Labours Ken Livingstone: the rioters need someone to 'care about them'

[-:Undertaker:-]

Yes there are always cuts in a new budget but not as drastic as some of the most recent ones. Cutting police spending by 20% over 4 years is something I would certainly say is of importance in government finance, especially in light of recent events.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/ju...officers-staff HMIC expected to lose around 30,000 officers and staff at best, and you're suggesting that it isn't an important change?

Firstly, I really don't believe these figures - now call that a non-argument but we were told the same about quangos a few months ago when government first took office along with staff redundancies at government departments, it actually turned out (as John Redwood Conservative MP pointed out) that staff numbers had actually continued to increase and any small reductions were drastically offset by increases in staff uptake, see here; http://www.habboxforum.com/showthrea...001&highlight=



So I really can't see these taking place just as quango bonfires didn't take place, rather they grew. If they do take place i'll eat my hat.

My overall point is that say your household spends £500 per month with £250 on food and the remaining £250 on other, Dad walks in one day and says the budget from now on is going to be £700 a month, but £1 is being taken off the food budget. Would you label that finance plan as cuts? no, you wouldn't. As we see from the chart above, its near-fraudulent to label government fiscal policy as 'cuts'.

[FlyingJesus]

Your analogy is ridiculously overexaggerated to start with. Obviously a 40% overall rise and 0.1% decrease in police finances would not be such a bad thing, as opposed to the 20% cut to funding which is the actual figure - note that I'm using real numbers instead of invented ones that bear no relevance to the topic.

Then we come to your wonderful charts on government jobs. Here it simply needs stating that this has absolutely nothing to do with what we're discussing here, as it refers only to changes that the government itself suggested it would make, rather than actually showing the effects of changes that really have been made. It's a great show of how the guys at the top change their mind before acting on their previous statements, but I see nothing at all about it that talks about the outcomes of things that did happen. It's like saying that after buying new shoes I still have as much money as before, since I once said that I was going to buy a shirt but didn't actually do it.

[-:Undertaker:-]

Your analogy is ridiculously overexaggerated to start with. Obviously a 40% overall rise and 0.1% decrease in police finances would not be such a bad thing, as opposed to the 20% cut to funding which is the actual figure - note that I'm using real numbers instead of invented ones that bear no relevance to the topic.

Then we come to your wonderful charts on government jobs. Here it simply needs stating that this has absolutely nothing to do with what we're discussing here, as it refers only to changes that the government itself suggested it would make, rather than actually showing the effects of changes that really have been made. It's a great show of how the guys at the top change their mind before acting on their previous statements, but I see nothing at all about it that talks about the outcomes of things that did happen. It's like saying that after buying new shoes I still have as much money as before, since I once said that I was going to buy a shirt but didn't actually do it.

Firstly concerning offical figures the example I provided in relation to quangos was what the government had said had occured had it not been for John Redwood MP uncovering the actual recruitment figures for these departments, in other words the government fiddled the figures by not taking into account recruitment figures and only using redundancy figures - in the private sector this would be considered fraud if any individual performed statistics concerning finances or company information like this.

Secondly, I have not found government spending on the Police budget which provides any details on the amount of funding the Police recieve every year (in real terms) - even with that, do the figures for the Police budget include Police quangos and are the government including or not including these in their predictions for Police 'cuts'? these questions haven't be answered and you won't get an answer on it because its uncomfortable for a government which pretends to be a savage monetarist government in order to keep its supporters happy to admit that actually, yes, government is growing and government spending is continuing to spiral out of control.

As it happens, I support Police cuts - I think the Police Force should stop spending money on sending Police officers on diversity days out, gay training, quangocracies and so forth. But as i've stated above with plenty of evidence including links the real-term government spending, its highly unlikely these will take place/are not taking place. As for the last example, its very clear concerning the quangos as an example - the government said that the quangos had been cut (yes, said they had been not would be cut) but John Redwood MP found this to be untrue as the figures had been fiddled. So why would I believe a government which is spending more than ever before, is hiring more staff in central government quangos that it is going to drastically make cuts to the Police Force?

Anybody can fiddle figures to make an outcome best suited to themselves and government has done this time and time again.

[FlyingJesus]

So what you're saying is that you have no proof of anything but are totally in the right because it's all a conspiracy

[-:Undertaker:-]

So what you're saying is that you have no proof of anything but are totally in the right because it's all a conspiracy

No, actually i'm questioning whether these cuts will take place as government has barely cut anything else during its time in office, despite pretending to - rather its increased spending overall and in many other areas despite claiming it has cut.

[FlyingJesus]

But that isn't what you've said so far at all, you're stating (as though it were fact) that cuts have not happened, not that you don't think they will happen

[-:Undertaker:-]

But that isn't what you've said so far at all, you're stating (as though it were fact) that cuts have not happened, not that you don't think they will happen

Because i've seen no evidence that they have happened concerning the Police budget and concerning other budgets I have seen the exact opposite of what they have stated has and is happening when in reality it is not. (see Spectator graphs)

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/c...ing-soars.html

As page 17 of the Treasury statement made clear, far from cutting Government spending, Mr Osborne’s own projections show that over the next four years it will continue remorselessly upwards, by larger jumps each year, from £696 billion to £739 billion. For all the dramatic talk of 25 or even 35 per cent cuts in the spending of some departments, such as the Foreign Office and the Home Office, these are more than offset by massive percentage increases in those areas of spending which top the list.