I didn’t come into politics to vote for cuts, says Russell (From Gazette)
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I didn’t come into politics to vote for cuts, says Russell
10:00am Friday 22nd October 2010 in News
COLCHESTER MP Bob Russell says he will not support any cuts in public spending put forward by the coalition Government.
Lib Dem Mr Russell described Chancellor George Osborne’s Comprehensive Spending Review announcement as thoughtful, but said he and colleagues would either oppose or abstain from a vote to push the cuts through.
He said: “I didn’t come into politics to vote for spending cuts, so I’m not going to vote for this package.”
Mr Russell questioned Mr Osborne on the cutting of housing benefits.
He suggested councils could end up spending more, if people were made homeless and were put in emergency accommodation, such as bed and breakfasts.
Mr Osborne said he believed the changes would balance the needs of the taxpayers and those in receipt of housing benefit.
Colchester Council described the results of the review, which include an average annual 7.1 per cent reduction in council grants from the Government, as not as bad as feared.
The authority has already revealed it expects to shed about 100 posts and said reviews of all its services would help cut its expenditure.
Tim Young, leader of the council’s Labour group, described the review as hard to stomach.
He said: “Colchester Council will have to have another look at its budget.”
Clacton MP Douglas Carswell fears residents in his constituency could lose out.
Tory Mr Carswell said although there was no alternative to slashing spending, he would fight for frontline services.
The backbencher said it was important the Government did not try to fix the deficit at the expense of the most vulnerable people.
He said: “My fear is because we are on the end of a peninsula in Tendring, there might be an attempt to reconfigure public services that suits certain people but not local residents.
“The most important thing is there will be no cuts to the healthcare budget. The Government promised that and I will hold it to its word on it.
“My absolute priority is to make sure people, particularly old folk who spend all their lives paying into the system, get the public services they deserve.”
Finance bosses at Tendring Council say there will be no knee-jerk reaction to funding cuts.
It will find out exactly how much it gets from Government later this year, but has been bracing itself for cuts of up to 30 per cent.
More than £800,000 has been put in a war chest to bridge any gap when the cuts come in and a recruitment freeze has been put in place.
Comments(43)
Citizen 139
says...
12:03pm Fri 22 Oct 10
micksmercs
says...
12:44pm Fri 22 Oct 10
Citizen 139 wrote:Correction, labour spent everything that we never had.
So Bob would rather see the country go bankrupt then? Labour spent everything we had.
mickkrose
says...
1:23pm Fri 22 Oct 10
Boris
says...
1:27pm Fri 22 Oct 10
For most of Thatcher's time in power, the standard rate of income tax was 30% and it then went up in steps to a top rate of 60%. I didn't quite hit the 60% rate but I certainly paid 55%, and I didn't complain, nor did others who earned more than me and who were on the top rate.
So I'd say bring back sensible rates of income tax, and keep as many people as possible in work and paying their way, not on the dole and struggling to survive on the crumbs that fall from Osborne's table.
Poacher
says...
1:40pm Fri 22 Oct 10
Successive elections pushed politics into the lower tax route, quite decisvely as I recall. People want to spend their money as they want not see Government's squander it as has been the case.
Tax revenues will play their part in the recovery, that is still to come, but in the scale of the deficit it will not have a suffuiciently large impact on closing the blackhole.
I feel uncomfortable with the levels of cut backs but Government expenditure needs to be realigned to what is affordable. The ideals that Labour set are great but in reality are unsustainable.
The under riding problem is that their are too many people. We are just overpopulated with regard to what our industries can sustain. The private sector needs to grow, on a broad front as possible, or generations to come will see levels of poverty not seen since post war years.
AndyP335
says...
3:31pm Fri 22 Oct 10
Mr Anory. Jack
says...
4:09pm Fri 22 Oct 10
"The under riding problem is that their are too many people. We are just overpopulated with regard to what our industries can sustain".
and the reason we are over populated?
Labour greeted to many cut price workers and families into our country.
The percentage of hardworking immigrants, as against non working immigrants is astounding.
I am NOT against anyone, of whatever colour, race or creed, IF, they accept the way of working and living the British way, after all, WE are British.
I have a good association with most of the councilors, and hopeful councilors, in Golf Green and surrounding areas.
