He makes some good points - especially about the current financial situation being the creation of the financial sector. He is also right about the double standards as there is no way the Tory South East heartlands will bear the brunt of the devastating blow brought about by the budget cuts. I disagree with the way he seems to suggest public sector jobs are a special case. In my opinion all jobs losses are tragic, and especially those in manufacturing because when a nation can no longer manufacture for itself it becomes totally dependent on other nations who still have the capacity to manufacture.
Cllr Oldham's letter appeared in this weeks edition of The Tameside Advertiser
20 comments:
Labour's chronic financial mismanagement meant that 90% of the public debt existed BEFORE the recession started. The current cuts are the thin end of the wedge. There will be NO public services if the public sector's balance sheet isn't put in order.
I recall Cllr Oldham making similar comments in the council chamber, pointing out that no matter who won the election the international financiers would still rob us.
He was right then and he is right now.
Come on Get Real get your fact right. Honest difference of opinion is one thing, bare faced misrepresentation of the truth is another. Public debt has mushroomed since 2007. In 1997 the public debt was 42% of gdp and then fell and remained at 34% of gdp until 2007. It is now around 64% of gdp. Labours chronic mismanagement, as you put it, reduced the national debt.
In cash terms rather than gdp% the debt has gone up £400 million in two years from around £500 million.
So in short "Get Real", get real!
What's wrong with erradicating non jobs within the council? You know it goes on with titles such as "political assistant" which cost £30k a piece each year. Funnily enough, Cllr. Quinn has got rid of them to save a bit of cash.
Tameside Council even employs a "wellbeing champion" for staff. And you are telling me there is no room for cuts? C'mon pull the other one...
Truth Seeker, the current national debt is £903 billion. In 2002 public debt was 29% of GDP, rising to 37% in 2007, this was despite the long period of economic expansion and extremely benign global financial conditions. This was an ideal opportunity to spend prudently and balance the books, instead Labour kept on recklessly spending, largely in an attempt to buy votes in the 2005 general election, putting public debt up to 62.2% of GDP in May 2010.
The £903 billion figure does not include Labour's 2nd set of books (if they were a private company this would result in criminal prosecution) which include £110 billion of PFI debt and £600 billion of public sector pension liabilities.
In 1996/97 official state debt per family was £14,500, it is now £24,300.
Labour left this country in a complete financial mess and anyone with the minutest degree of impartiality can see it.
I thought it may be necessary for me to bring an alternative view to Councillor Oldham's usual misguided ramblings.
The fact that I've been beaten to it is encouraging. It supports my view that the population increasingly understands that the public sector only exists because of the private sector. All this talk of the public sector supporting the private sector is a total load of bollo*ks believed only by those who have never lived in the real world. Councillor Oldham being a good example.
Get Real - Its good to see that you are more enlightened than your initial posting displayed. Indeed, it is a reasonable argument - knowing what we know now - that public spending in the mid 00's was reckless. But hindsight is an exact science. If you look at public sector spending over the long haul, I am sure you would agree that 00's labour was no more reckless than previous administrations. Indeed public debt under the Tories of the mid 90's was higher than the 29% labour achievement that you quoted.
Lib/Dem members are leaving in huge numbers,making decisions is not what they like doing, supporting Cameron with his savage cuts for the working class is not what they wanted.
The Lib/Dems have already lost their identity its all over for them.
Truth Seeker, hindsight doesn't come into it. The total balance of trade in goods and services in 1997, when the Tories were ousted was actually in surplus to the tune of £1.6 billion, thanks to several years of sensible and responsible government. Nine years later Labour had changed this to MINUS £45 billion. That's when they should have reigned in spending. The signs were there and the British and other governments ignored them. Labour inherited an economy in good shape from the Tories and left near ruination which will take decades to sort out. They spent to the end for one reason, they thought it would buy votes. The national interest was never considered and when the full story of their economic incompetence, recklessness and vindictiveness (they KNEW the Tories would have to clean it up) is written by future historians people will look back with extreme anger and disbelief.
The simple fact is; Labour performed a scorched earth policy relating to the nations finances in the last years of their disasterous rule.
Cost Cutting Tory - If all of the highly-paid non-jobs in the public sector were declared redundant, then the savings would be very significant indeed. We simply cannot justify or afford to fork out huge salaries for "Diversity Officers", "Strategic Policy Implementation Managers" and such like. Councillor Quinn's actions over Political Assistants are a start, but he has only chipped away at the top of a very big iceberg.
In the productive sector of the economy where I work, we have to keep costs under strict control or we go under, as simple as. It's about time we saw similar methods adopted and the introduction of a level playing field on cost controls within the public sector too.
Have Tameside's Political Assistants actually been abolished?
I regarded them as "Political Commissars". A Labour Council pays the cost of a Conservative political assistant?? And vice versa??
I make no reference to the identity of any political assistant, this is a matter of general principle and not personality, but given that "He who pays the piper calls the tune" it must surely cause some crisis of loyalty for non-Labour PA's in Labour councils, non-Tory PA's in Tory councils etc. How can the loyalty of PA's be relied upon when those who pay their wages are their political opponents?
And will a council leader get rid of a PA who he pays and therefore has a hold over?
Great post Tony - very thought provoking question.
No mention by Cllr Oldham of Brown's botched deregulation of the banks which created the chaos.
Labour can whinge all they want. They are responsible for the mess we are in today.
Maybe Cllr Quinn should look at cutting the uncosted £100k+ a year budget that TMBC puts to one side for union activity?
Cheap at half the price representation for workers is part of our democracy.
Unions serve the interests of the chosen few at cost to the workers. Read Animal Farm and see the work of Unite et al for what it is.
Unions served a purpose once upon a time, but not now. They took the workers of Tameside and the country down the road of supposed 'equal' pay and helped cut the pay of approximately a third of their members.
Bob Crowe and his comrades are the real fat cats of society, feeding off the subs paid to them by the masses.
Representation for public sector workers you mean. They are sacrd, virtually everybody else can take a running jump is the modern union attitude.
Absolute silence from the unions 2000-2010 as Labour flooded the country with cheap foreign labour, causing massive suppression of pay and worsening of conditions for tens of millions of British workers. This situation was an ideal opportunity for unions to massively increase recruitment and influence. Instead they toed the Party and PC line selling their principles down the river at the same time.
Despite Oldham's boasts to the contrary, Tameside's BSF programme has been halted.
(BSF=Building schools for the future, paying for them even further in the future)
Roy passed away this morning after a long illness
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