Where now for the anti-cuts movement?

[butchersapron]

What sector do you work in emma?

 

[emma goldman]

What sector do you work in emma?

public sector

 

[The39thStep]

public sector

thats quite broad

 

[butchersapron]

public sector

Anything else? Teacher? Bus driver?

 

[emma goldman]

thats quite broad

i work in libraries

 

[TruXta]

i work in libraries

So you're a dying breed.

 

[emma goldman]

So you're a dying breed.

exactly.
Its very scarey.
Like many people at the moment I am literally fighting for my livilihood, so i really do hope the anti-cuts/ anti-austerity movement is up for the fight.

 

[The39thStep]

doesn't Pickman work in a library?

 

[emma goldman]

doesn't Pickman work in a library?

I dont know who pickman is but am definitly interested in linking up with other library workers to fight threats specific to libraries, so please do pm me pickman if you;d be up for that.

 

[LLETSA]

doesn't Pickman work in a library?

Poet in residence.

 

[LLETSA]

public sector

Both myself and Mrs L work in the private sector. From what I can gather from those I know who work in the public sector, in terms of union organisation and a willingness to take action, it's two different worlds.

 

[LLETSA]

You're probably repeating the opinions of some party spokesman somewhere, but I think it's a bit silly to dub the anti-cuts campaign 'single-issue'. It's about the distribution of wealth in society. If that's a single issue, it's kind of the big one.

However, without the means of gaining political power, there can only be, at best, the occasional victory. And even victories are subject to reversal, these days sooner rather than later, when one of the only two parties who can possibly form a government decide it's time.

 

[audiotech]

You're probably repeating the opinions of some party spokesman somewhere, but I think it's a bit silly to dub the anti-cuts campaign 'single-issue'. It's about the distribution of wealth in society. If that's a single issue, it's kind of the big one.

My own opinion as it happens, but I know I'm not alone in thinking this. I did put a question mark on the end of my point, so I accept that there is a possibility of the anti-cuts movement continuing. However, chanting slogans such as 'tax the rich', whilst outside 'Vodafone', or 'Topshop' are fine as they stand, but I don't think there enough to sustain the momentum long-term, or medium term for that matter. Even if people continue to come out and protest in this way, after the events at Fortnum and Mason it seems increasingly likely that the authorities will continue to make it extremely difficult for these kinds of protest to continue, then the question arises that in the absence of any politics, what else other than protest, now likely diminishing, does the anti-cuts movement have to sustain itself?

 

[The39thStep]

I dont know who pickman is but am definitly interested in linking up with other library workers to fight threats specific to libraries, so please do pm me pickman if you;d be up for that.

Do they still have librarians or has this area also succumbed to the proletarianisation of the middle classes?

 

[LLETSA]

My own opinion as it happens, but I know I'm not alone in thinking this. I did put a question mark on the end of my point, so I accept that there is a possibility of the anti-cuts movement continuing. However, chanting slogans such as 'tax the rich', whilst outside 'Vodafone', or 'Topshop' are fine as they stand, but I don't think there enough to sustain the momentum long-term, or medium term for that matter. Even if people continue to come out and protest in this way, after the events at Fortnum and Mason it seems increasingly likely that the authorities will continue to make it extremely difficult for these kinds of protest to continue, then the question arises that in the absence of any politics, what else other than protest, now likely diminishing, does the anti-cuts movement have to sustain itself?

The frightening thing is that protest and empty rhetoric is now all we have. Alternative ways of organising society have been undermined and eroded so much as to have been made virtually impossible.

 

[Quartz]

tuition fees and EMA is the most obvious, plus I s'pose the defence spending review.

Umm.. he didn't want universities to implement tuition fees, IIRC. And we're sharing an aircraft carrier with the French. Neither could be counted as a victory. And I can't place EMA.

The big one was local government spending being cut in the financial settlement but of course because that's implemented locally it disguises where it comes from.

I don't have access to that, but LA spending is the responsibility of LAs, not Cameron. And if some LA wants to continue spending £200K on a chief executive instead of front line staff, then again, you cannot blame Cameron. Much as we'd like to.

Well, you can really. He's a politician and they're all a bunch of cunts, but you can't blame him specifically.

 

[stethoscope]

Umm.. he didn't want universities to implement tuition fees, IIRC. And we're sharing an aircraft carrier with the French. Neither could be counted as a victory. And I can't place EMA.



I don't have access to that, but LA spending is the responsibility of LAs, not Cameron. And if some LA wants to continue spending £200K on a chief executive instead of front line staff, then again, you cannot blame Cameron. Much as we'd like to.

Well, you can really. He's a politician and they're all a bunch of cunts, but you can't blame him specifically.

Wut?! Do you live under a rock or are you really this continually naive about both Cameron, and any other neo-liberal politician or proponent of neo-liberalism for that matter?!

 

[audiotech]

The frightening thing is that protest and empty rhetoric is now all we have. Alternative ways of organising society have been undermined and eroded so much as to have been made virtually impossible.

I see you've posted 'virtually impossible'. You're softening.

 

[ymu]

Umm.. he didn't want universities to implement tuition fees, IIRC. And we're sharing an aircraft carrier with the French. Neither could be counted as a victory. And I can't place EMA.



I don't have access to that, but LA spending is the responsibility of LAs, not Cameron. And if some LA wants to continue spending £200K on a chief executive instead of front line staff, then again, you cannot blame Cameron. Much as we'd like to.

