Today Brown, Darling and the rest of Labours increasingly lowly high command are in meetings to find areas of the public sector that can be cut. Presumably (hopefully) they will be looking for areas where the cuts will have little affect and might go "unnoticed" (if this is possible). Realistically however any cuts to public services are going to be felt somewhere by someone to some extent. The politicians know that they just have to bite the bullet - there is no option.
What seems odd to me is the pleasure that the press and the majority of the public are taking in the prospect of these cuts. People and journalists, who haven't fully grasped the basics of Macro-economics, have failed to understand or forgotten that the UK government has been living in debt for as long as we can remember. A small amount of debt can be beneficial to a country. A country is not like an individual where a large amount of savings is required for prosperity.
Few would argue against the statement that the public sector investment over the last 10 years has been largely positive for this country. Classrooms are no longer closed due to leaking ceilings and waiting lists for critical treatments are now almost non-existent. And, it is of no surprise that the conservatives are in raptures over having legitimate grounds to reduce public spending. But the public, who has benefited so much from spending, should not be so eager to see cuts. So eager that most politicians now think that this will be the battle lines of the next election.Cuts need to happen. Debt must be reduced towards 40% GDP. Cuts are going to happen. Most likely they will happen before a full recovery has occurred, even though basic economic thought suggests this is counter productive and will end up costing the economy more in the long run. Cuts are going to hurt people. Most likely it will be the people at the bottom, in most need, that will suffer the most. However, cuts should not be celebrated. Rather they should be accepted, minimised where ever possible and stopped as soon as financial possible.
The Conservatives have fooled the press and the press have talked the country into a "cut for your life" mentality. Hopefully this mentality will not be in the top level meetings today.
