Cost of living squeeze in 2022
Discussion
Harry H said:
This is what happens when we have a big state and high taxes. Everyone becomes reliant on the state to dig them out.
I've always voted conservative as I thought their core belief was small state, small taxes. But the current shower of s
t running the place are more left than Tony Blair and trying to please all the people. It doesn't work, never has..
Loads of people shouting on here about more pay. What difference will it make if most of it is taken in tax.
Cut back on over bloated government, reduce the burden and therefore the need for tax income and everyone gets an instant pay rise. Of course we've got to pay for pissing trillions up the wall on covid first so we're going to suffer for a while.
This is Johnsons current plan. He's too late to get my vote back. We should never have been in this mess in the first place.
Not hard to be further left than Tory tribute band leader Blair I've always voted conservative as I thought their core belief was small state, small taxes. But the current shower of s
t running the place are more left than Tony Blair and trying to please all the people. It doesn't work, never has..Loads of people shouting on here about more pay. What difference will it make if most of it is taken in tax.
Cut back on over bloated government, reduce the burden and therefore the need for tax income and everyone gets an instant pay rise. Of course we've got to pay for pissing trillions up the wall on covid first so we're going to suffer for a while.
This is Johnsons current plan. He's too late to get my vote back. We should never have been in this mess in the first place.
Sway said:
Roman Rhodes said:
Incorrect about porridge v Weetabix I'm afraid. The latter has more protein and less fat.
So the nutritional values I've posted are incorrect?I never mentioned fat. Fat isn't a bad thing, at all.
Roman Rhodes said:
Sway said:
Roman Rhodes said:
Incorrect about porridge v Weetabix I'm afraid. The latter has more protein and less fat.
So the nutritional values I've posted are incorrect?I never mentioned fat. Fat isn't a bad thing, at all.
brickwall said:
pghstochaj said:
How is it his plan? Surely the reduction in the civil service is just to privatise those departments?
This just brings it back down to the 2015-2017 numbers which were already on a significant upward trend long before COVID-19 (correlated to Brexit).
Worth noting that everyone thinks “Civil Servants” means Whitehall mandarins.This just brings it back down to the 2015-2017 numbers which were already on a significant upward trend long before COVID-19 (correlated to Brexit).
The reality is the Whitehall Mandarins are a very small proportion of the total Civil Service.
Of the 470,000 Civil Servants, two thirds work in one of 5 departments:
- DWP (96,000)
- Ministry of Justice (77,000)
- HMRC (66,000)
- MoD (60,000)
- Home Office (40,000)
These are not Whitehall Mandarins. Most of them are people who:
-DWP: JobCentre clerks, pensions and benefits admin
- MoJ: Prison officers, court clerks
- HMRC: Call centre and tax collectors
- MoD: Maintaining bases and equipment
- Home office: Border Force
So if you want to make any meaningful cuts to the number of Civil servants, you have to cut the above departments and roles.
Cut HMRC? Even longer wait times on the phone, and don’t expect anything to get done about tax dodgers
Cut the border force? Ok more queues at Heathrow.
Cut the prison and probation service? Ok more backlog of cases, probation f
kups, escapes, riots etc.Cut the MoD? Ok expect faulty kit, bases in disrepair, etc.
I exaggerate slightly - but if you want to save money you have to identify where
- Useless work is being done that can be stopped (and thereby remove the people doing it)
- Work can be done more efficiently (by an individual doing more, or by technology replacing a person)
If you don’t do that then cutting resource will mean cuts to service…and we should be clear about those trade-offs.
I am sure far more can be done to utilise technology, but just to highlight that there shouldn't be a presumption that service levels need to fall to return civil service numbers to as recently as 2016. It wouldn't surprise me that if the process you set out at the end of your post was followed that better service levels are possible with reduced numbers.
Edited by JagLover on Saturday 14th May 07:36
Gecko1978 said:
I guess the key is which breakfast is most filling for the least cost...answers on a post card
What did they used to feed slaves?That's your answer to feed people cheaply. (Think it was barely cooked rice)
Next question: who wants to eat like a slave in c21?
Personally I was looking forward to a 5 page quoting war about Weetabix Vs porridge, but it is the wrong point. (About one third of my wife's primary class come to school in Surrey not having had breakfast though - sad but true, but that's a different point too)
The comparison is with pop tarts, sugary cereal etc. convenience, packaging and marketing has a lot to answer for.
Yes, it makes some rich, but helps keep others poor (er). Supermarkets don't place things by accident etc.
A 5kg bag of rice, a sack of potatoes in the panty/porch/somewhere cool, home grown veg and buying porridge/cereal in bulk from that shop with bins of them (sinfin?)
That's how my family age growing up, as my parents were ultra thrifty.
My family nowadays? Not so much. But wife and I work full time. Growing veg takes time (and a garden). Cooking cheap meat in a pressure cooker takes time (and energy)
Finally: Politically, if the Tory minister for food stood up and said "you can mitigate the cost of living crisis by buying bulk porridge and sacks of potatoes cheaply" they would be utterly shredded by Twitter etc.
No-one wants to hear it, especially the supposedly intelligent people. It will be all "but why should people have to skimp on food, we're one of the wealthiest countries" etc
So we all ignore it, and forgot the country climbed out of poverty by hard work, improvement and thrift
(and exploiting colonies and an elite becoming super rich, but hey who's counting)
survivalist said:
Countdown said:
survivalist said:
According to the BBC cutting 90,000 jobs would take us back to 2016 in terms of the number of civil servant jobs.
Anyone know why we’ve had to add 90,000 to the workforce in such a short space of time.
Brexit and COVID.Anyone know why we’ve had to add 90,000 to the workforce in such a short space of time.
