IN HIS Spending Review of yesterday, drawn up at a time when the capitalist crisis is deepening, with inflation rising and the banks warning of a new crash, Chancellor Osborne opted for massive cuts of up to 10% in government departments to slash a further £11.5bn from government spending
Public sector workers are to be hit very hard. They are to lose their automatic annual career progression pay rises by 2015, losing thousands of pounds, and see their pay further slashed by leaping inflation while their wage ‘rises’ continue to be held down to one per cent, a two per cent pay cut as far as the current RPI inflation rate figure is concerned.
Only the armed forces are excluded from this massive wage cutting that will pauperise millions.
Osborne the bankers man pronounced that ‘Progression pay can at best be described as antiquated; at worst, it’s deeply unfair to other parts of the public sector who don’t get it and to the private sector who have to pay for it.’
He added: ‘So we will end automatic progression pay in the Civil Service by 2015-16. And we are working to remove automatic pay rises simply for time served in our schools, NHS, prisons and police.’
Osborne is also engineering further massive job cuts in the public sector, as he unveiled his 10% budget cut for the Department for Communities and Local Government.
It, the Treasury and the Department for the Environment and Rural Affairs appear to have taken the biggest hits, with budget cuts for 2015/16 of 10%, meaning wage cuts, a closing down of many vital amenities and mass sackings. The Home Office is to be hit with cuts of 6%.
Lib-Dem Cable’s business department got off ‘lightly’ with cuts of 6%. Students did not and student bursaries for the very poor are to be frozen, excluding even more young people from university education.
The spooks of the security services, the phone tappers and internet spies, on the contrary, are to receive a 3.4% rise in spending since they are vital for the security of the state. Osborne praised their ‘heroic’ efforts to ‘defend our way of life’.
The culture department was hit for six with a 7%, cut, while the Foreign Office will be cut by 7%.
The situation however will remain grim since there is a lot more money going out of the Treasury than coming in from taxes. There is a deficit which the treasury puts at £5,000 per household.
Despite all the savage cuts up till now, revised official figures released on Friday showed that borrowing rose to £118.8bn in 2012-13, from £118.5bn the year before.
Chancellor George Osborne also still needs to tackle an £8bn black hole even after the treasury agreed 10% spending cuts with seven government departments.
In his review he reserved his special spleen for the poor, youth and immigrants.
He unveiled his welfare cap on the total amount the government spends on welfare each year, including housing benefit, disability benefit, tax credits and pensioner benefits – but excluding the state pension.
Governments breaching the cap will be censured by the Office for Budget Responsibility and have to explain their actions to Parliament.
The cap will see a sudden leap in inflation pauperise millions, with the state refusing to increase their benefits, leaving them to starve.
Jobless claimants will have to wait a week before they can register for benefit. During this week they must look feverishly for a job, and a failure to do so will mean that they are refused benefit.
On receipt of benefit they will have to report to the Job Centre weekly and any lack of application in looking for a job will be met by loss of benefit.
If claimants cannot speak English they will have to attend English language courses or lose benefit.
This tactic of starving immigrants is calculated to yield £350 million a year for the treasury.
British capitalism is going down, and is determined to drag the the working class, the youth and the poor under with it.
The only way out of this crisis for the working class is to get rid of this bankrupt capitalist system with a socialist revolution.
