What Goverment spending would you cut? poll discussion
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for people who question whether aid — paid for out of our taxed income at a time of severe cutbacks — really worksoddly, most of us never stop to consider that we have actually ended extreme poverty pretty successfully in one country at least — our own. How have we done it?
Well, essentially, we just give people money. Jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit, state pensions and child benefits are all direct descendants of an approach that governments have taken to ending poverty since the first Elizabethan Poor Law of 1598.
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in many countries cash transfers seem to be achieving at a stroke what years of development projects have struggled to do. So it’s time we became a bit braver. We know that the idea works — from our own history, as well as from the evidence of what is happening around the world.
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We really could choose to end extreme poverty for everyone. We know how. The only question is: do we want to?0 -
We are already doing this!
Twice as much aid goes to third world countries as transfer payments, usually within a "family", from the ambitious son or daughter working in a more developed country; as the official aid channelled from one government to another corrupt government, via some NGO that spends all day riding round in Toyota land cruisers.
I'm willing to bet that this "unofficial" aid is 4 times as effective as that negotiated government to government or through the UN and other large bodies.0 -
Meanwhile:
oddly, most of us never stop to consider that we have actually ended extreme poverty pretty successfully in one country at least — our own. How have we done it?
Well, essentially, we just give people money. Jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit, state pensions and child benefits are all direct descendants of an approach that governments have taken to ending poverty since the first Elizabethan Poor Law of 1598.
...
in many countries cash transfers seem to be achieving at a stroke what years of development projects have struggled to do. So it’s time we became a bit braver. We know that the idea works — from our own history, as well as from the evidence of what is happening around the world.
...
We really could choose to end extreme poverty for everyone. We know how. The only question is: do we want to?
Early Medieval Poor Relief -
Vote God, get free supper.
Campaign for God's election, go on crusade come back rich or dead.
Late Medieval Poor Relief -
Keep you nose clean and squat empty property left vacant by the 1/3rd of the fellow countrymen who had died.
Get stroppy and march on London complaining about high arbitrary tax,
get lied to by boy king and slaughtered on return to your villages.
Elizabethan Poor Law of 1598.
We have lots of former church lands so:
Vote Elizabeth and get a two acre allotment and work like a dog trying to support your family.
Late Georgian Poor Relief:
Fake a banker's draft, entertain the crowds at a Tower Hill execution.
Victorian Poor Relief:
Lose you job and end up in the Work house - a sort of prison where families were broken up and kids were "apprenticed" to dark satanic mills.
Alternatively steal a horse and get free cruise to Van Dieman's Land.
21st century poor relief:
"Well, essentially, we just give people money".
Vote Labour, get free house.0 -
rogermunns wrote: »Stop nuke submarine development. What we have are capable of ending civilisation, why do we need to keep improving? Terrorism is where the real problems are and nuke missiles won't help stop that.
Ever since Nye Bevan warned "you [cannot] send Britain's foreign secretary naked into the conference chamber".
We have been buying a seat at an exclusive nuclear club, playing a silly game of "mine's bigger than yours".
The Grauniad tries to explain:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2006/dec/05/immigrationpolicy.politicalcolumnists0 -
Agree that third world countries should start a welfare state / transfer payments.
Agree the nuclear deterrant is too expensive.
Haven't read too far back in the thread - I just keep wanting to add more.
Have already suggested these ideas which aren't shown publically as I did them as an (ex) public-funded worker. Some are in twice or don't quite make sense.
1 pills to be bought in blister paks of 7 by the NHS
2 Job description for MPs to be put on the back of their letterhead
3 Kensington and Chelsea furniture is damaged before dumping to prevent re-sale
4 microsoft: change all browsers to firefox (in a rather odd list of circumstances)
5 health trust contracts to vol. organisations: to question - how many colleague meetings a week the vol.sector staff are expected to attend. My record is 15 a month in a part-time job.
6 final salary pensions: unfair and too boring; scrap them for iii.co.uk sips (part done: recommendation to government is to make them average salary pension schemes)
7 Zopa: guidance for charities - how they can invest in Zopa to increase income. May need changes in law.
8 garden path tax and bad letterbox tax.
9 breathalisers on the door at certain hostels
10 department for international development to influence tariffs: bad government; high tariff.
11 vellum laws. nuff said.
12 fly-pasts. nuff said.
13 sea france. Charge it for queues caused by endless delays and recommend to French government turning it into a staff-owned company.
14 airmail veg tax
15 less events at Kew = cheaper tickets
16 ceremonial in the army & navy: divert to job training and study. Aim for all squaddies to have maximum job training on leaving army.
17 payment for MPs by time sheet
18 imperial war museum 2 pr staff and no photographs: suggest 1 shared PR worker maximum and allow taking of photos with tripods. Same probably applies in lots of museums.
19 social housing rent statements in columns (same point added later)
20 royal opera - nuff said.
21 gas safety regulations; replace need to inspect with need to have an alarm system.
