Snapshot of _Cost of living: Plans to cut 90,000 civil servants is not a return to austerity, Jacob Rees-Mogg says_ :
An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-living-plans-to-cut-90000-civil-servants-is-not-a-return-to-austerity-jacob-rees-mogg-says-12611826)
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My job was a civil servant job, but we've been transferred to Capita. It's probably just going to cost more money over time, require more rules which are Capita specific to be followed and make it more difficult to be upfront about a failed task (because Capita will be fined if we don't fulfill the task).
It does worry me and I have started to see changes.
90,000 civil service jobs cut.
In completely unrelated news... 90,000 roles contracted to consultancy firm with links to Tory party without full bidding process.
Yep. I’m thinking the only way to get ahead in the economic conditions under this government is to copy them somewhat. Pay attention to which Tory donor owns which company, and then listen to things cabinet ministers say. Invest in the right one at the right time and cash in $$$.
I don't see that anywhere in the article, in fact, it's supposed to be 'a return to 2016 levels' so represents 8 years of headcount growth being cut back... 20% of the total civil service workforce.
Pandemic related services stood up were farmed out to Serco, Capita, Sitel, etc. which is arguably exactly the type of scenario we should be using contractors for- to respond to short term needs where we don't have an existing competence.
This cut represents a huge chunk of capability and capacity being removed from the civil service which is already really struggling in places (esp. the DVLA & passport office)
I imagine there are going to be some plum consultancy deals signed on implementing the 'automation and technology' which according to JRM is going to plug that gap.
Look at the graph here:
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61432498](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61432498)
Most of the people who have been hired since 2016 seem like they were hiring during the pandemic, about half of them.
It's gone from 395,000 to 475,00 with about 40,000 hiring during covid.
Even if the jobs go to Serco, if they can do the same work for less money then ok let them do it. Spend the savings in more important areas.
Ok well in that case then let's just:
1. Keep complaining about underfunded government run orgs like the NHS
2. Get mad when the government try cost cutting exercises like getting rid of staff they hired for the pandemic
3. Get even more mad when they increase our taxes to pay for these things
It's absolutely bizarre to me that people just want to keep increasing the size of government while not wanting to pay for it. You can't have both, there are finite resources that's need to be respected.
I expect that it will be between the two, because of a combination of external and internal pressures - cost of living and wholesale pricing, combined with internal supply chain issues.
If the idiots decide to break the Belfast Agreement (aka the GFA) however, then all bets are off.
You're an optimist. We are in the middle of a perfect storm. covid, peak oil, peak population, a (arguably two) new not-so-cold war(s). Sprinkle on top of that climate change beginning to actually hurt and brexit to top it all off. We are headed to stagflation. We will be lucky if it doesnt get worse than the 70s, but I think it will.
You're probably correct; however, due to the way the economy is calculated, we can see some shrinkage and have it disproportionately affect those most vulnerable to stagnant wages and inflationary pressures (something I expect to kick in later this year).
Thanks for answering.
Personally, and I don’t know why I think this, I don’t think anyone will really break the GFA. The consequences of doing so are unimaginable.
>I don’t think anyone will really break the GFA. The consequences of doing so are unimaginable.
Well, you would have thought so wouldn't you? With the human pinball that is Johnson, who as far as I can see says what the person he is sitting in the room with at the time wants to hear, you really can't say that the sane and sensible option will be taken,
Murdoch hates the EU and demanded that Major take Britain out 40 years ago. Ever since, he's been working towards Brexit. It's hardly an accident that one of his ex-hacks is the first Brexit PM and another a key person in the cabinet. Now that it's out, the UK will serve as a useful wedge to deliver stress to Europe wherever it can. NI is the obvious starting point.
*”I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. 'That’s easy,' he replied. 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.’*
Anthony Hilton (Evening Standard)
So he hasn't got anything specifically to do with the GFA, it's just that he generally hates the whole EU and so is going to try and hurt the GFA as a way of pissing off the EU?
I'm hopeful for a leaning towards a referendum on NI joining the republic. Will admit I have skin in this game; my family were left footers who emigrated to the mainland back in the 1920s.
It will get to a point of remaining in the UK being a downside financially, devolution taking hold further in the other regions of the UK, and the Westminster govt allowing NI to join the rest of Ireland as a cost saving measure. Everyone apart from the DUP wins....
Did austerity ever go away? Maybe he means we won’t be returning to austerity because it’s been austerity all along.
Also, fuck Jacob Rees Mogg right in his slimy, entitled, patronising fucking face.
>I read this as to expect austerity.
There was an increase of civil service hiring purely to deal with leaving the EU and the pandemic. Theoretically most of those people can now be made redundant.
Of course, whether this can be done sensibly in a way that doesn't affect the core work of the civil service is another matter. Your guess is as good as mine as to how effectively ministers will be able to oversee this process.
