"Spending cuts needed" - Gordon Brown

[Bev]

Gordon Brown is to admit for the first time that spending cuts will be needed, in a speech to union leaders.

The prime minister is due to say it will be necessary to "cut unnecessary spending on low priorities" but will not say where the axe will fall.

Labour has contrasted its commitment to protect spending on core services with claims the Tories plan "savage" cuts.

The Tories say the PM is in "full retreat" on spending. The Lib Dems have urged "serious proposals" to cut debt.

'Tough choices'

Mr Brown will use the word "cuts" - something he has been accused of shying away from - in a speech to the TUC in Liverpool at 1430 BST.

He is expected to spell out his plans to maintain spending in the short term, to get Britain through the recession, to invest in the future and to reduce the deficit.

But he will add it will be necessary to "cut costs, to cut inefficiencies, to cut unnecessary spending on low priorities".

Ahead of the speech, Chancellor Alistair Darling said Labour would look to "cut costs" and "waste" and would consider whether some spending could be deferred as it sought to reduce the deficit.

But he told the BBC this did not mean the UK would fall "into a kind of dark age where the lights go off and nothing happens" and added that investment in frontline services would continue.

An opinion poll for the Times on Tuesday suggests 44% of people trust the Tories to cut spending in a way that does not harm services, while 35% trust Labour.


The poll of 1,504 adults, conducted by telephone at the weekend, also suggested 38% of people backed an equal split between spending cuts and tax rises to reduce debt, 21% backed all cuts and no tax rises and 11% backed tax rises with no spending cuts.

In his speech to the TUC, Mr Brown will also say that the government will take the "hard-nosed decisions" needed to steer the UK out of recession.

"Today we are on a road towards recovery," he will say.

"But things are fragile, not automatic, and the recovery needs to be nurtured. People's livelihoods and homes and savings are still hanging in the balance and so, today, I say to you: 'Don't put the recovery at risk'."

Jobs fears

He will accuse the Conservatives of "obsessive anti-state ideology" which he says "means they can't see a role for government in either recession or recovery".

Union leaders have warned all parties against "knee-jerk" cuts in public services as a way of saving money and have warned of possible strikes if public sector jobs are put at risk.

Bob Crow, leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said: "Both Labour and the Tories have committed themselves to cuts and privatisation and the trade unions have to take the lead in mobilising resistance and we should start preparing right now, here in Liverpool."


He said his union had been warned that up to 2,500 jobs are under threat on Network Rail maintenance and hundreds of firefighters' posts were facing the axe.

"That's already happening under Gordon Brown's leadership and he should leave Liverpool this afternoon with a clear message that the fight back starts here."

Public spending is set to be a major issue in the run-up to the next election as the government defends its plans to halve its budget deficit - expected to reach £175bn this year - within four years.

The Conservatives are set to warn of a return to the economic problems of the 1970s, claiming that spiralling debt levels will force Labour to push up interest rates and taxes and do long-lasting damage to the economy.

'Very foolish'

In a speech in London, Shadow chancellor George Osborne said Mr Brown should tell the TUC conference that "a decade of uncontrolled spending has left Britain with unsustainable debts" and put low-paid public sector workers at risk.

Earlier he told the BBC: "I think the big economic judgement of the recovery has been whether we need to cut public spending and David Cameron and I went out on a limb, told the public the truth about this.


The time for generalities is over. Instead, we need serious proposals for cutting public spending and tackling the UK's budget deficit
Vince Cable
Liberal Democrats

"We endured months of Labour ministers and Gordon Brown in the House of Commons saying we were bonkers we got it wrong and the like, and look, lo and behold, they have completely collapsed and are in full retreat."

Meanwhile Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable has argued that there should be no "ring fenced" areas of spending.

He is urging an end to "generalities" and instead "serious proposals for cutting public spending and tackling the UK's budget deficit".

He told BBC Radio 5 live that government targets to halve the budget deficit within four years were "over-optimistic".

He said the issue was now "when, how and where" cuts take place but said it would be a mistake to introduce them too soon.

"The Conservatives argue you start cutting all this on a big scale tomorrow. Now when you are in the middle of a recession, and unemployment is rising, this is a very foolish thing to do and it makes the problem a great deal worse," he said.

So he won't say where the axe will fall. Bet it won't be on things like immigration costs, or grants towards hi-tech security for mosques or anything else that the British public get foisted on them.

Wonder if it will be on defence spending?

Extract:

Defence giant BAE Systems says it is planning to cut 1,116 jobs and close an aircraft factory in Cheshire.