The varied parties all have different outlooks on the way things should be done. But, if we talk in depth to some, the worries we dare not talk about on public mediums are horrific when talked about in private.
One such councilor hopeful, has moved (along with 1,000`s of residents) from areas such as Barking & Dagenham, simply because of traditional values now being overan in areas I mention. Residents do NOT like it! Those that stick there heads in the sand in ignoring the facts are, well, LOST!
Anna Key
says...
5:45pm Fri 22 Oct 10
Oh, and of course, well done Bob!
snoswad
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6:04pm Fri 22 Oct 10
25414nora
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8:17pm Fri 22 Oct 10
25414nora
says...
12:00am Sat 23 Oct 10
25414nora wrote:*30 pieces of silver*
I think Bob Russel is just playing to the gallery. He knows the Tory-Lib spending cuts will be forced down our throats regardless. His half hearted bleating..'I did'nt come into politics to vote for spending cuts'..is fooling no one. I think he is just laying a smokescreen, in the hope that 'we Ex Lib Dem voters' will forget that he and his party could not resist the 12 pieces of silver.
usascribe
says...
3:55am Sat 23 Oct 10
Anna Key
says...
10:10am Sat 23 Oct 10
In terms of your wider free market fundamentalist extremism, there are other questions you need to answer. You will have seen these questions on my reply to you and others on the spending cuts thread. Your failure to respond to these questions only shows that your out of date clap trap has no answer. All your ideas have been a total failure. Time to accept that and come and live in the real world.
AndyP335
says...
11:10am Sat 23 Oct 10
Sidney Harbour-Bridge
says...
11:32am Sat 23 Oct 10
Anna Key
says...
1:41pm Sat 23 Oct 10
AndyP335
says...
4:04pm Sat 23 Oct 10
Anna Key wrote:Can't say I disagree with any of that. Good luck to you, and er...to us all.
If only the need to cooperate was 'idealistic'. Instead, it will be an urgent necessity as the century progresses and we need to deal with feeding billions of extra mouths, resource scarcity and climate change. Yes, I am involved in politics, but most certainly not the irrelevance of party politics.
gabe
says...
5:28pm Sat 23 Oct 10
Boris
says...
5:58pm Sat 23 Oct 10
If some rich people flee the country, then fine, that will ease the population pressure that Jack is on about. If they are running businesses here, they can do that remotely. If they aren't, then we don't need them here anyway.
Poacher, you make an important point, there has been a race to the bottom by successive UK governments gradually reducing the standard rate (only a year or two ago the hypocritical Brown government reduced it again from 22% to 20%, while abolishing the 10% rate which benefited low earners). It is time these rates were raised again, for all of us as well as for the rich, and now is the ideal moment, while everyone understands there is a crisis. Of course this is not going to happen, though, because Cameron and Clegg would rather see millions more people unemployed now, in preparation for an artificially-enginee
red boom in 2014 which will get them re-elected in 2015.
But hats off to Bob Russell for opposing the cuts, and for continuing to be a thorn in the side of the government.
RB, Lexden
says...
7:12pm Sat 23 Oct 10
And why does Bob Russell only ever seem to express concern for the public sector?.Is it because he has spent most of his life as a public sector time server?.Bob Russell didn't come into politics to have his pay,perks and pension affected by a major economic crisis.I would be more convinced about Mr Russell's concern for the poor if he volunteered to take a fifty per cent pay cut - taking his pay down to £600 a week - to help someone less fortunate.And perhaps he should also stop travelling first class at our expense(while urging the rest of us to use cycle lanes) and he could also refund the £950 he allegedly charged taxpayers for his new boiler.Bob Russell a thorn in the side of the government?.He's part of the Coalition whether he likes it or not and instead of trying to protect his own back - which is what he is doing here - he should be doing what is best for the country and that means backing the reduction of colossal Government waste (for example : council non jobs such as 543 full time diversity officers,costing nearly £20 million in year 2009-2010 or the £21 million annual cost of 105,000 civil servants' mobile phones).
Comrade Key,get yourself a proper job and stop sponging off the capitalist system you clearly despise.
Anna Key
says...
