Thursday 17 June 2010

They sicken you, they thicken you… but still you vote for them

The first wave of public spending cuts are announced. What will we do without to cover the bankers' losses?

Amongst other things, the sick, the lost, the young and the jobless will suffer. No sign of the rich paying more tax or pet projects (like nuclear weapons) suffering:

Department for Work and Pensions: Roll-out of the Future Jobs Fund: £290m (previously announced as part of Osborne's £6bn cuts)
DWP: Six-month offer recruitment subsidies: £30m (previously announced)
DWP: Extension of Young Person's Guarantee to 2011-12: £450m
DWP: Two-year Jobseeker's Guarantee: £515m

DoH: North Tees and Hartlepool hospital: £450m
Department for Culture Media and Sport: Libraries Modernisation Programme: £12m

BIS: Newton Scholarships: £25m
Department of Health: Health Research Support Initiative: £73m

Ministry of Justice: Birmingham Magistrates Court: £94m

MoD: Search and Rescue Helicopters: £4.7bn
Department for Transport: Search and Rescue Helicopters - joint procurement with MoD: £2.3bn

2 comments:

Neil80 said...

That's Tories for you. Personally I believe this whole reduce the deficit thing is a smokescreen to take a sledgehammer to what remains of the welfare state.

If Blair continued Thatchers work he at least did have a social conscience. Something (as we can see) Cameron isn't burdened with.

The Plashing Vole said...

I totally agree. It's the 'small government' thing writ large, or what Klein calls the 'Shock Doctrine' of using any crisis to enforce a program of public service abolition, privatisation, free market economics etc. etc. The state should be reduced to guaranteeing the free market, subsidising private industry and defence.