The firm said it aimed to shut the Woodford plant at the end of 2012, with the loss of 630 jobs.

A further 205 positions are to go at BAE's Samlesbury site, and 170 at its Warton facility, both in Lancashire.

In addition, 111 jobs will go in Farnborough. BAE said the planned cuts followed "a detailed review of its current and future business levels".

[fyc]

good. lets start by getting rid of the jobs specifically created for ethnics. that will save a few billion.

[Mr Murray]

Originally Posted by Bev

So he won't say where the axe will fall. Bet it won't be on things like immigration costs, or grants towards hi-tech security for mosques or anything else that the British public get foisted on them.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...recession.html

Your right. The white middle class will be clobbered which hopefully will be good for our cause.

[Bev]

Originally Posted by Mr Murray

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...recession.html

Your right. The white middle class will be clobbered which hopefully will be good for our cause.

The piss-taking bunch of brown-ass-kissing traitorous bastards! I wish I'd seen this before the elections - what a blatant attempt to buy the ethnic vote.

[Charlie-Horse]

I think the economy is far worse than they are telling us, they have so far managed to shore up the dyke but no doubt realise that this will not hold back the tide for long. I hope the Job centre staff take a hit but doubt those with dirty fingers will be singled out as they are a 'protected' entity and a truly deplorable one. If there is one set of people I would like to see slashed it is the Job centre.

[Walter]

Strange is it not how until recently both the Tories and Labour said they were against spending cuts. Until the Shadow Chancellor George Osbourne and Peter Mandelson had a holiday on a yacht in Corfu last year. The owner of the Yacht being Nathaniel Rothschild.

From the Telegraph:

''Mandelson was first introduced to Lord (Jacob) Rothschild over 15 years ago when he was just gaining influence as an architect of the emerging New Labour. As an important patron of the arts, Rothschild already had plenty of contacts across the political parties. As well as being chairman of the National Gallery and the National Heritage Memorial Fund, Rothschild was put in charge of distributing the proceeds of the National Lottery to the heritage sector, an influential post which oversaw the distribution of £1.2 billion.

At the time, Rothchild’s only son Nat, was struggling. After Eton and Oxford, where he’d been a member of the Bullingdon Club with Osborne, Nat decided to travel. He met model and socialite Annabelle Neilson on a beach in India and eloped to Las Vegas to marry. In the mid-1990s, Rothschild appeared in New York, apparently recovering from drug addition.

Friends ensured he was invited to all the parties but the ‘set’ remember him as a loner who sat in the corner who was “not at all Rothschild.”

But within a few years this had changed. Nat had not only developed his own financial career but had also struck up many contacts with the new breed of Russian oligarchs with his father.

Nat also met David Slager, a financial genius, with whom he helped set up the hedge fund Atticus Capital: Nat used his charm to secure money from investors which Slager then managed. It proved a winning formula, catapulting Atticus into one of the most powerful funds in the world and Nat into new riches.

Throughout this time a firm bond was formed between Nat and Mandelson, to whom had been introduced by Lady Rothschild in the early 1990s.

The politician, the arts patron and hedge fund manager have remained firm friend for years, united by ambition, a gift for networking and a passion for rich and famous people.

It was into this circle that Osborne was invited in Corfu in the summer – and to which his mind turned back when seeking political gain weeks later. Mandelson’s triumphant return to the Government as Business Secretary grated with Osborne who was under attack for his low-profile during the financial crisis: tipping off a newspaper about Mandelson’s friendship with Deripaska seemed the perfect way to steal his thunder.

The ferocity with which Nat came out with a counter-attack on Osborne shocked his former Oxford friend as much as it baffled everyone else.

Speculation raged that Nat’s finances were under pressure. With the Russian stock market collapse, some of the oligarchs whom Nat advised were struggling financially while Atticus was also performing badly. Rumours had been swirling in the markets that the fund, which is down 45% this year, was close to collapse because Nat’s Russian contacts were brutally withdrawing their money. But Atticus has said that it does not rely on Russian investors and is not threatened by redemptions but rather has distanced itself from its co-chairman.

Instead, the attention has reverted to Mandelson’s relationship with Deripaska. A focus has been Mandelson’s decision to remove a punitive 14.9 per cent import tariff on aluminium foil damaging Deripaska’s aluminium company Rusal. As EU Trade Commissioner he signed off a deal in December 2005 to remove it. He has always maintained that he made no intervention on behalf of Deripaska

Earlier this month, Mandelson’s spokesman said Deripaska had met Mandelson in 2006 and 2007, well after these decisions. But yesterday Mr Mandelson said he had in fact met him before.