7:47pm Sat 23 Oct 10
So are you seriously suggesting that asking the likes of the now £200,000 a week Wayne Rooney to pay a bit more towards paying off the national debt will do nothing to reduce it? Seems that you really are 'naive, ignorant and foolish.'
Boris
says...
1:50am Sun 24 Oct 10
The money markets determine how much interest the government pays. They do not care how the government balances its books, provided it balances them. Tax rises do the job better than cuts because they do not throw masses of people out of work.
BillBill
says...
10:11am Sun 24 Oct 10
RB, Lexden
says...
10:48am Sun 24 Oct 10
You tell us : "For most of Thatcher's time in power,the standard rate of income tax was 30 per cent and it then went up in steps to a top rate of 60 per cent."
For the record,Margaret Thatcher reduced the basic rate of income tax
from 33 per cent to 25 per cent and the high rate from 83 per cent to 40 per cent.
It was a vindictive Labour chancellor,Denis Healey,who introduced the punitive 83 per cent rate after vowing to "squeeze the rich until the pips squeak."
And look where that got Britain.
Wrecked and reduced to rubble by yet another incompetent left-wing government.The clapped- out,discredited,tax-
and-squander Left have nothing to offer this country - apart from big bills - and could not organise a party in a brewery.
Comrade Key - aged 41-ish,but with a mental age of fifteen - now pathetically suggests "asking the likes of the now £200,000 a week Wayne Rooney to pay a bit more towards paying off the national debt."
As if the National Debt were a trifling twenty quid bill from Tesco.
Even if Wayne Rooney were forced to hand over the entire £50 million he is expected to earn in the next five years,that still wouldn't be enough to pay off a single day's interest charge on the National Debt.That is the scale of the mess Labour has left us in .Again.
Boris,I understand your annoyance with the Daily Telegraph,the newspaper which admirably shone a bright light on MPs' expenses,including those of your mate,that shining beacon of truth and integrity,Bob "Mister Colchester" Russell.Just as a matter of interest,how long have you and he been friends?.
AndyP335
says...
11:05am Sun 24 Oct 10
JimCO1
says...
12:11pm Sun 24 Oct 10
JimCO1
says...
12:51pm Sun 24 Oct 10
Boris wrote:Boris, where did you get these figures from? They do not appear to be historically accurate. You seem to have changed history to suit your argument.
To Poacher and usascribe. As I said earlier, a 30% standard rate and a 60% top rate were accepted in the 1980s as fair and reasonable rates. In fact the top rate earlier had been 83% for earned income, and 98 % for unearned income. Those were fair rates, but I realise they would be a bit of a shock now. So I'd say go back to Thatcher's rates. If some rich people flee the country, then fine, that will ease the population pressure that Jack is on about. If they are running businesses here, they can do that remotely. If they aren't, then we don't need them here anyway. Poacher, you make an important point, there has been a race to the bottom by successive UK governments gradually reducing the standard rate (only a year or two ago the hypocritical Brown government reduced it again from 22% to 20%, while abolishing the 10% rate which benefited low earners). It is time these rates were raised again, for all of us as well as for the rich, and now is the ideal moment, while everyone understands there is a crisis. Of course this is not going to happen, though, because Cameron and Clegg would rather see millions more people unemployed now, in preparation for an artificially-enginee red boom in 2014 which will get them re-elected in 2015. But hats off to Bob Russell for opposing the cuts, and for continuing to be a thorn in the side of the government.
Anna Key
says...
1:14pm Sun 24 Oct 10
Still, no doubt we'd still hear the same old rubbish about discouraging the wealthy, because as Rooney has shown this week, £90,000 a week is apparently not enough for them. But you've got a real problem here. We've done all your deregulating, we've now had 30 plus years of your neo-liberalism, and look where it's got us. Furthermore, a question your friend from across the pond has always failed to answer - because you lot have no answer, I will ask of you (because it's fun to see you squirm, no doubt you're merely spit out more bile). Why is it that in the anarcho-capitalist utopia USA, big business is still moving out? Still relocating to south-east Asia?
The neo-liberal is responsible for capital being out of control, and the current recession is merely the start of it. As the century moves forward, with the many more crises that will occur, are you, are we as a species, really going to maintain such immaturity? The polar ice caps melt, are you really suggesting we call in Anglian water to sort it out? The billions more mouths to feed, so are you suggesting we call in Macdonalds to feed them all? What happens as oil becomes increasingly scarce? Even if you are a global warming sceptic, how do you square the fact that capitalism requires infinite expansion (an essential prerequisite of capitalist economics), within a finite space (planet earth)?
