national debt and all the cuts facing britain...

[lcg]

i'm certainly no economic expert, or even a current affairs/news hound. but...if we stopped giving away 'our' money as foreign aid (except for things such as the quakes in nz and japan etc.); the EU; and other international stuff we are always hearing about in the news and seem a bit ridiculous considering the crisis we are in - would we be able to sort out our national debt and the some of the harsh cuts to public expenditure? if so, how long would this take...and what are your thoughts on this? is it something you would support or do you think we should carry on with the current 'committments' our useless government have made? i would be interested to know what your thoughts are. mtia x

[boxtops]

I am sure that the Government will argue that it all comes from different pots.... but I'm not calling our Government useless yet, the public sector cuts are necessary as the result of huge overinvestment in past years by the last lot. We are now becoming leaner organisations - my own NHS employer had nine buildings full of staff last year, by the end of the this month, there will be three.

[sandyRoe]

We give a tiny part of our GNP in aid. Despite the sticky fingers of some of the politicians in the countries where it goes, it's a lifeline to some of the poorest people in the world.

[I.Don No]

one thing that worries me is that some of the cuts should have already been in operation.....eg....our local council is taking one refuse lorry off duty and not making any redundancies, the displaced chappies will join in with the other refuse chappies and work the remaining lorries for longer hours on a shift system thus saving £100,000....it seems straightforward enough to have been doing this already.......or am I missing something?

[SIRandyraven]

http://indepthafrica....n-luxury-super-yacht/

Why I will not be giving to comic relief this Friday.

[NOX]

Just because some leaders are scumbags that don't care for their own people's welfare doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to help- so I will still be giving to Children in Need etc as I don't believe we have any sense of perspective about this. It's one thing finding out that your bins will only get emptied once every two weeks, it's quite another to have to watch your child die because it has no food or water. Get some perspective.

[Jemisa]

Its all robbing Peter to pay Paul to me, nobody benefits in the end.
Cut thousands of jobs & where do those people go? mainly to social sevices because theres no jobs so SS hand out millions.Its a merry-go-round and nobody gets off.

jem

[boxtops]

Ah, but DC has promised us all lots of jobs in the private sector, jem - not sure where they are, but he has promised...;-D

[SIRandyraven]

Boxtops ...all these private sector jobs are in places like Tesco and B and Q ..minimum wage , part time jobs.
All the real jobs have now moved overseas.
Just look at the IT sector for a start !