Unfit To Govern

It truly amazes my how the Coalition appears to have managed to pull the wool over most people’s eyes.  How many times have we heard “we are all in it together” and we have to do this “because of the mess left by the previous Labour Government”.

Lets put the 2nd statement to bed 1st – this ”mess” was caused by irresponsible Bankers and Financiers with their reckless lending and “deals”. So to recap THIS MESS WAS NOT CAUSED BY THE LABOUR GOVERNMENT.

As for “we are all in it together” – complete rubbish – the poor will bear the brunt of the effects of the spending cuts by a large margin.  Everybody keeps talking about % as if this is what matters. If the rich, say everybody with a combined earning above £100,000 per year, was to loose as much10% of their income they would still be able afford a roof over their head and buy food for their family (if not they don’t deserve any sympathy).

Similarly for middle earners, although due to having taken on too much debt (including mortgages above 90% of property value) they may struggle, at the end of the day the majority would be perfectly OK.

However when it comes to low earners or people, who, by no fault of their own depend on benefits will suffer disproportionately and, they may not even be able to feed their family or get chucked out of their private rented accomodation because of caps on housing benefit.

As for the idea that ‘the private sector’ will create 500,000 jobs to absorb those resulting from the spending cuts.  More rubbish – this is unlikely to happen.  Why? because, for a start it is estimated that the cuts will also result in around 4 to 5 hundred thousand private sector job cuts as well.  The final ‘nail in the coffin’ of these extra jobs is the fact that, in some areas, 90% of new jobs are being taken by migrant European workers over which the Coalition has no control.

What a disgrace, when will the Lib-Dems wake up and stop allowing this carnage to take place?  Please wake up before it’s too late!

The Institute of Fiscal Studies’ (IFS) research for the End Child Poverty campaign found the Budget will hit families with children hardest and that poorest families will lose the most.

There are two striking pictures in the IFS report. The first is a bar chart that illustrates the tax and benefit reforms introduced by Labour before May: they hit the better-off harder and harder all the way up to the richest 10%. That is what we typically describe as progressive reforms. The second graph shows the effects of Mr Osborne’s inaugural budget – and it shows that the poorer you are, the poorer you will get under this new government.

The Government’s feeble response is that it doesn’t take account of economic growth and getting people off benefit and into jobs.  What jobs? Where exactly are these jobs going to come from when unemployment is bound to rise as a result of the spending cuts?

Nick Clegg, when are you and your party going to stop burying your head in the sand?  You have been well and truly conned by your Conservative Tory partners in backing Osborne’s budget and other measures which go against the the core of the Liberal Democrat values. Get out now before the damage is permanent.

So, in the light of the IFS report, is the government incompetent or hiding the truth.  I suggest both; incompetent for engaging in austerity measures which will affect the most vulnerable in our society most whilst plunging our economy back into recession and now they have been found out are in denial hiding the truth.

Further Reading; Telegraph, Guardian, Taking From The Poor, Politics.co.uk

The latest survey by the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) and accountants KPMG gives another indication that the cuts will be too swift and severe to prevent the UK unemployment figures rising again.

The survey showed that 32% of employers across the state and private sectors said they expected to make some workers redundant during the next three months. It marks a rise on the 29% recorded in the previous quarter.

This deals another blow to the government’s hope that private sector employers will create enough jobs to make up for public sector cuts have been dealt another blow with news that a growing number of businesses are planning to cut staff.

Source: More private sector job cuts on way, says survey

After the Tories campaigned that crime figures were  well up, once again it has been proved that Britain was not ‘broken’ under a Labour Government.

Official figures released today showed that crime fell by 9 per cent last year, reducing fears of a “recession crime wave”.  In fact it has been reported that crime in England and Wales is at a 29 year low. Because the figures were good, not what the Tories wanted, Theresa May, the Home Secretary,  claimed that “these statistics offer a partial picture about the true level of crime”.  Oh I guess the figures must be wrong then!!

No, these figures indicate that the massive investment in policing by the Labour government is continuing to pay off.  Unfortunately these excellent crime figures have been released on the same day that Tim Brain, the former spokesman on finance for police chiefs, raised the “worst-case scenario” amid fears the policing budget could be cut by as much as 40 per cent, the equivalent of 60,000 police officers.   Although a worst case analyses it would be a brave person that claims that front line services will not be affected by the drastic cuts ahead.

This leads me to fear that the improvements in crime figures are going to go into reverse.  I therefore predict that crime figures will rise from the later half of 2011 onwards as the police cuts begin to bite, further  fuelled by a ‘double dip’ recession crime wave which is likely to occur as a result of the ConLib spending cuts.

It’s too early for the actions of the ConLib Coalition to have any effect on the Unemployment figures.   The figures released today are the biggest drop since August 2006 (only tempered by the fact that there is a large rise in part-time working). Thus the continued fall in unemployment must be due to the actions of the previous Government. But, we won’t hear any such utterances from the Coalition.  Instead they will continue to blame Labour for ‘everything’.

Unfortunately, I fear that the fragile recovery is about to end.  We may see a continued fall over the next few months but after that the Unemployment figures are likely to rise as the unnecessary extreme ‘austerity’ measures start to kick in when winter approaches.

Does anyone seriously believe that the private sector will be able to absorb the ensuing public sector redundancies plus associated ‘knock-on effect’ redundancies in the private sector?

From time to time in these Blog Posts I will make a  prediction which will appear in a static Predictions page.  The first is that unemployment will start to rise as we head into the winter of 2010 and will continue to rise throught most, if not all the expected term of this Coalition Government (assuming it remains intact that is).  By Autumn 2011 the jobless total will be heading toward 3 million which will continue to rise and peak at about 3.5 million.   However, just maybe, the Coalition will be forced to do some form of a U-turn and stimulate growth by decreasing the rate at which it intends to reduce the defecit.  Egg will and truly be on their faces if that happens.  Although I suspect the Coalition may have disintegrated before we get as far as that.

Click here for the full BBC News item on the Unemployent Figures.