Such problems cannot be dealt with by the free market. In fact, left unchecked it's the biggest obstacle to a sustainable existence on this planet. So what we actually require are politicians who are prepared to stand up to the worst excesses of capital. If only the need to cooperate was 'idealistic'. Instead, it is becoming an urgent necessity.
Sparkfilms
says...
1:53pm Sun 24 Oct 10
£964,265,080,091
The 80 odd billion cuts over 4 years will make **** all inroads into this.
BTW - Just heard that the Finance Director ( Melvin Welton ) of the former Arts funded Screen East transferred £15,000 of our money into his personal account - the ****.
The country is in a ******* mess and I don't see much to enthuse about for the next 20 years.
Anna Key
says...
4:44pm Sun 24 Oct 10
Sparkfilms wrote:20 years? So just when we really start to worry about the shortages of oil? As said, seems the leaders of 'capitalist democracy' will have to think a bit more imaginatively than the same old, tired out, neo-liberal ideas.
At 13.42 today the national debt stood at
£964,265,080,091
The 80 odd billion cuts over 4 years will make **** all inroads into this.
BTW - Just heard that the Finance Director ( Melvin Welton ) of the former Arts funded Screen East transferred £15,000 of our money into his personal account - the ****.
The country is in a ******* mess and I don't see much to enthuse about for the next 20 years.
Boris
says...
12:00am Mon 25 Oct 10
Bear in mind that Thatcher was in power for 11 years, 1979 to 1990.
In the history section of the article, it explains as follows:
From 1979 to 1988, the top rate was 60%.
From 1979 to 1986, the standard rate was 30%, being then reduced in stages to 25% in 1988.
OK, having clarified that, now for some other points.
I applaud the Daily Telegraph. Unlike the Daily Hate Mail, it is actually a very good paper, albeit with a Tory bias. I welcomed the revelations about the MPs' expenses. Bob Russell came out of them better than most.
I have known Bob for over 30 years. For most of that time I did not speak to him. In recent years he has worked on several campaigns which I have also worked on, such as saving the bus station, saving the two secondary schools, saving various areas of open space, and saving various historic buildings. I disagree with him on certain issues, as you would expect. Overall, the more I see of Bob the more impressed I am.
Now for AndyP's point. I agree that all aspects of public spending should be reviewed. As an ecologist, I am very pleased that expansion of Stansted airport has been stopped. As a Colcestrian, I am very pleased that the wasteful "Building Schools for the Future" programme has been stopped. In this, the Labour government combined with our Tory county council and the Labour group on CBC to impose on us an obscenely wasteful programme to spend £130 million on closing two rapidly-improving schools and expanding the others to excessive size, with no net gain of school places, and aggravating our local transport problems.
Another example was the VAF, where a Labour minister, Yvette Cooper, could have ordered a public inquiry and thus (probably) halted the project. But she ignored all our representations, and authorised it.
So yes, I agree that the Labour government often spent public money foolishly. And I'm sure that more needs to be done to crack down on benefit scroungers, where these exist. Even more needs to be done to crack down on tax evaders. But the package of "cuts" includes a reduction in the numbers of HMRC staff available to perform this crackdown. So the cheats will continue to laugh in all our faces.
And Andy, I never said taxes on businesses should be increased (although there may be a case for that). What I said was that personal taxation is quite low, and that those of us who are fortunate enough to have a job or an adequate pension can afford to pay more. This is far better than throwing massive numbers of people out of work.
As the great teacher said, "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need".
Juno
says...
8:28am Mon 25 Oct 10
Despite all the fizz and huffing and puffing, the fact remains that we have an enormous deficit to be tackled, and our crisis is not less because it's financial rather than a military enemy at our shores.
Facing existing facts, existing government, and existing decisions might help, as also would pulling together in the same direction for a while.
My politics are not those of the existing coalition, but remember that we came out of a huge emergency 65 years ago and we were coalition-led at that time. Some of the decisions made then were dreadful and the consequences beyond imagining, but the end result was infinitely better than the alternative of being a defeated slave nation.
