud of their record.' I never had a problem with Tony Blair - I think he had a lot of good intentions that were never realised. But the national debt built up by Gordon Brown is just disgraceful. I've got every faith in the coalition; they've made a great start and in five years time, we may well be in better economic shape. The question then will be whether we want to let Labour wreck it again.

At 3:18pm on 07 Jun 2010, chris911t wrote:
One thing I have not understood in this government's policy is ringfencing international aid. If we haven't got enough for ourselves then how can we be giving away to others?

I'm happy with the immediate deficit-cutting - I never believed Labour's approach was realistic and I didn't think they believed it either, but I just don't see the aid thing.

Its about caring for a child starving to death in its mothers arms or dying of a preventable disease, its about preventing horrific diseases such as Guinea worm or polio- in truth its about understanding that what we mean by not having enough money in UK is not the same as not having food or water in Africa. Its about being civilised. Its shocking that you and people like you can not understand these facts and be a little caring. Shame on you.

It wasn't Labour's fault, they did nothing wrong, never implemented a bad policy, never told a porky, nor mislead the Country and only borrowed the minimum amount of money to ensure that all the poor folk are now wealthy and there is no poverty in the land. All in all a totally successful 13 years.

Any annual and running deficits and ongoing National Debt, not that we are admitting there are any, are entirely down to that failed Tory leader Mrs Thatcher.

And all the cuts will be Conservative cuts.

Usual Tory spin - let the poor and the weak suffer the burden caused by the rich and priveleged - it's dave ja vu (sorry)

Nick, you know very well that there's little point in Cameron's spelling out the reasoning and intricacies behind the cuts since most people's knowledge of economics would fit on to a postage stamp.

How many blindly follow unionised prats like Dave Prentis ranting on about this 'attack' on the hard-done-by public sector workers, benefits-recipients etc; and how the 'rich', 'privileged' private-sector mafia are being left untouched.

(Translation: The public sector- bloated by Labour's artificial ploy to 'create' jobs that didn't exist- will be cut down to efficient levels and those perfectly capable of working will not find it so easy to sit with their hands outstretched, stemming the mindless drain on our scarce public resources. The private sector will be left alone to grow, provide trade and commerce and build up the economy, create jobs and thus generate more money for public services.)

12

To suggest that Gordon Brown saved the world, as you do, suggests that you have left this world, and live in a parallel universe somewhere

"4. At 3:21pm on 07 Jun 2010, Caledonian Comment wrote:
Oh well at least the people in the public sector losing their jobs will derive consolation as they sign on with the thought that their plight is due to progressive cuts."

their plight is due to Brown's massive over-spending. As was and is the plight of the private sector who have not been shielded from economic realities over the last 2 years.

Just ask Cameron,Osborne and Hague who their hero/heroine is MARGARET THATCHER Oh dear i fear the worst,i hope the british electorate know what they have done.

Cuts are coming - we should all accept responsibility for their necessity.

I (like Messrs. Broon & Darling) am so relieved that somebody else is having to decide what they must be and how to implement them because they are not going to be popular. Cameron & his party must be so relieved that the Libs have stepped forward to take some of the fall-out

WHEN ARE

1) BROWN
2) BLAIR
3) CAMPELL
4) BALLS
5) MANDLESON

going to be arrested and charged with some sort of CRIMINAL INTENT
to reck the economy,

In the good times it's every private sector fat cat for themselves but once it all goes wrong then it's the lower paid public sector that has to take the pain. Strange how we're all in it together only when it suits

18 GM wrote

And what about the banks in all this? Not a mention, even though they caused this mess and the Conservatives are letting their rich chums in The City away with massive incompetence and reckless behaviour while the rest of us pay for it.

Errrm

It went wrong with the banks during the 13 years of LABOUR Government

Have you been asleep since 1997?

"27. At 4:08pm on 07 Jun 2010, sagamix wrote:
I do hope Cameron isn't gearing up to do something ill judged and reprehensible."

No, he won't be following Brown's path.

