A common man marvels at uncommon things. A wise man marvels at the commonplace. CONFUCIUS

Monday 25 October 2010

Cut, Cut And Cut Again. You Know It's Good For You

I think the cuts were fair. It's about time bedbound, homeless people were taken down a peg or two. ARMANDO IANNUCCI (political satirist)

There's been a lot of talk about fairness in Coalition circles recently. Fairness? I don't think so. As Lucy Mangan wrote in last Saturday's Guardian, referring to the government's spending review: The chancellor... got to live the Tory dream and took an axe this week to public spending and the welfare state. Public sector workers, the disabled, the deprived and any other section of the national demographic you can think of that would least be able to weather a slashing of their income all got it in the neck. Others, such as bankers, whose bailout money comprises 85% of the deficit, or people living on private incomes generated by £4m trust funds like the chancellor, went largely unscathed. Perhaps it would have been more bearable if they hadn't looked so happy doing it...

8 comments:

The Weaver of Grass said...

Oh dear Robert - for the last few month I have used my advancing age to opt out of making any opinions about the government. But I must say that the recent cuts are making it very hard for me - it is the young people just starting out that I feel sorry for - what chance have they got. No, shall go back into my shell, never to emerge politically again. Sorry.

Friko said...

And, as always, it's women who get it in the neck. Single parents, who have very little, have a lot of that taken away under the new rules.

(I forgot, they are mostly the ones who got pregnant deliberately, simply to get free housing, free handouts, free fags and booze. Or so a lady of my acquaintance told me recently)

The Solitary Walker said...

Absolutely right, Friko (I mean your first paragraph!)

WFT Nobby said...

How Osborne and Cameron can stand up and say with a straight face that 'we're all in this together' is beyond incredible. As Friko says, it's women who'll bear the brunt. Not just single mothers, but those who will be trying to care for sick and elderly parents with even less support than is available now.
So angry and sad.
Gail.

Anonymous said...

thanks Robert - the question i'm living with and trying to live out is how we can resist, pick up the pieces, and create an alternative reality

Andy

Snowbrush said...

My god, it's the same there as it is here in the U.S. The welfare state applies only to the wealthy, and they aren't even required to be accountable for how they spend the money.

George said...

We are threatened with unimaginable cuts in this country as well, everyone, that is, except banks and other large corporations. Many of the conservatives, especially the Tea Party idiots, are proposing nothing less that a repeal of Roosevelt's New Deal, a reversion to the world in which no one of any age has any protection whatsoever. Where are the protesters of the sixties? When will someone take these so-called western democracies back from the robber barrons? Not anytime soon, I fear. Declines in education, at least in my country, have left us with a growing part of the electorate that is incapable of critical thinking, which, ultimately, is required to sustain a democracy.

The Solitary Walker said...

We've been receiving a fair amount of coverage about the Tea Party crazies in the media over here too, George. It would almost be laughable if it wasn't so dangerous. Jesus, some of them are so far to the right they make Bush seem like a comic book Fidel Castro.