How would you help George Osborne distribute the cuts in spending?

lostinrates

fc123 wrote: »

....that's what I heard too. Didn't he just suddenly come into a huge amount of £££ and wanted to buy a shop?

Others at the 'top' of the High St had similar rumours going about too.

I don't think it was secret that those were string amoung the rumours. His first wife was a Khashoggi.

The buy out and commentary was quite....loud..in the media, Tiny Rowlands so wanted it. In comparison the recent sale has been positively discreet!

fc123

lostinrates wrote: »

I don't think it was secret that those were string amoung the rumours. His first wife was a Khashoggi.

The buy out and commentary was quite....loud..in the media, Tiny Rowlands so wanted it. In comparison the recent sale has been positively discreet!

So what happened to Tiny Rowlands? I am off to google. Maybe he is dead.

fc123

Yes he is dead

lostinrates

Is the blue od ''dead'' signifying cold in the grave, rofl. It go a nice guffaw from me. (not that some one is dead, but the link emphasising it.)

ILW

lostinrates wrote: »

Car crash came afterwards IIRC. Arms dealing most certainly was one of the rumours.

British Aerospace is one of the biggest arms dealers in the world, why so coy about Al Fayed?

carolt

In case anyone missed it, this is the Definitive Answer to the question posed in the OP :

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/spend-all-the-money-on-me%2c-everyone-tells-osborne-201006082797/

Enjoy.

bigheadxx

carolt wrote: »

In case anyone missed it, this is the Definitive Answer to the question posed in the OP :

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/spend-all-the-money-on-me%2c-everyone-tells-osborne-201006082797/

Enjoy.

Public spending should be permanently pegged at a % of GDP. Labour has deferred huge amounts of spending for future generations to pay, whilst gaining electoral advantage from that money being pumped into the economy for the last 10 years.

nollag2006

The BBC4 show, MoneyBox, are also inviting listeners to submit ways for the Chancellor to save money.

You can add your ideas here:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/moneybox/8736800.stm

Here is the list that I submitted. I would welcome your thoughts.


1) Health

• Impose 50p per unit levy on alcahol purchased in supermarkets and off-licences. Will discourage binge drinking and help pubs
• Charge £50 to drunks who take up a bed in casualty / local police cells
• Introduce a small charge for NHS doctor or hospital visit (£10 per time). Already in place in Ireland’s hospital system. Not only would this increase revenue, but would discourage people from turning up to A&E with non-critical issues
• Eliminate funding for discretionary medical procedures, such as IVF treatments for couples who are having difficulty conceiving.

2) Foreign and Diplomatic relations

• Reduce the number of our Embassies and Consulates by 50%: Many of our consular services to British ex-pats could be provided by the offices of our European or Commonwealth partners. Many smaller countries already rely on the diplomatic services provided by other European countries.
• Close the British Council and BBC World: imperialist legacies from the days of the Empire.
• Cut spending on Welsh, Scottish, and Irish language programmes
• Cut spending on cultural diversity awareness training and events

3) Privatisation

• Sell off Channel 4, BBC Radio 1 and 2: They are effectively now clones of many products available in the private sector and serve limited public interest now.
• Sell off commercial ventures such as Parcelforce – why should the taxpayer try to compete with Fedex or DHL?
• Sell off some of the land owned by government departments: Defence Estates in the MOD, for example, owns somewhere around 1% of the land mass of the UK. Much of this is left fallow, and could be sold or leased off. Defence Estates has a budget of £100m to manage this land, much of which could also be eliminated if the land were leased out or sold. Similarly in London, TfL owns many vacant properties and large tracts of valuable land.

4) Changes to Public sector terms and conditions

• Don’t give payoffs to CEOs of health authorities or QUANGOs that are fired due to poor performance
• Eliminate additional days leave for public servants (such as Maundy Thursday or the Queens Birthday)
• Close all Final Salary Pension schemes to new joiners – Government to contribute 8% of basic pay into a defined benefit scheme
• Reduce public sector mileage rates and expenses: HM Revenue & Custom’s tax-free Authorised Mileage Allowance Payments (AMAPs) are 40p per mile for the first 10,000 miles, and 25p per mile thereafter. This is far in excess of mileage rates paid in the private sector, in my experience, and should be reduced to 25p per mile flat rate. Where a cheaper alternative is available on public transport, such as bus or train, then this must be used.
• All train and air travel in standard class only: Many companies have moved towards the back of the train and the plane over the past few years in order to economise. The public sector should do likewise

5) Cut Quangos
Gordon Brown promised a Bonfire of the Quangos many years ago that never materialised.

Many of these QUANGOs duplicate services provided by others (such as regional and national development boards, or the fact that there are three separate bodies regulating the sole water supplier in Scotland, or quangos with similar remits such as the Carbon Trust, Envirowise and the Energy Saving Trust) , or indeed duplicate activity provided by European bodies (such as NICE and the European Medicines Agency). Some have agendas that directly contradict government policy, such as the Potato Council’s annual chip week flying in the face of government healthy eating policy, while others have remits of questionable benefit such as the Zoos Forum.

nollag2006

Actually - one other thought, the Government should sue the private sector consultancies who screwed up so badly on data privacy issues in recent years. The famous ones around PA Consulting losing the memory stick with prisoner details, or EDS losing data on justice staff, never actually ended in court despite it costing the taxpayer millions to clean up the mess from these management consultants. We should be pursuing them through the courts to recover our money.

ffacoffipawb

StevieJ wrote: »

Cameron at it again, any of you Tory's like to elaborate when they sorted 'Labours mess' before?

Erm ..... 1979