18. At 3:50pm on 07 Jun 2010, GM wrote:
Mr Robinson claims that three words stand out from today's speech by the Prime Minister. I can think of only one: Dogma. Simply put, as Private Eye and others have highlighted, cuts to the public services on one hand are being "balanced" by tax breaks on the other. This is Convervative party policy of small government, seemingly inherited from the Republicans in the USA. What replaces big government - big business? We are constantly told that the private sector leads the way, but has anyone recently got a train in England? The privatised industries and servies are often a shambles, no better than public alternatives but often more expensive. This is what will replace the public sector. In my field of higher education we will see a "brain drain" of talent to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, countries that are investing in such areas in order to help growth in future. Political dogma will destroy the core of this country and give us third rate public services which will be part private-run.

And what about the banks in all this? Not a mention, even though they caused this mess and the Conservatives are letting their rich chums in The City away with massive incompetence and reckless behaviour while the rest of us pay for it. That's the way to bring us along with you, Dave. New Conservatives? Sounds like Thatcher is back. God help us all.


.........................................................................

What absolute rubbish! In higher education? You should know better! Oh, wait a minute, a pronouncement made from behind the comfortable barricade of a cushy publice setor job.

Enjoy it while you can my friend, the barricades are being torn down and you're going to be exposed just as every private sector has been for years!
PS; Yes, I use the train. Far, far better than BR ever was!

"Sounds like the old, the sick, and the Unemployed, will be paying the bill for The greedy bankers and the idle mega rich tax dodgers and big business.

Proposed cuts are already taking shape in the public sector with Border Force Officers of operational grades (the few people you see on return from abroad) having their jobs, terms & conditions threatened by senior civil servants. The same senior civil servants earning more money than the PM himself whilst they've presided over & implemented a disaster of a points based Immigration system, which weakens our borders substantially whilst public money is wasted on middle management & consultants with no experience. Cuts may be due but I'd bet the individuals presiding over the mess get away with it while front line services bear the brunt - again! Same old story - prepare to join the long lines at Immigration - if you can still afford your vacation.

27. sagamix

I do hope Cameron isn't gearing up to do something ill judged and reprehensible.

You mean like starting a war in Iraq or Afghanistan or bringing the country to its knees…….. Naw…. Its already been done.

Perhaps Gordon would like to take a post advising on cuts to the Scottish budget, as its disproportionate.

Cameron is merely speaking the obvious truth. Thirteen years of Labour waste, incompetence, fraud and treason has bankrupted and morally wrecked the country.
Why was the Tesco heiress so severely punished for her alleged gerrymandering, while the Labour gang, who have been busy for two decades infiltrating and rigging the constituency boundaries so it takes 20% more votes (e.g., 9.6 million vs 8 million) for the Conservatives to get as many seats as Labour does, have escaped the criminal and civil penalties for so doing?

If I could stand in the house of commons, I'd like to ask all the MPs the following. Can you please tell me, when those of you in government and in opposition sit opposite eachother and carry out debates and hence make agreements. Are you Mr Cameron & You Mr Clegg telling the public that for 13 years you had incomplete imformation on the "Finances" of this country. Are you telling the public in fact you did not have "Complete" information on any subject ?. Yet you sat and debated,shouted at Labour, discussed and challanged the Labour government on all subjects related to the running of this country ?. Yet you did not correctly and fully informed on all matters ? So basically you were all paid to act & entertain on the Live BBC Parliamentry programs ? You cannot carry out Logical Debate or Argument with out a common frame of reference. Either Labour with held information or simply the Conservatives and The Liberal democrats were not really paying attention to information provided and "Ad Libbed" the 13 years of Labour rule.

Can I be incredibly naiive please? Paying off/for our 'massive deficit' is going to hurt - but to whom are we paying the interest? And when it's paid it obviously generates a profit, but for whom? And into whose coffers does the tax paid on it go?
I keep asking this question, and no-one can give me an answer, which makes me think the whole system should simply be 'reset'. Who would squeal? Those raking off massive profits at the expense of our suffering.

3 words, riots, riots and more riots

Cameroon doing Public Relations which after all was his job at the ill fated ITV, threatening everyone with dire future so when what happens it will seem not as bad as they thought it would be, and they are relieved, even happy. It's an old trick. That's why there are no figures except the national debt, rather than the fiscal debt in the speech, I heard on BBC News.

