saxitoxin wrote:pmchugh wrote:Ed Milliband wrote:We would have to have cuts in police, we would have to have cuts in the schools budget, we would have to have cuts in the defence budget.
We can make no commitment to reverse any of the Government's tax rises or spending cuts because we don't know the state of the economy we are going to inherit and what the fiscal position will be.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/po ... 87589.html
Police/Schools: In your opinion are cuts in police and schools (set aside cuts in defence for the moment) (a) better for the UK (b) not better for the UK, than the Tories proposed cuts? Why?
During riots that would accompany increases in student fees under Labour, would a smaller number of UK police be able to restore order where current levels barely succeeded during the 2011 race riots? From an outsider's perspective (which is often wrong) it appeared there was a danger of the state itself collapsing last year. (I read a DPR article that indicated a dramatic worsening was much closer than the public was led to believe - that there were no home-deployed military reserves around to call on would the police have been overrun. No government = 100% austerity.)
Defence: I think the UK could accomplish dramatic cuts in defence but it would have to be accompanied by a major realignment of foreign policy so that the military could safely become just a small home island defence force, which is basically the next step below its current level. I'm confident a Labour government could make cuts (easy - a few keystrokes in MS Excel). Has Labour indicated they have the courage to change foreign policy (from global-focus to local, North Sea focus) in a way that would make such cuts responsible?
Defence: We could definitely cut back on the "defence" budget and I doubt many people would care too much, the people caring would probably not be British if you catch my drift. Plus its being cut back anyway:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16588436Police: The police are being cut back under the torries anyway (20% compared to the 12% planned by Labour) so it wouldn't be any worse. Although I don't think the police were all that overrun, they did manage to get 1000+ convictions from the riots.
Schools: I am not sure about schools because the Scottish parliament are in control of education north of the border. I do remember Labour criticizing the government over scrapping a school building scheme that they were going to cut billions of pound from anyway, I don't know how people didn't see the irony.
Obviously it is hard to tell how things would have been under Labour but I think they are secretly glad they lost the last election because they got rid of the unpopular but bullish Gordon Brown and this will probably increase their overall popularity in the long run, especially since the Lib Dems have destroyed their own vote by entering the coalition.
Labour were going to cut back the same things as the Torries and at a similar rate. Defence, police, NHS, schools, welfare programs.. absolutely everything. They defend this by claiming their cuts would have been "morally fair". There is little difference, its just opposition for the sake of opposition.