22 govt. web sites OK if on free servers and typed by ordinary staff
23 adverts on some govt. web sites: Done!
24 Kingston hospital: photo of empty building from Google street view. Why do large organisations find it hard to let buildings that are in limbo?
25 Health & Safety: systems of inspection & assessment gone too far - trees @ Clapham. This takes a law to limit council's liability for falling branches, and more laws each time judges seem to go too far
26 Papal visit: nuff said
27 Modernisation: search for this word in govt. emails & web sites as it points to waste.
28 FU v Camden web site : this is the same as 39 below
29 Sport England: nuff said
30 Street lamps: not needed in Suffolk so why everywhere else / turn-off a light campaign
30b Sick pay. Stress and mental health occupational health service (response to question)
31. Crisis loans. hire admin staff who have worked in hostels (response to question)
32. Cancel one in three submarine patrols without telling anybody
33. Vanity Projects Tribunal: a system that if enough people think something is VP then....
34. TV - TV events locally (I've forgotten what this one is)
35. Head of State Service to handle notes to the bereaved / commenting on disasters. Head of governments not to "cut short their holiday to comment on the disaster"
35b Homeworking: allow wherever the job is measurable and do-able at home
36. Meat Tax to pay for food standards Agency
37. Schools: teach painting decorating and small carpentry jobs by - well you've guessed: fixing the school.
37b Garish plants in parks: substitute for vegetables which can be given away or sold
38. Shared buying of paper: doubt allways good; internal market and info on web = better
39. Fu. v Camden: example of why office managers need a web site of ideas to help them. According to one law text book Fu was a one-legged housing worker and Camden couldn't see the reason why she wanted a chair with wheels on it and files within reach of her desk. Shows how council / vol.sector office managers often need a bit of help in knowing how to run an office. So there ought to be something like a business link web page on it and funders should ask organisations to say that staff have read the site.
40. Consultants. cost savings might really be of working at home - can civil servants do too, if they are doing measurable work? For example Triple Line consulting vetted all the applications for a Defra grant. Maybe a Defra employee could have done it at home.
41. NHS food: reduce meat for health & economy eg all burgers = veggieburgers
42. Works Council Directive = excuse to make unions do useful things in exchange for recognition. Passing complaints and ideas up the management line; giving references on bosses to new employers.
44. Design challenge: list of what the government needs designed eg inkjet double-sided printer which uses locally made bottled cheap ink.
45. Trade directories shared and developed; embassy trade attaches and manufacturing advisory service already have a start. Commercial directories are fading it away making it hard for shopkeepers in the UK to find local suppliers.
46. Elections - experiment - efficiency - separation of council and westminster elections is the experiment. Automated polling and telling is the efficiency.
47. Schools funding direct to schools; they pay education authorities
48. Housing Benefit and Benefits Agency computers - two types of two mess-up
49. Naming of rent statement columns under rent book regulations. Columns like "rent, garage, food, fuel, rent for period X to Y which is easier to show in a separate column, repayment of damage to housing worker's desk after previous fit of rage..."
50. Papal visit 2 ~ more explanation
51. Head of State Service to appoint judges to save cost to ministry of justice and biased judges
52. Head of State Service to take-on election monitoring work from Defra and FCO
53. Shared embassy buildings with other countries.
54. Posties boots: repair at NPS-solovair
55. Office chairs: repair at business-seating.co.uk and offer individual buying to sitters
56. Hiring of public sector staff in jobs such as housing support worker: must be able to ride a bike and climb ten flights of stairs or not get hired.
57. Community Alcohol Services: Naltroxone recommeneded to clients.
58. Community Alcohol Services: Memory tests to be introduced as a service to clients
59. Community Alcohol Services: Book list inspectable by funders
60. The Football Association employs 250 people. Monopoly or Grant-Artists? End both.
61. NHS commissioners to consult the staff providing anciliary services - not just contrived "user groups"
62. Online tests for people in quasi socialwork jobs. Tests of whether the staff member can answer the most basic questions on welfare benefits and refer to other agencies outside the organisation worked for.
63. Enfield mint. Used to make pound coins illegally. Why not legally if it's cheaper?
64. Mary Queen of Shops for social work agencies run by Stonham, Nacro, Richmond Fellowship
65. Head of state service to appoint generals: more outspoken ones save cash (1 &2)
66. Statements about places like Afghanestan: for "Tribe" say "Clan". This saves ill-will.
67. Cold and hard-to-insulate classrooms. Compulsory help from central government to use an advance on the heating bill to pay for new classrooms or insulation.
68. Spranq eco sans typeface for inkjets (or the paid-for version which puts holes in your own choice of typeface)0 -
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Put all lawyers on the minimum wage0
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My main problem with this idea as that it would make us no better than the Soviet Union.This is a rant of mine for a goodly number of years.
Forced conscription would lessen the burden on the police, the courts and the prisons. They would come out of the military with some understanding of how to behave in public and teach them some discipline.
Also, what would you do with the ones who came out of the military with even more violent and aggressive tendencies?0
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