The NHS and education are NOT protected. It is 'front line services' which are promised protection. This really means consultant delivered services in acute hospitals and teachers in classrooms but not other elements .. community health services (dentists) and in schools, staff who are not qualified teachers.

Government pensions which are paid directly (like teachers pensions) were frozen for this year by Labour who also cut the total NHS planned budget.They also cut University funding quite severely though it is the current government who implemented it. And they raised NI contributions which the Coalition have cancelled. (the latter presumably prefer VAT increase.)

All of these type of cuts are likely to continue to be intensified and the sporadic wage freezes spread more widely.

These things can be done without upsetting people in general. since the overall perception is that nothing drastic is happening.

The most important point about about the Cameroon's peroration was the bit about fundamental change..... Cameroon's Revolution. This is where the Spending Review comes in. This will set the strategic direction of the government (and resources to realise it) for the rest of the Parliament and is where we will discover what is going to be transferred to self/community provision... buy your own waste collection (as in Ireland)for example, co fund you operation in a privatised hospital, and send the kids to a 'academy' managed by a profit making educational provider, with co payment for anything extras extracurricular.. books stationary etc).

I totally agree that cuts must come soon and to all those who say we should know now where the axe would fall, I would say do you want it done soon or do you want it done right? June 22 is only 2 weeks away for goodness sake. I would much sooner the treasury team look into it properly before announcing anything. Remember Gordon Brown and the 10p tax rate debacle!! I work in the public sector in education and there is definitely scope for cuts without reducing jobs significantly. Reduction in pay at the top like the government has done would be a start!!! I expect my salary to be frozen for a few years and am resigned to that. I also agree that capital gains tax should be changed and to be honest if this effects house prices so be it. Maybe they would be more affordable to young adults then!!

Alistair Darling is saying that David Cameron's blaming the previous administration for the country's financial mess is the oldest trick in the book. Since he was in government less than two months ago it is a reasonable claim that he is responsible for the state of the country's finances. Still, it's a start that he can begin to see there IS a mess.

As for comments that Osborne and co 'had not done their sums', you have to have the books before you can read them. And if the accounting is also in a mess, i.e. not signed off for many years, it is difficult to see the scale of the problem from day one. I suspect they still don't have the full picture, nor will they have for several months yet.

' 12. At 3:40pm on 07 Jun 2010, manuinlondon wrote:
Cameron & his party supported all the economic reforms that Labour implemented. To say otherwise is disingenuous. So, they would have followed the same policies, which would have led to the same outcomes.

What would be interesting to model is where we would be if Gordon Brown had not saved the UK & the world economy - a depression, that's what. Northern Rock, RBS & HBOS would be in liquidation. Many viable businesses would have gone under. Unemployment would have gone through the roof. Granted the deficit & debt would be smaller, but by how much?

Cameron - knew that the debt was projected to be £700BN before the election & it was confirmed in March that the annual interest bill would be £70BN. Refer to the IFS report. Therefore to lay the blame of being ignorant of the situation elsewhere is disingenuous.

Then again, what do you expect from an unelected PM, with little or no care for the people that need to be looked after in this country?

The last Tory government left us with 18 - 24 month waiting lists in the NHS, schools with no infrastructure & the country in a complete social mess. The only people to profit during the Tory reign were the Fat Cats & so it will be again. Thankfully, the general populace will not stand for it, this time!

Cameron, I predict will be a failure within 2 years and hopefully the Con-Dem coalition will be consigned to history with him!'

Yes, I agree. It was a lightweight speech (inevitably short of detail) by a lightweight politician.
It was also typical Tory hypocrisy that Cameron condemned the policies of the last Government whilst admitting that the majority of the world's major economies are in serious debt not just the UK. Yes, it is a World recession and yes the majority of the other major players do have deficits.

