Osborne promises to curb deficit in five years

The Definition Of "Well Done"

..would be to fess up to the Public that the days of reckless spending must stop NOW, if they don't want to risk default.

Everybody, not just the politicos, thinks that a balanced budget "can be achieved in 2016, possibly 2015". We all know that in the year 2015 the projection for a balanced budget will be 2020.

And the default will be in 2017, probably.

paying for brenda's family

we pay shit-loads for the royal family. the £7.9m is what the taxpayer hands over directly and is the tip of a very large iceberg. there's lots more in hidden costs. for example having half the army ponce about in front of buck house all the time and the round-the-clock police protection bodyguards. the queen's flight - a fleet of jets - is paid by the raf. the navy used to meet the running costs for the now decomissioned royal yacht.

or how about prince dickhead's helicopter trips to play golf/visit the girlfriend/go to the theatre/get to a polo match. in air force and army choppers, not his own. then there's all the grace and favour real estate in knightsbridge for the flunkeys and other hangers-on. plus all the fucking castles and palaces. why do they need so many? we pay for all that too. the royals don't even pay council tax.

oh, they also own lots and lots of land. just about everyone in cornwall pays rent one way or another to prince charles. that keeps him supplied with servants to squeeze his toothpaste (not a euphemism). the money from the dutchy of cornwall supposedly makes him "self-supporting" and he pays taxes on that income. fine. but if we didn't have a duke of cornwall, people wouldn't be paying ground rent to keep chaz and camilla in the lap of luxury. the same goes with all the money raised from the crown estates which goes into brenda's handbag. it's still money that comes out of our pockets and into theirs. the only difference the government doesn't hand it over as a clearly identified expense.

Little People

...sucking money off in small amounts can kill a state's finances. That is exactly what happened in Greece. They jacked up pensions to crazy levels and reduced retirement age to something like 50 and that killed them financially.

The "rich"/big euro countries came to their rescue, but what happens if these "rich"/big states are in trouble ? There is nobody who could save Britain and Spain defaulting at the same time. Britons and Spainards would simply have to accept that all their bank savings are wiped out, effectively. Probably the state would also help itself with stock accounts and other deposited securities.

You want that ? Go on doing deficit spending and it will happen sooner or later !

@Rogerborg

"I see the grown ups are back in charge "

Not quite fair.

Pop quiz

Which party (when in power) would order the Bank of England to cut interest rates prior to a general election to trigger a personal credit boom and "Feel good factor" to get re-elected

3 times in a row.

I suspect that historically setting a *legal* minimum wage and giving the BoE independence may be two ( of a *very* short) list of *real* Labor party achievements of the last administration.

I would not include the £12.7 Bn (originally c£5Bn) NHS IT (some of which is good but *so* interlinked with a *lot* of rubbish), the massive schools and hospitals PFI programmes (IIRC creating £40Bn of assets with £60Bn of *taxpayers* money), and a couple of massively expensive and it would seem futile foreign wars on that list.