Comments on: Pre-budget report: not as bad as Ramsay MacDonald http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/12/09/pre-budget-report-not-as-bad-as-ramsay-macdonald/ "We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run down" - Aneurin Bevan, 1953 Mon, 28 May 2012 18:49:08 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Complaint to Dave of ‘Though Cowards Flinch’. « Frank Owen’s Paintbrush http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/12/09/pre-budget-report-not-as-bad-as-ramsay-macdonald/#comment-3914 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 22:26:26 +0000 http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/?p=1673#comment-3914 [...] By captainjako Comrade Dave of the blog ‘Though Cowards Flinch’ has written an assessment of today’s pre-budget report. He makes decent points on the good and bad aspects of [...]

]]> By: Dave Semple http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/12/09/pre-budget-report-not-as-bad-as-ramsay-macdonald/#comment-3909 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 18:18:48 +0000 http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/?p=1673#comment-3909 I mentioned the Strategic Investment Fund and I genuinely do regard it as piffling. I don’t think this is truly a move towards state planning, it is simply a government subsidy to keep high-tech work in the country. As for the green stuff, again, if there was genuine state involvement beyond mere stimulus, I might agree – but there isn’t.

What I think we should be watching is the capping of state contributions to public sector pensions; I think this is the opening gambit in a war against the public sector unions that is being set up by New Labour, to be drop-kicked home by the incoming Tory government.

]]> By: tim f http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/2009/12/09/pre-budget-report-not-as-bad-as-ramsay-macdonald/#comment-3905 Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:37:50 +0000 http://thoughcowardsflinch.com/?p=1673#comment-3905 I think that’s a very fair assessment, Dave. I think it’s also worth mentioning the measures that move towards some kind of state planning of industry (perhaps that’s a bit optimistic, but it builds on several earlier measures, indicating a weak trend), including incentives for research & development and provision of testing facilities for green energy.

I can put up with the national insurance rise given the rise in the threshold so no-one under £20,000 is worse off. Better that than cutting the public services that people on under £20,000 rely on. A 1% public sector wage rise is not good enough but much better than Tory and Lib Dem plans for a 0% rise.

HOWEVER, we do need to watch very, very carefully to see what “outsourcing prison management” means. Anyone with experience of the way G4S, Kalyx and Serco run immigration detention centres (or just looking at prison ombudsman reports) will know that abuse & suicides will go up if they’re given control of regular prisons too.

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