Poll suggests the public are against Brown's spending splurge

Roger Davies

10% is far too niggardly a cut, I suggest 50% across the board and the removal of the off balance sheet perks. Most of the MPs would find it difficult to get a job in Civvy St., I doubt that most could manage a rural COOP.

DM

Yes, RD, and they're only going to have to be in Parliament something like 126 (?) days a year according to radio 4 this morning.

geoff

Borrow to spend, borrow to cut taxes. Brown will borrow his way out of the hole but it will be tax cuts as well as more spending - he has a track record of both.

The challenge is to stand up to this spend today, pay tomorrow strategy

The TPA are just advocating a different form of spend today and should be treated with the same level of respect as Brown himself.

Samuel

I loathe the element of TPA campaigning that has become focused on senior exec public sector pay.

You can't reform the public services without talented executives. Do the TPA think they should work for uncompetetive rates out of the goodness of their hearts?

John Backhouse

Of course we don't support their plans: we know them to be incompetent, selfish, venal, vicious and stupid. Sadly, come poling day, the payroll vote will mass on behalf of its own immediate convenience.

JP

Id rather Gordon Brown gave up his whole salary, in fact he needn't bother showing up for work at all

cuffleyburgers

Geoff

You've missed the point. There's so much waste in there that is what people ar efed up of - unless of course you are CEO of a quango or something in which case it's just nuts to you...

Fernando

A fascinating survey. Despite his short-term bounce, Brown is losing the battle to control the long-term narrative. He is not going to bring forward big public spending projects, so spinning that he is looks plain stupid, especially as the public have had enough of wasteful expenditure. More to the point, Brown’s blaming it all on a global recession will look hollow if we suffer worse than our main comparators.
There was an interesting question at PMQs asking whether he would resign if the IMF intervened as they did in 1976. I wonder if the Tories were hoping that in a moment of bravado Brown would have said this would never happen. Given the size of the financial service industry in the UK and the size of the credit bubble which needs to be deflated, intervention by the IMF either by giving a warning to cut spending or directly with loans, is not far-fetched.

RobertD

For once Nick Clegg asked the right question at PMQ. Why £12bn on a failing NHS computer system, £12bn on "security" data bases and £5bn++++ on ID cards. Cutting waste will fund significant tax cuts now. Money that can be spent on things that the consumers want and the economy can produce like food, heat, housing clothing and entertainment.

In addition these projects show the country what a disaster this government is in managing major investment projects. No wonder that the majority don't want to let the government anywhere more cash for "investment".

Forlornehope

Some things could go very quickly and wouldn't be missed. NHS computer system, identity cards, snoopers database, aircraft carriers (to get us into more ill conceived adventures), JSF (not another cold war fighter), SATs (all of them), National Curriculum. Also, what any company would do, a 5% to 10% cut in government administration across the board. Those should be worth a few pennies of tax.

seb

IMF intervention is far more likely in the next year or so than it was in the seventies for the simple reason that the buffoons in charge now have mucked it up to a far worse extent than their Old Labour grandpappies. As to the possible reaction of G. Winston Brown to the news that the bailiff's knocking at the door [again], I predict a sudden, dignified retirement on medical grounds.

geoff

cuffleyburgers - cutting the waste is very important, but we shouldnt be borrowing to finance tax cuts or spending - that is all jam today.

Dave B

I remember Peter Lilley's input to the Lisbon Treaty debate was that transfer of power from Westminster to the EU should be matched by a fall in pay for Westminster politicos.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4061251.ece

Nicholas

Samuel: "You can't reform the public services without talented executives. Do the TPA think they should work for uncompetetive rates out of the goodness of their hearts?"

I think you are confusing talent with elitism. In my humble experience very few of those on the top pay grades are talented. Far from it. Most are just accomplished political animals, good bullshitters and/or have powerful sponsors. If they really were talented we should expect improvement in public services not the year on year decline we are actually witnessing.

The other aspect is that the idea of highly paid "talented" execs being somehow supermen or women single-handedly bringing change and improvement is a fallacy. In reality it is the levels of talent, empowerment and motivation within the height and breadth of a structure that predicates its success. Hardly a culture one associates with the civil service, much less local government.

In Britain both the corporate and public sectors are turgid with individual ambition, dog eat dog politics, short-termism, bullshit and elitism. I use the word turgid advisedly because far from encouraging or sustaining any real dynamism these forces actually create long-term failure - as we have seen.

The search for "tzars" to cure all ills seems to be deeply rooted in the British psyche, from the obsession with Brown as the CEO of UK plc, to the idiotic sailor pretending to know something about our security, to the overpaid execs presiding over the cost growth and value decline of our local government. These bloated poseurs need rooting out and a return to very different values of public service and duty if we are ever to extract ourselves from the current mire.

mitch

50 new millennium domes anyone? a billion to build a tent then give it away.

Bigdai

The talk of borrowing is forward thinking spin. These buffoons have no choice but to allow borrowing to rocket as tax receipts are going to plummet and social security spending rocket in the next two years. There was never going to be any new spending on capital projects. Spending will remain on plan and borrowing will balloon.We're all doomed!

Mark Wallace

Thanks for all your comments - just to point out, geoff, that the TPA emphatically DOESN'T want to see an increase in borrowing.

Irresponsible, off-balance sheet borrowing by the Government made us extra-vulnerable to this crisis, so the last thing we want is yet more of it.

You've assumed that tax cuts means more borrowing - this isn't the case, and we're putting forward numerous cuts in waste, abolition of unnecessary bodies like the Regional Development Agencies (£2.3bn a year), improvement of management etc to cut taxes.

KA

I am extremely worried about Brown even trying to handle such a delicate and complicated situation in today's banks. I mean, he was the man (when he was Chancellor) that wrecked the British economy with stealth taxes and pension robbing. Had he been more frugal and business-wise, and not so greedy and have sterling pounds in his eyes, we would have had more money in our pockets and in my opinion we wouldn't be feeling the pinch quite so much. Also the pensioners in the UK wouldn't be in such a vulnerable position with heating bills.

For instance, my father had placed his money and savings in the once great companies of Standard Life and Scottish Widows, but within 2 years of Mr Brown becoming Mr Money-Bags over a THIRD of his pension vanished thanks to his schemeing and conniving.

So I am worried when he thinks he is the saviour of the UK, when he has robbed this hard-working nation of their pensions. And it's my generation that will have to live with the legacy.

HR professional

Samuel:"I loathe the element of TPA campaigning that has become focused on senior exec public sector pay.You can't reform the public services without talented executives. Do the TPA think they should work for uncompetetive rates out of the goodness of their hearts?"

This sentiment looks good in principle, Samuel, however I happen to know from personal experience that with a few notable exceptions many of these "talented executives" are those that failed in the private sector, or who were originally happy in the public sector because of it's security and gold plated pension schemes. It is extreme incompetetence, driven by a complete lack of understanding of the real world, that has caused this government to massively inflate public sector pay for little or no reason. No one can blame public sector workers for accepting the huge pay increases without proportional increases in productivity(GPs being the best examples, but we can criticise the government for it. After all, how many people do you know that don't think they are "worth" more than they are paid, or who wouldn't accept pay offers if offered by an incompetent negotiator?