Government Cuts - What Would You Do?

[KeithD]

With £££Billions needed of cuts to help wie out Labours debt mountain, what would you cut?

For starters let's get rid of these flipping Classroom Assistants. They must cost use a fortune, and yet the 100's of years prior to this century our kids done well without them. In fact talk to business leaders and kids now are thicker than they've ever been since Labour watered down the qualifications.

[les_taxi]

Stop giving 16year old single mothers free housing,benifits,food ,sky tv etc

[KeithD]

Stop paying kids who go to college £30 a week .... I managed fine without it ... but then I got a job.

One of my kids has been in college 5 years as he gets paid for going .... he's still as thick as piggy doodoo

[les_taxi]

You now get paid for going to school!

[Arthur Little]

Start at the top ... and cut the hugely-inflated salaries paid to part-time Directors who do next to bugger-all to earn their money! Likewise, the fat-cats that [somehow] always seem to manage to get "kicked upstairs" each time they make a "balls-up"! Pardon my language ... but people like THEM make me see red!

[IainBusby]

With £££Billions needed of cuts to help wie out Labours debt mountain, what would you cut?

I'd start with the civil list and get rid of the whole lot of them including the queen. Then I'd confiscate Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Windsor Castle, Bamoral Castle, etc etc and I'd let them out as timeshares to extremely rich Yanks, Russians and Arabs and charge them an absolute fortune (the more exclusive the club, the more they'd be prepared to pay) for the privilege. That would make a good start on reducing the deficit.

[KeithD]

The Royal Family is only small change in relation to the debt

[les_taxi]

I'd start with the civil list and get rid of the whole lot of them including the queen. Then I'd confiscate Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Windsor Castle, Bamoral Castle, etc etc and I'd let them out as timeshares to extremely rich Yanks, Russians and Arabs and charge them an absolute fortune (the more exclusive the club, the more they'd be prepared to pay) for the privilege. That would make a good start on reducing the deficit.

might as well emmigrate then as my history,heritage all wiped out and even more foreigners here!

What you going to do with the 69p you save per year getting rid of royal family-put it towards mass mosque building?

[Dedworth]

Prison capacity to be reduced along with withdrawl of early release and Playstations. A general harsh and austere regime to be intoduced. Possible privatisation of them all and the running of them contacted out to Singapore Prison Service. Chain gangs to be established.

[stevewool]

get rid of the car pools all the political parties us and us public transport or a bike

[SteveL]

I'd start with the civil list and get rid of the whole lot of them including the queen. Then I'd confiscate Buckingham Palace, Sandringham, Windsor Castle, Bamoral Castle, etc etc and I'd let them out as timeshares to extremely rich Yanks, Russians and Arabs and charge them an absolute fortune (the more exclusive the club, the more they'd be prepared to pay) for the privilege. That would make a good start on reducing the deficit.

Ahh, the old the old “lets get rid of the Monarchy” argument again.
It’s simple isn’t it, the Royal Family get paid oodles of cash to do nothing so let’s throw them out. Only problem is, it’s WRONG.
The Civil List for 2008-2009 (the last one published) shows the total cost of the Monarchy was 41.5m or 69p per person. However, what everyone forgets is that when the civil list was created, it was given in return for the Monarchy surrendering the revenues for the Crown Estate, such as Sandringham and the Duchy of Lancaster and the months when Buckingham Palace is open to the public etc etc.
The published records for the Crown Estate for the same period, 2008-2009 show a PROFIT of 191m.
That’s a total PROFIT for the government of 149.5m. So by all means, lets stop the civil list, I’m sure Her Majesty would be delighted to get 140m extra per year AND be able to tell the tiny majority of her subjects that want a republic to “naff orf”. However, it doesn’t help our deficit does it because instead of saving money, it costs us.
Oh, and by the way, if anyone doubts how much the Monarchy contributes, go to London and look at the queues of foreign tourists outside Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, Hampton Court etc.

[SteveL]

We need to realise some painful truths. Great Britain isn't an empire anymore, and we need to stop acting like one. You don't see Germany or France trying to be the world police.
In the 21st Century, we dont need a huge army, a great navy or a large air force. I personally dont think we need nucleur weapons but that 's a debate for another time as there is a lot of good arguements to keep them.
The defence budget for 2009 - 2010 is 36.9 billion. I for one would prefer to see much of that spent on health care , schools and prisons.

[somebody]

GDP in 2008
United States $14,264 billion
Japan $4,923 billion
China (PRC) $4,401 billion
Germany $3,667 billion
France $2,865 billion
United Kingdom $2,674 billion
Italy $2,313 billion


Defence Budget 2008

United States $695 billion
China (PRC) $58 billion
United Kingdom $54 billon
France $45 billon
Japan $44 billion
Russia $34 billion
Germany $36 billion
India $26 billion

[Pete/London]

Raise the single pension to £250 pw and the married pension to £450 for everyone. No more public service or private pensions. Find a more reliable way of linking the yearly increases.We can save as much as we like for our old age and pay tax on the earned interest above £5k per year. No benefits paid to naturalised citizens until they have shown tax contributions of 15 years