The simple facts are is that the previous Government protected people from losing their homes or their jobs in the wake of firstly the financial fiasco and secondly the Private sectors inability to get their house in order. This Con-Dem alliance run by rich Oxbridge people do not share that sentiment and consequently jobs and houses will be lost. If the Public sector is put to the sword and the dole queue lengthens what happens to the UK economy? The Tory vision of an entrepreneurial renaissance to revive the economy is not going to happen anytime soon and in fact due to their disastrous mantra of 'cut, cut, cut' a double dip session is a real possibility if not an inevitability. And for the record that is not something that they inherited but it will be something that they created.

This has all been caused by Thatchers policy of de-regulation and greed is good.

The only thing Brown is guilty of is not taxing the rich enough.

viva la revolution.

Overall, this appears to be an exercise by Cameron in 'softening up' as a prelude to the actual on 22nd June.

All politicians do it, Jack Straw memorably spoke of 'needing time to shape our public' re: the second Iraq War and so we can expect more of this from assorted Lib-Dems and Tories as the day approaches.

There should not be any sacred cows when in comes to reductions in public expenditure, i.e. defence, NHS and foreign aid should NOT be ring-fenced.

If, as a country you are effectively broke, which we more-or-less appear to be, then you cannot fund expensive military kit and associated adventures around the globe, fund the second largest organisation in the world (NHS) at its current level, and give money to other countries as 'aid'.

And if you continue do such, then the foreign investors who are propping the country up are fully entitled to ask - are you being serious?

45. At 4:45pm on 07 Jun 2010, Laughatthetories wrote:
Usual Tory spin - let the poor and the weak suffer the burden caused by the rich and priveleged - it's dave ja vu (sorry)

I agree

All caused by the rich and privileged

Peter Mandleson (Rich) Gordon Brown (Privileged)

Well spotted

43. At 4:35pm on 07 Jun 2010, Eddythered wrote:
At 3:18pm on 07 Jun 2010, chris911t wrote:
One thing I have not understood in this government's policy is ringfencing international aid. If we haven't got enough for ourselves then how can we be giving away to others?

"Its about caring for a child starving to death in its mothers arms or dying of a preventable disease, its about preventing horrific diseases such as Guinea worm or polio- in truth its about understanding that what we mean by not having enough money in UK is not the same as not having food or water in Africa. Its about being civilised. Its shocking that you and people like you can not understand these facts and be a little caring. Shame on you."

Right on brother. I for one am delighted to put my tax money over to India so that they can continue to fund their space programme.

"14. At 3:43pm on 07 Jun 2010, mittfh wrote:
Re: Cutting public sector pay and pensions.

Good luck! The vast majority of the public sector have had just below inflation pay increases for years - and they've required very sensitive negotiations with the Unions to get passed. Public sector pensions were reformed slightly a few years ago, but again it took very sensitive negotiations and the threat of strike action by all the main public sector unions combined to hammer out a deal."

Last time I checked people who were made unemployed aren't able to strike.

Additionally last time 250,000 public sector workers went on strike nobody noticed, so I'm not really too fazed by your threats. Strikes save wages, so the more the merrier if you ask me.

"Famously, the Canadians used dynamite to blow up a hospital as the most painful symbol of how things had to change. It is clear that won't be happening here; what isn't clear is what will."


I wouldn't count on it not happening here. I wouldn't put anything past this lot.

It amazes me as well that people cannot see the connection between the public sector and the private sector. I am not economist, but even I can see that they are all connected, all part of one economy. Say you have someone working in "The Public Sector", they need to buy food, clothes for their kids, petrol, they go to the DIY shop at the weekend, they pay taxes - then you make them redundant, straight away they go from being a net contributor to a net drain, and they are no longer exercising that spending power across the private sector either.

Now multiply that by the many hundreds of thousands of redundancies that Cameron's policies are going to cause when the cuts start to bite. Take all that cycle of purchasing out of the economy - it's going to be like a torpedo in the engine room, just when we thought it was picking up.

There seems to be a generally held opinion, here in white van man bigot Britain, of private sector good, public sector bad, with people going on about non-jobs. You could argue that all jobs are non-jobs, in that they are a means to an end of keeping you and yours fed and housed and clothed. I am a director of two companies and to be honest you might expect me to be in favour of the private sector, but I don't have the temerity and arrogance, unlike Cameron and his followers, to sit in judgement over other people's work efforts and say what I do is intrinsically worth more than the efforts of a bin man or a road mender.