Currently journalists are correct in one supposition, which is that working together as one nation and helping each other out could make us better people as well as saving our economic bacon.
Even those who are "hard up" according to today's standards have something of value to others, be it time or expertise, strength, companionship, through to spare veg from the garden.
In the more simplistic world of 1939 we helped the single and elderly dig their shelters in the back garden, daily made sure they were ok later when the raids began, the elderly men dug gardens for the families whose men had gone to war and ensured there was at least home grown produce to eat etc etc. Enormous efforts were made to raise funds for much needed war supplies. We gave up our tea ration to make a hot drink for men on passing army convoys, and above all we did a huge amount of "make do and mend". Now, there's a thought for the wearitandthrow it mob.
In a more sophisticated but horribly much more materialistic society, can we turn back to this collective effort for survival?
AndyP335
says...
8:51am Mon 25 Oct 10
Anna Key
says...
5:12pm Mon 25 Oct 10
AndyP335
says...
5:34pm Mon 25 Oct 10
Juno
says...
5:39pm Mon 25 Oct 10
Anna Key
says...
6:31pm Mon 25 Oct 10
AndyP335 wrote:No, not at all. All depends on what things are being done.
Well, Anna, this is not really the forum for personal revelation, but since you ask: I'm not expecting anything. I'm for change, hope for better and act in that spirit. I expect the best from everyone and am warm if they succeed and candid if they fall short. I am definitely not concerned with labels or any kind of factionalism. What I'm interested in is cost-effective (ie small) government which shows strong leadership yet which facilitates - not an impossibility I believe. I'm for getting things done without the whining - which is a good way to sum up co-operation I think ?
Anna Key
says...
6:42pm Mon 25 Oct 10
In terms of your earlier point, the social policies of the war time coalition actually increased the living standards of the poor. In contrast, the social policies - or rather, the complete lack of them - of the current lot will by their own figures massively reduce the living standards of the poor.
RB, Lexden
says...
10:23pm Mon 25 Oct 10
"....what is needed is not cuts,but higher taxes ,especially income tax."
On October 23,Boris wrote :
"....a 30 per cent standard rate and a 60% top rate were accepted in the 1980s as fair and reasonable rates.....so I'd say go back to Thatcher's rates....if some rich people flee the country that's fine."
In his essay,Why Taxing The Rich Could Make Us Poorer,Dr Eamonn(correct)Butle
r,of the Adam Smith Institute,said :
"When Margaret Thatcher slashed the top rate to 40 per cent,high income earners actually paid more...the trouble with taxes is that raising them above a certain level becomes counter productive.....Denis Healey,the Labour Chancellor of the late 1970s....promised to tax the rich until the pips squeak" with rates as high as 83 per cent on income and 98 per cent on investment income.In the end,he had to ask the IMF for an embarrassing bail out."
Boris
says...
12:49am Tue 26 Oct 10
As for your point about the reduction of the top rate to 40%, I can confirm that. Under Labour, several little wheezes enabled people to pay less tax. For example, if (as I used to do at the time) you spent long spells working outside the UK, you could claim a pro-rata 25% reduction of your income tax. Denis Healey had introduced that one as an incentive to British business people to get out and sell goods and services to Johnny Foreigner. In 1988, Nigel Lawson swept those concessions away. So people like me were worse off from then onwards. That is how it came about that high earners paid more tax from then on. Nothing to do with people being galvanised by lower taxes into working harder.
Anna Key
says...
5:06pm Tue 26 Oct 10
Bing Bong
says...
1:52pm Wed 27 Oct 10
Mr Anory. Jack says...
11:29am Fri 22 Oct 10
Clacton MP Douglas Carswell fears residents in his constituency could lose out.
Tory Mr Carswell said although there was no alternative to slashing spending, he would fight for frontline services.
The backbencher said it was important the Government did not try to fix the deficit at the expense of the most vulnerable people.
He said: “My fear is because we are on the end of a peninsula in Tendring, there might be an attempt to reconfigure public services that suits certain people but not local residents.
I know our DC, he is an honourable man. Douglas stands up, in defiance of those around him at times, but stand up he does for sure.
Well done Douglas.