Quote of the Day
Matthew Parris writes…
“People will embrace retrenchment in principle then lament any cut affecting them. Shrouds will be waved, illiteracy and infant malnutrition predicted, and in the opposition imagination old people will be starving or freezing to death in countless wretched hovels. The demise of theatre, ballet, museums and day care centres, the fine arts, mountain rescue and the Battersea Dogs Home will be pronounced imminent. Charities, think-tanks and academics will write to The Times to call ministers deaf to reason. Long-term savings will be claimed to be achievable only by maintaining current spending. The whole lexicon of short-termism, scorched earth, vandalism and philistinism will be ransacked. Howls of indignation from co-ordinated bands of identifiable losers will drown out quiet murmurs of approval among the ungalvanised majority.”
And The Guardian will keep fiddling its taxes…
And the chattering polly twaddles will keep twaddling…
Are you sure that wasn’t penned by Mr. Charles Dickens?
I don’t often agree with Parris but he’s absolutely spot on here.
Yup. And all because spending is going back to 2007 levels.
Good start to the New Year from Mathew.
Listening to the BBC the identifiable losers and other nere’ do well’s are in full cry.
We had 13 years of Les Miserables by throwing other peoples money at the ever-open mouths of the Looting Party’s corrupt apparachiks and their client state. if we can maintain the same state of civilisation by spending less taxpayers money, then the country will have improved.
Bah Humbug!
And of course it will be the most visible services that will be cut by local authorities, not the ‘communications managers’, web teams and other serried ranks of non-front line management. The more the customer feels the pain, the better.
Sadly, I think this is just a more sophisticated way of saying ‘”we have never had it this good”. Typical Tories. I have no doubt they care about social ills- you just don’t want to pay anything to sort them out and with this government, the lack of coherent plan or strategy after the cuts is simply worrying. Still, I think people know this as even with an unpopular leader, involement in two bloody conflicts on foriegn soil and a global recession to boot, a majority could still not be secured in 2010. Just keep doing what your doing and try not to damage things too much why you have your daliance in Whitehall!
Can we postpone New Year until 3rd Feb. We want a thriving and booming Hong Kong style economy in the UK. The same one created by J. Cowperthwaite.
Front line staff in yje first instance work 24/7, police, hospitals, transport etc. In the Telegraph today a whistleblower had there say about the police service but it was the aside which took my breath away, diversity training staff were categorised as front line! Unfortunately in financially strapped times, discretionary spending will take the hit, (in a household eating out, alcohol, theatre, books etc.)
It didn’t take long for them to cave in on the ‘free books’, did it?
Parris is right and wrong.
“The savage cuts” shouldn’t affect most of the services that he listed (some of which aren’t state provided incidentally).
However, I confidently expect the handling of reduced local authority budgets (for example) to provide examples of ‘services’ sacred to the left (eg, council wages!) to be protected, whilst discretionary spending is cut, disproportionately “as a result of the cuts”.
Result? Public services will remain as inefficient as ever, but ratepayers/taxpayers will all experience some pain/inconvenience “caused by the cuts”. In other words, a Fabian/Socialist version of the “Squanderbug”…
Typical bollocks from Messers Paris
It is a typical example of the writing of Mr Parris. It sounds nice – but it is fact free, one can not learn anything from it.
This sort of thing reminds me of how he ruined “Weekend World” (once the best political progamme on British television).
The W.W. of Brian Walden had a first half really explaining the background facts (how much of the economy government spends, what proportion of government spendign is on what – how much government spending is going up, and so on) then there would be a polite but useful interview – really digging down into the government minister (or whoever) to find out what he really thought (indeed if he had any real thoughts at all).
With Mr Parris it was (as he still does) just an exchange of elegant cliches – like a soap bubble. One never learns anything from him.
For example, will the government really cut its spending by 3% – or (with the Irish baillout and so on) will government spending actually be higher this year than it was last year?
One will never find out by reading Mr Parris.