And let us not forget that The Public Sector is a vast swathe of different jobs, it is not all Musesli-Knitting Diversity Awareness Officers as the readers of the Daily Heil and the Conrad Blackshirts seem to think. It's the people who educate our kids, run our hospitals, schools, libraries, prisons, courts and councils.

I sincerely hope there is going to be a public consultation about these cuts. I would like to ask my usual questions, to which no one has yet provided any answer - starting with "why should poor people pay disproportionately for the mistakes of rich people" and going on to specifics such as "in a time of supposed financial crisis, how much is it costing to a) re brand the Department for Education, b) set up and run the Office of Budgetary Responsibility and c) set up and run this new Quango to scrutinise overseas aid.

I am not saying government does not waste money. I doubt however that Labour was any more or less profligate in terms of wasteful spending than others have been before or will be since. Labour made some booboos, and neither party was straight with us at the election, but faced with a choice I would rather see this country continue to grow and meet its obligations from a strong economic base and recovering tax revenues, rather than this slash and burn death of a 1000 cuts that is going to stop the economy in its tracks, hurt the weak and the poor (not that Cameron or Clegg cares about the weak or the poor) and plunge us all into the economic equivalent of a nuclear winter. And if Standard and Poors don't like it, tough, let them invade.

Just because Canadians do something doesn't make it right you know - think Celine Dion, think seal clubbing.

55

The Conservatives have far more in common with the Democrats currently

Remember, it was Blair and Bush with the love in

I listened to Darling on R4 news today ... he said that 'Britain needs growth'.
He really must be another Labour 'genius' ... just like Goondog Trillionaire!

Afternoon nick.
I note with interest that the lab-our party are gearing themselves up for a further term in office.
This despicable rabble should apologize for the terrible mess they have left for some one else to clear up.
And should be keep-ed out of office forever more they just cant be trusted .They had a taste of the high life and are desperate to return to the trough for more,Not if i had my way.

This comment has been referred for further consideration. Explain.

Reading the speach and the tone I am concerned that David is losing his battle with the unreconstructed right in the internal Conservative party politics, they appear to be walking all over him.

They are chalking up victory after victory recently and it is seems all too clear they intend to wreck the coalition as rapidly as they can.

Bluff calling time for Mr C whilst he still can.

It's interesting that when talking about the amount of money to pay back each year (£70bn), David C has not even mentioned the "off-balance-sheet" loans, with rates even higher that the rest of government borrowing - I refer of course to PFI and other long term contracts such as NPfIT! Is that because they were first thought of by the conservatives, or because the last government were SO out-classed by the PFI/LSP lawyers that we can't yet even start to work out what the liabilities will be?

Lest we forget...this deficit mess was caused by Labour, specifically Brown. Once again the Tories have to fix the finances of Labour. I am fed up with the bleating labour failures. Go away the lot of you and get a dose of reality and humility.

Why is the idiot going to protect 'international aid'?, forget it, when we have recovered from this disaster the banks have landed us in reinstate it at a lower level than at present. What does this needless expenditure gain us?, nothing, except maybe prestige for the numptys who run this broken country. Let these numptys give to the rest of the third world(that is what we are fast joining) out of their own ill gotten fortunes, not our pittances.

Canada's deficit was less than ours but the principle is the same.

Actually the human being can take an immense amount of stress and pain both emotionally and physically. This last decade or so we have run amok, been obsessed with material goods, the more we have the more we want and also with food and alcohol. Excess of disposable income - must be. Otherwise how else would some be so obese?

I welcome the cuts. I think it will make people better, slimmer, happier and more resourceful. I think people will pull together and will learn to cook properly and mend clothes again - yes I do!


And I welcome them, I really really do.

And what a brave man David Cameron is because he knows, as any good father knows with his own family, if he does what is good for us and for the country we may not really like him. Tough love, that's what it is. It takes a very responsible man to administer it. I hope he gets the support and respect he deserves to allow him to do what is needed for us all.

