I am absolutely astounded by the notion that people in the UK are generally abused, downtrodden, potless, poverty-stricken, destitute, malnourished, freezing, oppressed or any other description which gives the impression that this government is the most vicious and evil administration the world has ever seen.
People in this country, by and large, enjoy a standard of living way which is beyond the level that the economy can reasonably support. Look around and see what is happening. See how many expensive cars are being driven by families on modest incomes. See how full restaurants, bars and cinemas are. Try and book a half decent holiday less than about six months in advance. Go to any airport and see how many people jet off each time there is a school holiday. Stroll down any High Street during the day and look in the cafes. You will see “hard pressed families” stuffing their children’s faces with wholly unsuitable food which costs four or five times the amount needed to prepare a more healthy alternative at home. Today ar about 10am I walked past my local McDonalds. In there were large numbers of people with “kids” tucking in to all the slurry and sludge that those establishments sell under the guise of food. True, some people are better off than others. But there always has benn and always will be some people better off than others.
Difficult problems require difficult measures. All this government is trying to do is to slow the rate of growth in welfare payments and public sector salaries. As far as public sector employment goes they are not going anywhere near far enough. Some 600,000 people joined the public payroll in 2004-2010. Few of these were probably needed and many of them produce nothing tangible or provide no useful service. The Public Sector unions need to keep their heads down because their many of their members performing “non-jobs” should be high on the hit list. I don’t think many people really appreciate the parlous state of the UK’s finances and far harsher measures than those currently proposed are necessary to restore the economy to an even keel.
By the way, slack, before you go on about the government “…giving their rich cronies an income tax reduction” consider this. The current plan is to reduce the top rate of tax from 50% to 45%. For all but the last two weeks of Labour’s thirteen year term of office they were quite content with the top rate of tax being set at 40%. This includes the period from 2008-10 immediately following the financial crisis. So if 40% was sufficient for Labour, why is 45% insufficient for the Coalition?