The Department of International Trade has 3,200 staff
The Home Office has added 8,400 officials, not all of whom are on EU related work
Defra and BEIS have each grown by around 5,000 staff,
That leaves a rather large gap to 91,000. I suspect the bulk of the increase therefore is due to all the money lavished on Covid. It would seem entirely possible to shed at least 60K roles and return to 2016 levels of staffing to work required.
Randy Winkman said:
That is indeed how it works. As a civil servant of 38 years experience I was quite pleased to see this morning's news. Hopefully they will offer me £50k to go away which I will gladly take. Then, in a couple of years time they will recruit someone else to do my job and in 5 or 10 years time they will lay off another person and give them £50k.
My wife took voluntary redundancy from the Civil Service about 10yrs ago. Staff loved working there so much and it was such an easy life that, across the whole Department with offices all over England and Wales, two thirds of the staff applied for it, so it ended up being mostly younger staff they let go as that cost less.My wife got it as her office was closing completely and at her job grade any other office was too far away - more senior staff were just told they’d be working elsewhere.
Meanwhile, here in Spain we are about to see a drop in energy bills.
https://m.murciatoday.com/electricity-prices-in-sp...
https://m.murciatoday.com/electricity-prices-in-sp...
Shnozz said:
Meanwhile, here in Spain we are about to see a drop in energy bills.
https://m.murciatoday.com/electricity-prices-in-sp...
So the govt is paying for the price cap meaning all tax payers are funding it regardless of usage? https://m.murciatoday.com/electricity-prices-in-sp...
Welshbeef said:
Shnozz said:
Meanwhile, here in Spain we are about to see a drop in energy bills.
https://m.murciatoday.com/electricity-prices-in-sp...
So the govt is paying for the price cap meaning all tax payers are funding it regardless of usage? https://m.murciatoday.com/electricity-prices-in-sp...
Quite a thought provoking read.
What’s The Difference Between Jack Monroe Suggesting Budget Recipes, And A Tory MP?
What’s The Difference Between Jack Monroe Suggesting Budget Recipes, And A Tory MP?
JagLover said:
From all that I can see the government is making progress at automating routine tasks. The DVLA for example has automated renewing road tax well. Also the DWP has shifted the claim process for new benefits online as another example.
I am sure far more can be done to utilise technology, but just to highlight that there shouldn't be a presumption that service levels need to fall to return civil service numbers to as recently as 2016. It wouldn't surprise me that if the process you set out at the end of your post was followed that better service levels are possible with reduced numbers.
Shame government departments are so bad at technology. Almost every IT contractor in the UK must have passed through at least one of HMRC, DVLA, DWP. Huge programs running for years and years, working through 3 or 4 subcontracted suppliers.I am sure far more can be done to utilise technology, but just to highlight that there shouldn't be a presumption that service levels need to fall to return civil service numbers to as recently as 2016. It wouldn't surprise me that if the process you set out at the end of your post was followed that better service levels are possible with reduced numbers.
Edited by JagLover on Saturday 14th May 07:36
Technology could save £billions if they could actually implement it.
dmahon said:
Shame government departments are so bad at technology. Almost every IT contractor in the UK must have passed through at least one of HMRC, DVLA, DWP. Huge programs running for years and years, working through 3 or 4 subcontracted suppliers.
Technology could save £billions if they could actually implement it.
DVLA should be totally outsourced with glide path savings to the govt and increased productivity KPIs. Technology could save £billions if they could actually implement it.
This work should be moved to areas of high unemployment. With the requirement that the private sector employs those on benefits to deliver.
It could be great.
crankedup5 said:
Be interesting to see how far our U.K. Government go to help protect the populace from exorbitant
energy price hikes. On the current showing plenty of hot air and little else.
All Spain is doing is keeping the monthly bills at a sensible level for all - but then taxation will need to increase to fund it. That is going to be progressive. energy price hikes. On the current showing plenty of hot air and little else.
bhstewie said:
hstewie said: Quite a thought provoking read.
What’s The Difference Between Jack Monroe Suggesting Budget Recipes, And A Tory MP?
Jack Monroe writing about Jack Monroe? What’s The Difference Between Jack Monroe Suggesting Budget Recipes, And A Tory MP?
Lots of 'woe is me, I have it so hard' and political vitriol in there too.
Square Leg said:
Welshbeef said:
So the govt is paying for the price cap meaning all tax payers are funding it regardless of usage?
Should be happening here too.So to step up and cover all the farmers input costs and our heating and lighting costs beyond the Aug21 rate what would that be? £50-70billion?
So all up we’d be looking what £72b to £92b (guesstimates). Let’s call it £80billion.
Not to fund £80billion from income tax but only from not the poor would it be decreasing the 40% level to £35k?
pquinn said:
Jack Monroe writing about Jack Monroe?
Lots of 'woe is me, I have it so hard' and political vitriol in there too.
Perhaps yes but I suspect she knows a little more about how to survive on a budget that the likes of Eustice and many other politicians lecturing people ever will.Lots of 'woe is me, I have it so hard' and political vitriol in there too.
I'd also trust her intentions over theirs any day of the week.
bhstewie said:
hstewie said:pquinn said:
Jack Monroe writing about Jack Monroe?
Lots of 'woe is me, I have it so hard' and political vitriol in there too.
Perhaps yes but I suspect she knows a little more about how to survive on a budget that the likes of Eustice and many other politicians lecturing people ever will.Lots of 'woe is me, I have it so hard' and political vitriol in there too.
I'd also trust her intentions over theirs any day of the week.
She'd hate me. I'm an ex-public schoolboy, now corporate baby exec, and (usually) tory voter. Yet I've also done what she has, without the whinging that it's someone else's fault regarding the situation I was in.
She does have some points, but it gets lost in the vitriol. Pratchett put it much simpler with his 'theory of boots economics'
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