'37. At 4:18pm on 07 Jun 2010, getridofgordonnow wrote:
Well, Cameron's certainly doing his bit to cut costs, mostly thanks to Gordon Brown who cut the PM's salary by about 40k/year just before he left the building (but only to take effect after he left, and not so that it effected his own pension).'

Ah! still mileage in the old Bogeyman I see. FYI. Gordon Brown gave up his entitlement, of his own free will, to the grace-and-favour pension in early 2008 which, I believe, is worth more than £64,000 a year to former Prime Ministers. Fact is more honest than fiction.

How much is Cameron worth, is it 30 million or so? Don't fret over Mr Cameron I am sure that he can afford to take a wage cut.

Did anybody see that silly old fool Straw pontificating in the House today?

The trouble with Labour is they are "Party first" and tribal. They don't really care about people, just the union of socialist members.

I am fed up with the amount of air time they are being given on tv and wireless. They are the party of yesterday. Their party's over, why don't they call it a day? They have the Ken Livingstone disease : they think they are still the government. They ain't.

63. At 5:34pm on 07 Jun 2010, vindict wrote:
3 words, riots, riots and more riots


That's 5 words

Were you advising Gordon Brown?

Nick why did you not ask Cammy about the off-sheet debt that Duff Gordon accumulated over the last decade. You know the stuff that our kids will still be paying off in 30+ year’s time…. PPI and PFI etc.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

How sad about the fox attacking the twin babies. Foxes coming into houses - and yes, we have had this too, but no attacks so far thank God - are the direct result of two things:

The ban on fox hunting - stupid Blair to waste so much time and public money on that one.

and

The stupid idea that we all have to keep our rubbish fermenting in bins in the hot weather until the council deems it fit to empty them.


Cheers Labour! Another two boo-boos to you.

#49
"Just ask Cameron,Osborne and Hague who their hero/heroine is MARGARET THATCHER"

But she wasn't as bad as JOE STALIN - at least Brown didn't have enough time or power to round up his opponents and shoot them.

#52
"In the good times it's every private sector fat cat for themselves but once it all goes wrong then it's the lower paid public sector that has to take the pain. Strange how we're all in it together only when it suits"

I don't know about you, but I don't consider a manager on £150,000 a year as 'lower paid'. The only problem is going to be not letting those managers decide where the cuts fall - for then it surely would impact front-line services. Too many people not adding anything to the service - they're the ones to target.

.... 'the Canadians used dynamite to blow up a hospital?'

I think it's sad that the BBC has used this image as they've got it all wrong. That situation was that the hospital was VERY old and needed a massive upgrade so they demolished it - TO MAKE ROOM FOR A NEW ONE!! We don't go and blow up hospitals just for kicks in Canada. But thanks for mentioning it Nick - even though you got it completely wrong!!

How much would we save by having parliamentary reform and halving the number of MPs we have in England and cutting threequarters of them in the other countries that have their own assembly?

in addition, cut their salaries & expenses in half.

Just a start, but Mr. cameron wants a few suggestions.

I thought we all understood that cameron and gideon kept quiet about their plans before the election in order not to frighten the voters. Now the time has come to act and they seem never to have had a plan at all. Antone surprised?

Slash the non jobs and the quangos. Go on Cameron go for it.

'47. At 4:49pm on 07 Jun 2010, Kevinb wrote:
12

To suggest that Gordon Brown saved the world, as you do, suggests that you have left this world, and live in a parallel universe somewhere'


At least he does not live in the universe conjured up by the right wing press like you do.

wer all in this together oh good so the duke of northumberland and all the other fantasticaly rich land owners in the country will be giving up there millions of pounds in agricultural subsidy or in other words benefits especally when they could never spend the wealth they already have and have never worked a day in there life we shall see but i wont be holding my breath

Blow up a football club by all means; not a hospital.

