cleggercon double dip here we come!

StevieJ

PhylPho wrote: »

Debts awaiting payment over the coming years which Brown kept off-the-books -- and thus do not figure in the "public" total of Uk National Debt -- include a Treasury estimated

£245,798,700,000

in payment of the £64 billion capital cost of New Labour's Private Finance Initiative.

There's also an unfunded £800, um, er. . . billion by way of Government and Public Sector pensions.

Add that lot to the "public" figure and it's easy to see why so many voters were horrified at any prospect of 12 more months of do-nothing-but-keep-on-borrowing-more.

The £6 billion in targeted cuts welcomed by BoE's King today is symbol, not substance, but it's a start. . .

It actually goes half-way towards making up for the £12 billion witlessly and pointlessly lost by New Labour on its crackpot VAT reduction idea.:(

I thought it was old Tory's private finance initiative?

nomoreboomandbust

Isn't part of the problem that many if not all in the public sector have ridiculous redundancy terms- 1 months salary for every year worked (no doubt I will get many telling me that its not their individual case), so they are going to be very careful about who they make redundant otherwise it's going to turn out to be very expensive.

As an example It looks as though the poor sod who is in his late twenties with a partner/young children etc and who has only been in a department a couple of years will be sacrificed instead of the chap who might be in his early fifties with 25 year service, probably competence/ability will not come into it when deciding who gets the chop-very unfair but is a possible scenario.

Spartacus_Mills

StevieJ wrote: »

I thought it was old Tory's private finance initiative?

You are right to focus on irrelevant semantics. That is what is really important here.

StevieJ

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

You are right to focus on irrelevant semantics. That is what is really important here.

What is irrelevant about who introduced PFI, you may wish to see it that way if you are a Tory of course

PhylPho

Spartacus_Mills wrote: »

Far be it for me to defend them but on the VAT reduction they were right to do it. We have no guarantee without it we would have received the tax revenues we did and we have no guarantee that spending would have not dipped further without it. I know it was a small reduction on most spend items but it sent a signal. Also it has been used to make sneaky rises in alcohol, tobacco and fuel prices as when VAT was cut their prices remained the same, then when it went back up the price of alcohol, tobacco and fuel had the VAT rise added to it.

Ken Clarke supported it at the time as well and I trust his judgement more than young George.

Spartacus: superb, thoughtful post, and much appreciated. I know we're in the realm of 'guarantee' and so I don't take the view that spending would have dipped, but you certainly make a cogent point about the return-to-normal situation.

PS: still on this slightly O/T topic of VAT, I'm somewhat bemused by the scrapping of the, er, scrappage scheme. Didn't the dramatic rise in new car purchases bring in so much VAT that The Treasury wound up being in profit, rather than out of pocket, on the deal? And if so. . . then why bring it to a halt?

PhylPho

StevieJ wrote: »

What is irrelevant about who introduced PFI, you may wish to see it that way if you are a Tory of course

I've actually found both you and Spartacus to be posters independent of any party line. Hence why I rate your comments as so valuable. (Gosh, and I'm being serious, too.)