The Axe falls over Britain........cuts in public spending.

Does any one actually care what is happening in this country today??
Has anyone thought about the effect these spending cuts will have on the poorest people? Seems not, most people are too busy moralising about the ‘scroungers’ and benefit fraud and congratulating themselves on electing a government who is going to ‘crack down on cheats’.

Well here’s another way of looking at it, think about these statistics taken from the governments own statistics website;

http://www.statistics.gov.uk/

01% population own 21% of wealth 
05% population own 40% of wealth
10% population own 53% of wealth
25% population own 72% of wealth
50% population own 93% of wealth.

And then consider this;
THE POOREST 50% OF POPULATION SHARE ONLY 7% OF THE WEALTH
AND IT’S THOSE 50% OF POPULATION WHO OWN ONLY 7% OF THE WEALTH WHO ARE BEING TARGETED BY THE MASSIVE PUBLIC SPENDING CUTS.
Undoubtedly some of 50% of the population (who own only 7% of the wealth) ARE actually defrauding the system. BUT………….what they gain still doesn’t take them out of the poorest wealth owning group. The amounts they are defrauding the system is PEANUTS compared to the vast wealth held in the hands of the few. One of the worse aspects of this whole scenario is the determination of our government to return to the Victorian distinctions between the  ‘deserving poor’ and the ‘undeserving poor’, our society left these attitudes behind 150 years ago and now we are being driven back there.

SO………..my question to our government and to those who support them is. Alongside these savage cuts, what are you going to do to ensure a more egalitarian society and a better distribution of wealth? AND………if the poor are going to have to sacrifice so much, where are the plans to claw back some of the deficit from the rich?

The government is not targeting the rich; they are targeting, specifically, the disabled;

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/politics/postcards-from-the-edge-1.1062035##

Analysis: Tom Gordon,

Scottish Political Editor
17 Oct 2010
After months of speculation, the Chancellor will finally rise in the Commons this week to announce the Coalition’s Spending Review, lifting the lid on a Pandora’s box of brutal cuts unlike any seen in Britain since the 1920s…………………………………….
Already we know some £66bn will be cut from public services by 2016, and around £20bn extra raised in tax. It will be an unprecedented upheaval that will leave few untouched.
The recent furore over changes to child benefit revolved around savings of just £1bn. To find the other £65bn, Osborne will need to bulldoze the public sector landscape.
Swathes of benefits will be cut, new charges such as tuition fees imposed, quangos ignited, funding for beloved institutions slashed, the military shrunk, and thousands of public-sector jobs lost, with inevitable knock-on effects for the rest of the economy.

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/8068568/Spending-review-To-cut-with-principle-is-the-right-approach.html

Some of the biggest cuts are going to be to the welfare budget. It has already been announced that child benefit will cease to be universal. The benefit will no longer be paid for any child over 16. There will be a radical shake-up of social housing, including an end to the right to stay in the same council house for life.
The guiding principle behind them seems to be the reintroduction of the distinction between the “deserving” and the “undeserving” poor.
The Coalition is going to target Disability Allowance: the aim is to force 400,000 of those claiming that benefit back into paid employment.

http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/38941

The Government’s proposed welfare reforms will see 3.5 million disabled people lose over £9.2 billion of critical support by 2015 pushing them further into poverty and closer to the fringes of society, according to "Destination Unknown" - a new report published by the think tank Demos.
Plans to move disabled people onto Job Seekers Allowance will account for half (£4.87 billion) of these losses.
Although actual spending cut details would only be available after the government publishes its spending review later on this month, based on government announcements until now, Demos has calculated that:
• Families with disabled children to lose over £3,000 each by 2015
* Couples where one partner acts as a carer to their disabled partner will lose more than £3,000 as a couple each by 2015
* Individuals moved from Incapacity Benefit to Job Seekers Allowance will lose nearly £9,000 each by 2015

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4e7946a2-d2ff-11df-9ae9-00144feabdc0.html

People with disabilities will have lost a total of more than £9bn in income by the end of this parliament, even ahead of any further benefit cuts in the spending review, according to Demos, the think-tank, and Scope, the disabled people’s charity.
The loss of income – which adds up to more than £3,000 by 2015 for some families – is the result of the benefit cuts already made in the Budget, plus plans to move existing claimants on incapacity benefit to either the new employment and support allowance, or jobseeker’s allowance, which requires them to look for work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/oct/17/george-osborne-spending-review-cuts

Osborne is expected to outline £83bn of cuts, the most drastic reductions in state spending since the second world war. The detailed impact of the cuts became clearer today as the Observer revealed reductions of around 30% to the justice system, involving cuts to the legal aid budget and the closure of 150 courts.