Apologies, but I thought it was a "given" that David Cameron was, today, in no position to spell out the precise nature of forthcoming spending cuts. But no apologies for having a sense of outrage at the army of ex Governments Ministers who've filled the airwaves with breathtaking displays of hypocrisy in decrying the Coalition Government's response to the legacy of eye-watering national and personal debt that Brown et al bequeathed to the nation.

18. At 3:50pm on 07 Jun 2010, GM wrote:
"Mr Robinson claims that three words stand out from today's speech by the Prime Minister. I can think of only one: Dogma."

GM
It's hard to spot the true difference between the actual cuts the government will introduce and the cuts that Labour had already said were necessary.
Mainly because, before the election, Labour wouldn't admit where they would fall and the ConLib coalition hasn't yet detailed them.
It's hardly dogma to say that constant spending is not a real solution when you're broke.

"Simply put, as Private Eye and others have highlighted, cuts to the public services on one hand are being "balanced" by tax breaks on the other. This is Convervative party policy of small government, seemingly inherited from the Republicans in the USA. What replaces big government - big business?"

GM,
To a large extent bigger business activity (whether from large or small companies) provides the platform for tax and hence public spending.

"We are constantly told that the private sector leads the way, but has anyone recently got a train in England? The privatised industries and servies are often a shambles, no better than public alternatives but often more expensive. This is what will replace the public sector."

GM,
I went to see my old Mum. 6 trains there and back. One of them was almost 2 minutes late arriving, but got to its destination on time.
Privatised industries and services can be expensive, badly run, shambles, I agree.
Good organisations can be owned and operated by any type of shareholder. But it is vital that senior management is held fully accountable.


"In my field of higher education we will see a "brain drain" of talent to Canada, Australia and New Zealand, countries that are investing in such areas in order to help growth in future. Political dogma will destroy the core of this country and give us third rate public services which will be part private-run."

GM,
You can't blame Tory or LibDem dogma for universities having to run "catch-up" classes for people with apparently excellent A Level results, can you.
And Mandelson had already announced cuts in higher education. Was that "dogma"?

"And what about the banks in all this? Not a mention, even though they caused this mess and the Conservatives are letting their rich chums in The City away with massive incompetence and reckless behaviour while the rest of us pay for it."

GM,
It's a bit early to talk about the Tories chums in the City, isn't it, when they've hardly got over Brown being the chumiest Chancellor they have ever dealt with.
Don't forget it was Brown who incited Lloyds TSB to buy HBoS (something heir shareholders weren't too happy with and are planning legal action for compensation because the company and the Treasury failed to declare the massive, secret cash injection needed to keep HBoS afloat.
I'd agree that "something must be done" about the Banks. Brown and Darling didn't make much of a difference did they?
They blustered about massive pay of finance staff, but happily took the (then) 40% tax which is much higher than government would have got if they simply taxed corporate profit.

"That's the way to bring us along with you, Dave. New Conservatives? Sounds like Thatcher is back. God help us all."

GM,
I had a lot of reservations about Thatcher. But it was odd and frankly rude of her higher education institution (Oxford) to refuse to grant her an honorary doctorate on purely political grounds.
Now that's what I call a dogmatic approach.

DC Sitting on a pile of (inherited) money, talking about "being in this together" yeah right.

Tories are just reverting to type. As we say in Yorkshire "muck t' midden!"

Sorry but I just DON'T accept this is the govt's priority. The Govt is responsible for keeping us safe, healthy, educating us, and protecting us from destitution. These are the priorities. Any debt counsellor will tell you you must pay your priorities, and the debts must take their share of what's left. Oh that's after you've maximised your income of course, by taxing those who can afford it, trying to make money by developing business etc.

Tories as always want to protect the wealthy and have no comprehension of what this means for people who don't have a big fat financial cushion left by mummy and daddy.

It is very clear that HMG is softening us up for the worst, perhaps it won't be as bad as we think. But we must remember that WE saved the system from bankruptcy, even the MPs' are not squeeky clean even now, they will be looking after themselves. We humble taxpayers, elderly etc) in the pecking order of things will be left to 'save' the day, as usual!!! I didn't vote for this political arrangement, it is just about power and the power game in the name of 'national interest!' If I live long enough to see this through, then I will come back to you and comment again!