Now there is speculation among Mandelson’s opponents that the aluminium tariffs is a smoke screen hiding other bigger controversies. Chief of these is a complex court case over the disputed sale of Russia’s second biggest insurance firm, Ingosstrakh. Mandelson’s office became involved via MEPs who were supporting EU shareholders who blamed Deripaska when the value of their stake in Ingosstrakh was reduced.

Mandelson’s spokesperson has strongly denied anything irregular in the case but it remains the case that the Tories were about to put down Parliamentary questions on the matter when Osborne’s involvement in the Corfu drama broke.

With his third political life under threat almost as soon as it had begun, insiders say Mandelson turned to Nat, the man responsible for Osborne’s presence in Corfu in the first place.''

Seems some have been receiving orders, or am I being paranoid?

[Bev]

Originally Posted by Walter

Seems some have been receiving orders, or am I being paranoid?

Call me paranoid as well then, because as soon as I saw the words Mandelson and Rothschild in the same sentence, all manner of conspiracy theories popped into my head.

[Mr Murray]

Labour Set To Target Middle Class Benefits

The middle classes could have to bear the brunt of cutting
the national debt amid growing debate in the Labour party
over whether universal benefits, including the pensioners'
winter fuel payments and child benefit, can be sustained.

The admission by the chancellor, Alistair Darling, that public
spending will reduce under a Labour administration has
opened new questions over a group of benefits that are not
means tested.

A senior cabinet aide said measures whereby top earners
lose out in order to benefit the poor were proving popular
and might even be needed to shore up Labour's core vote,
overriding past concerns over upsetting home counties
voters: "Distributional politics are working well for us at
the moment – how popular is the 50% tax? It's off the
charts, while [Tory proposals on] inheritance tax just
hammers home who they are for."

Asked whether that might trigger a rethink of universal
benefits such as the "winter warmer" fuel payment worth
up to £400 and free TV licences for the over-80s, the aide
added: "That's a good example. We have got to make a
choice on that.

"When we are on 35% in the polls, we can go after
southern England: our problem now is not the swath of
people who have left us for the Tories, it's the people going
to the BNP and the Greens and the Liberals."

[Mr Murray]

http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTR...090919?sp=true

LONDON (Reuters) - Schools Secretary Ed Balls became the first minister to provide details of how he intends to make inroads into Britain's record deficit, telling the Sunday Times he would target management jobs and teachers' pay.

I really do hope all those lefty NASUWT scumbags get "outraged" and go on strike.

Balls's comments came days after Prime Minister Gordon Brown, under pressure to trim a deficit that is forecast to double to about 12 percent of GDP this year, conceded he would have to cut spending.

His statement that he has targeted 2 billion pounds worth of savings will put added pressure on cabinet colleagues, who the BBC says have been approached by finance minister Alistair Darling for one-to-one meetings to identify where sacrifices could be made.

Meanwhile, the war of words between the main political parties over how to handle the economy intensified on Sunday when media reported that the main opposition Conservatives had accused Labour of planning a hidden tax bombshell.

Balls said savings could be made by restraining public sector pay, including in education, and cutting jobs among bureaucrats and senior school staff such as head teachers, deputies, assistant heads and heads of departments.

Teachers' jobs would remain safe and class size numbers would not increase, he told the Sunday Times.

"It is going to be tougher on spending over the next few years," he said. The squeeze would begin after 2011.

After 2011? Do they think they'll still be in power?

The government has provided few details on where it will make public spending cuts.

Brown has said up to 500 million pounds would be cut from the civil service budget and that "vital frontline" services would not be affected, without defining what those services were, though that was taken to mean health and education.

Cuts are expected to be made to defence spending.

Of course. But you can bet that that won't stop the JOGwars, just send the goyim troops into battle with pea-shooters and sling-shots.

The Conservatives, widely expected to win the next election, have said cuts would have to be made, but their finance spokesman George Osborne has only identified health and international development spending for ring-fencing.

Osborne was reported in the Observer as saying leaked Treasury documents showed Labour was planning to raise another 50 billion pounds a year in income tax by 2013-14.

This could add an extra 2,770 pounds a year to the average family's bill by the end of the next parliament.

The paper quoted Labour minister Liam Byrne as suggesting Osborne was trying to mislead the public.

Last week, the parties traded insults over other leaked Treasury documents that the Conservatives said showed Labour had been planning near 10 percent cuts in public spending by 2013-14 while saying publicly it had no plans for deep cuts.