Hard Times Coming

[poliphilo]

We came back from holiday having overspent, but with a little cash in hand- and I decided I was going to make that remainder- something a little short of £30- last us a week.  And I've succeeded. I've been walking to the shops- so no money went on petrol- and buying only what I absolutely needed at the time.  I like doing this sort of thing once in a while- setting limits and sticking to them; where there's a challenge there's a game. But with the price rises and benefit cuts that are coming (no matter who gets in) it's a game I'll soon be playing out of compulsion not choice.

That last sentence feels a little theatrical, a little attitudinising.  Hard times coming? Surely not. Oh, but they are. Our government has run up a deficit of something like £164 billion- and it's growing.  As the Governor of the Bank of England was reported to have said the other day, the next government is going to make itself so unpopular that the party that forms it will be out of power for a generation.

We sort of know this, but we don't want to think about it, and we don't want to hear about it from our political leaders- who talk as if they could clear off the deficit by rationing supplies to the Civil Service.  This casts a pall of unreality over the election. Does it matter in the end whether it's Brown or Cameron or Clegg wielding the knife? Not really. The election, by these lights, is actually a jolly diversion from the reality of our political and economic situation- an entertainment with clowns.

Comments

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

The first thing is that we are going to have to start means testing benefits. Why should David Cameron, Gordon Brown, and thousands of City bankers be entitled to Child Benefit? Why should my retired next door neighbours, who think that £3000 is a reasonable price to spend on a weekend's charity golf tournament, and have a second home in Spain, be entitled to winter fuel payments? It galls me that my tax pounds are spent in this way.

As a carer, you should not have to feel any more financial pain.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That makes sense. But won't means testing involve the setting up of a whole new layer of bureacracy- with all the waste and inefficiency that entails?

The thing that hits me hardest is the rising price of food (and petrol). A decent loaf of bread- one with nutritional value- now costs well over £1.

[veronica-milvus.livejournal.com]

They have our income tax info so they know who earns what already. They can take child support money and student loan repayments direct from your pay before you take it home. For anyone earning, say over £45,000, giving them benfits is a nonsense. Besides, for people who are working and therefore are in the PAYE system, it is much better to give them more money by giving extra tax allowances rather than by taking away tax and giving it back as benefit. Imagine all the people employed to take money with one hand and give it back with the other.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That sounds straightforward enough. OK, I'm convinced.

[calizen.livejournal.com]

I hope you have better ways of means testing than we across the pond. Here it's a way to keep people making one dollar over the poverty limit from getting any help. I have yet to see it keep the politicians and other "fat cats" from getting a goodly share of the public till, one way or another.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Private eye this week had a shocker on inefficiencies in government departments on things like IT but because the contracts were for 10 years or so they can't be cut this wasting billions a year which pensioners, single mothers and the unemployed will have to pay for.
And of course no one will dare to speak of raising taxes....

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I don't really know what to say. If government were a business it would have gone bust by now.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

A hung parliament would be very useful in this respect, because everyone would be equally unpopular...

It'll be interesting to see how the bloated, swollen public sector copes with the forthcoming age of austerity. Makes me glad I never got a job as a local authority or civili service archaeologist!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Actually, it'll be hard for them to get any more unpopular than they already are.

i wonder if we'll go the way of Greece- chasing cabinet ministers into cafes and setting riot police on fire.

[endlessrarities.livejournal.com]

I doubt the state will be the target of everyone's collective ire. My fear is that the rage of the great unthinking masses will be galvanised into finding a suitable scapegoat that they can vent their spleen upon. All it needs is the right rabble-rouser...

I personally would prefer it if everyone's anger was directed towards investment bankers, CEO's, celebrities and premier league footballers -or in summary, all of those whose wage packet seems to be in inverse proportion to their usefulness, and who have helped to promote this revolting 'greed is good' culture - but unfortunately, I don't see that happening at all.

I'm reminded of an Andy Capp cartoon...

[jorrocks-j.livejournal.com]

Florrie comes to him with a bill that's over a hundred pounds, wondering how they'll ever pay.

Andy say "Listen, Pet: if you owe ten pounds you're a failure, if you owe a thousand pounds you're a businessman, if you owe a million pounds you're a tycoon, and if you owe a billion pounds you're a government--

"--We're on our way!"

Re: I'm reminded of an Andy Capp cartoon...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's so true.

The more you owe the richer you are. I don't pretend to understand it.

[sovay]

But with the price rises and benefit cuts that are coming (no matter who gets in) it's a game I'll soon be playing out of compulsion not choice.

"Never mind, my dear. You put on the kettle. We'll have a nice cup of boiling hot water."

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

And dunk our crusts in it.

Luvverlee.

[petercampbell.livejournal.com]

"the next government is going to make itself so unpopular that the party that forms it will be out of power for a generation"

Here's hoping that David Cameron makes it to no 10, in that case.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Weird, isn't it? The best way of defeating the tories in the long term could be to vote them in now. Four years of looking at Cameron's bland, shiny face and then- bingo- we need never give him another thought.

[calizen.livejournal.com]

That's what poor Obama has faced over here. He inherited terrible problems -- and immediately people were yelling at him like it was his fault -- and wanting to put back in the Republicans who had started the whole stupid Iraq war in the first place.