Now this isn’t going to be one of those blog posts that’ll join the thousands comprehensively slating the spending review in every aspect. Tough decisions had to be made and they were. Did George Osborne get it completely right? No. But he was given the insanely difficult task of cleaning up the mess in which Labour left this country’s economy and that meant serious cuts that wouldn’t please everyone. Being part of the ‘squeezed middle’ myself, with a wife who works in education I will be immediately on the firing line for several of the cuts. Am I angry about this? No. However strong the cuts are they are many times better than our country becoming completely insolvent. That would have major consequences for everyone in the country, result in many more lob losses and set us back decades.
Banks
I believe that the first move George Osborne should have made is look at selling off the government stakes in the banks we, as taxpayers, had to bail out during the economic crisis. I’m well aware that there are many arguments surrounding return on investment that can be used against this idea but when you factor in the scale of the deficit interest payments we are facing, losing such a chunk of the deficit in one go would be a vastly beneficial move.
My second banking point relates to people are shouting about how the banks got us into this mess so they should get us out of it (quite a big Labour point this as they are trying desperately to shift their part of the blame). Definitely we need to place strong taxes and levies on the banks but we need to remember that if we squeeze the banks too hard they will simply move their operations abroad where governments are more lenient on them resulting is thousands upon thousands of job losses. I find bankers salaries and bonuses as offensive as anyone, but we have to be realistic about the impact of knee-jerk penalties.
Tuition Fees
Tuition fees are high enough already. The cap should not have been removed. The government is in danger of creating a new class system in higher education where only the richest people can afford to go to the best universities, or even go to university at all.
Many of the large universities are among the most inefficient, mis-managed businesses in the country and sufficient savings could be made via efficiency audits, and closer governmental regulation. Don’t make the students pay for the failings of institutions that have become complacent and sloppy due to lack of regulation.
Child Benefit
The child benefit threshold makes sense to me. When you’re earning well over forty thousand pounds you shouldn’t be receiving benefits taken, in part, from the taxes of those on much lower salaries. However what should have been done is make the threshold based on total household income, not the income of individual workers. We should not have a system in place where a single parent earning forty five thousand pounds loses their benefits but a family with two parents both earning forty thousand pounds each get to keep theirs.
Military
Trident renewal has been pushed back which is a massive liberal win. It will save billions over this parliament and hopefully allow the time required for those in power to realise it’s a cold war relic and should not be part of a modern military.
The other cuts in the military arguably do go a little too far. I’m a lover, not a fighter but I am behind the forces fighting for the freedom of the people of Afghanistan and the safety of those in Northern Ireland. I honestly doubt that we will ever have, as the tabloids keep claiming, aircraft carriers without any aircraft, but the losses are sizable. I say get rid of Trident and give those saving back to the rest of the military.
Science and the NHS
Both science and the NHS have has their funding ringfenced for the duration of this parliament, but will be subject to efficiency reviews. I think that’s the right decision. Although the budgets won’t rise in line with inflation they have got off lightly compared to many services. The NHS provides a great benefit to anyone living in this country and it is taken for granted by far too many. Investment in science is key to pushing our country forward – we have so many brilliant minds and institutions, we would be doing ourselves a disservice to allow this to slip.