Well, you can really. He's a politician and they're all a bunch of cunts, but you can't blame him specifically.

How on earth did Cameron not want universities to implement tuition fees? He reckoned they'd just cope with an 80% cut? Or he actually just wanted to bankrupt the not-rich ones?

Forget naive, this is surreal.

 

[stethoscope]

Quartz - how do you think we got to the position where public sector organisations are paying their chief execs big salaries, or Universities charging tuition fees. They are all playing on the neo-liberal market field - the one that Cameron believes in, the one that Thatcher helped to build, that Nu Labour bought into too.

Spare us your fucking Cameron apologism.

 

[ymu]

Quartz, care to tell us what happened to Cameron's much vaunted high pay review, where he asked Will Hutton to look at high oay in the public sector and set a maxium ratio of 20:1 for highest to lowest paid?

 

[Quartz]

It's got nowhere, hasn't it? Hutton came out on the side of high-paid public sector executives. If Cameron wanted to curb high pay in the public sector he's failed miserably. Or are you counting it as a success for Cameron because he kept the elites in place?

 

[stethoscope]

Cameron one side of face - I understand people's concerns of the salaries of public sector execs.

Cameron other side of face - The public sector must become more competitive and engage in the market.

 

[ymu]

It's got nowhere, hasn't it? Hutton came out on the side of high-paid public sector executives. If Cameron wanted to curb high pay in the public sector he's failed miserably. Or are you counting it as a success for Cameron because he kept the elites in place?

Is that the story you swallowed?

What did Hutton find? Why did Cameron fail in his bid to curb high pay at 20:1?

You'd know if you read what Hutton had to say about it. You seem only to have read Cameron's spin.

What was the highest ratio he found, and where?
What was it for the NHS?
For Whitehall?
How many on over £300k?

 

[newbie]

I don't have access to that,

you don't? I can think of any reason why not, it's not subscription sfaik and I certainly don't subscribe if it is. fwiw it starts

"Please respect FT.com's ts&cs and copyright policy which allow you to: share links; copy content for personal use; & redistribute limited extracts. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights or use this link to reference the article - http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f11f1a48-40d3-11e0-9a37-00144feabdc0.html#ixzz1OP1VvrCN

Council cuts: UK local authorities respond to budget cuts

By Martin Stabe and Cleve Jones

Published: February 25 2011 12:23 | Last updated: March 22 2011 13:20

Town halls around the UK have faced demonstrations in recent weeks as local councils have begun to pass austere budgets reflecting the coalition Government’s sharp funding reductions.

Under a tight financial settlement announced last December 13, local authorities in England face an overall cut of 27 per cent to their “formula grant” from Whitehall over the next four years."

and then has an interactive thingie of all LAs.

but LA spending is the responsibility of LAs, not Cameron.

that's just silly!

 

[Blagsta]

Quartz thinks the coalition are libertarian socialists, he's an idiot.

 

[Quartz]

Is that the story you swallowed?

It's a long time since I read it.

But one of the core tenets is that such people need to be paid such large sums otherwise they'll go off to the private sector. I say, "Let them go." It's a nonsense that they earn more than a Secretary of State, let alone the Prime Minister. And if they do go to the private sector, we can hope they'll take some of the public sector attitudes to working conditions, on-the-job training, the ethos of service, and the like with them, and thus gradually transform the private sector. And if they don't go, well, they didn't need to be paid so much, did they? Maybe I'm hoping for too much.

 

[BigTom]

I don't have access to that, but LA spending is the responsibility of LAs, not Cameron. And if some LA wants to continue spending £200K on a chief executive instead of front line staff, then again, you cannot blame Cameron. Much as we'd like to.

So do you think that Birmingham, which is cutting £212million this year (and over £300m in the next three years) could have coped with that by reducing pay for the highly paid execs at the council? really?
I don't have the time to go and find out exactly the split between council tax & central govt. grants for LA's but to claim that the cuts in spending, jobs and services from councils are not at all the fault of central government is fucking ludicrous.

In no way should this post be taken as any kind of defence of highly paid execs or the LAs but your logic is insane. A few million, maybe 10 is what I reckon could be saved at Birmingham by cutting highly paid exec's pay/jobs at the most (and probably not that).. no way is it ever going to approach the hundreds of millions they've lost in central grants.
now if the councils had the balls to stand up to central government that would be different, but they don't..

 

[ymu]

It's a long time since I read it.

But one of the core tenets is that such people need to be paid such large sums otherwise they'll go off to the private sector. I say, "Let them go." It's a nonsense that they earn more than a Secretary of State, let alone the Prime Minister. And if they do go to the private sector, we can hope they'll take some of the public sector attitudes to working conditions, on-the-job training, the ethos of service, and the like with them, and thus gradually transform the private sector. And if they don't go, well, they didn't need to be paid so much, did they? Maybe I'm hoping for too much.

This is why you should look things up.

Cameron wanted to cap public sector pay at 20:1. Hutton couldn't find a ratio worse than 19:1 (universities). The NHS was 14:1 and Whitehall 10:1. Sixteen individuals in the public sector earn over £300k, from large quangos like the BBC (who earn less than their counterparts at Sky or ITV) and the incompetent money-grubbing scum at British Waterways.

You"re a gullible moron.

Cameron was stupid enough to believe Tory propaganda when he commussioned that report. You are too stupid to even check the resulrs when it is suggested you should do so before repeating the spin.

 

[Brainaddict]

So if this thread is anything to go by: bickering.