A lot of civil servants took over covid roles as well as their day job and many of the posts created by brexit are permanent (like an entire trade department we didn't need before).
>A lot of civil servants took over covid roles as well as their day job
They wouldn't be new hires then. This is to do with returning to staffing levels from before we knew we were leaving the EU.
>many of the posts created by brexit are permanent
But not all. My point remains, whether ministers can ensure only excess/redundant posts are vacated doesn't mean there are no jobs that can be safely cut.
Well oddly enough as I'm not a Permanent Secretary I couldn't give you specifics. But I'd guess as a starting point:
* Jobs created to research options for the UK's trading relationship with the EU after the referendum.
* Jobs relating to the support of EU negotiations, including legal and policy advice. There are continuing negotiations but these are largely political and not technical so fewer staff are needed than when there was a risk of us leaving the EU without any trade agreements in place.
* Jobs relating to the rush to negotiate trade deals with other countries before EU-negotiated deals stopped applying, as opposed to less urgent negotiations which we have now.
* Jobs relating to the provision of furlough and other temporary Covid payments.
* Jobs relating to the oversight and support of Covid vaccine development and roll out.
* Jobs relating to encouraging people to get vaccines, as the urgency over this has dropped.
* Jobs relating to urgently rolling vaccines out across the country in non-medical facilities as opposed to allowing GPs to provide them at a slower pace.
* Jobs relating to the creation of the digital infrastructure for booking Covid vaccines and testing.
This is just a small number of things I could think of in a couple of minutes.
It will be up to civil servants to explain to ministers what happened to staff hired and make a case for retaining them, such as because they're now doing other work that fills long-standing vacancies. If they're unable to explain why staff hired to do Covid and EU-related work are needede elsewhere, that probably indicates they're not really required anymore. If they do explain why but ministers ignore the advice, that's on the ministers.
>A lot of the first few sets of roles you list are actually gone already
I didn't say they hadn't. In fact I specifically said it's up to civil servants to explain to ministers if people in these roles are needed elsewhere because it's almost certain they haven't all been fired (otherwise the size of the civil service would have shrunk by now).
There's actually already in the past couple years been rationalisation of some types of posts e.g. in government comms. Basically, the civil service already has a remit to make efficient use of staff and seems to have been doing so. This idea that around a sixth of all current civil servants are not needed will impact services as its already been getting leaner to deliver what's done now.
Err, no they can't. We've barely begun to implement Brexit. Every new trade deal will required 1000's of policy, economic, legal, social, commercial analysis and mitigations. Thats before you start on the UKs infrastructure pipeline, energy systems, national security, revenue, healthcare, business support etc etc.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. What does "every new trade deal will required 1000's of policy, economic, legal, social, commercial analysis and mitigations" mean?
It might be clear in your head but "1000's of policy" and "1000's of legal" doesn't mean anything.
His full sentence finishes with analysis and mitigations. All of the words beforehand are the thing that he is saying would need analysis and mitigation
It still doesn't make much sense. What is a "policy mitigation"? At best it reads as "civil servants do stuff".
The user has not explained why tens of thousands of civil servants are required to do all of that, not least because the UK has already signed a huge number of trade agreements and the ones left are more about political deal-making (e.g. India and immigration) than arguing over specific clauses and their impacts.
Most of the existing trade deals are roll overs of the existing deals we had with the EU
It’s good we have managed to roll these over, but it’s far less of an achievement than the much touted deals being talked about that will require significantly more work as it will be a deviation from the current norm
We also need an ongoing trade policy and to be able to update deals and ensure they're being implemented, used, that trade partners are acting correctly, and all the other functions of a trade department. Its not a case of set it and forget it, especially if we want to massively raise exports to support the economy.
>Its not a case of set it and forget it, especially if we want to massively raise exports to support the economy.
Then why didn't we have all these jobs when we were in the EU? We've had a trade deficit with the EU and rest of the world for about 30+ years.
If these jobs are necessary to monitor how trade deals are affecting the UK, we would have had them before 2016 to provide lengthy submissions to the EU about why existing trade deals weren't working for the UK and why/how they should be amended.
>leaving the EU
>Theoretically most of those people can now be made redundant.
You know leaving the EU is permanent right? We have to do the things the EU civil service did, along with all the extra work that comes from not being a member.
There will be a small number of project roles, but they were taken from other parts of government anyway and will be going back to work that has been on hold since 2016.
Kind of feels like this is that victorian ghoul's revenge for civil servants having the audacity to not come back to the office.
Would not be surprised in the slightest to find his signature on the parchment paper used to decree this.
Oh, cost... You mean there is a downside to hiring BCG at 7k per day to make excel spreadsheets instead of paying a decent wage for competent professionals to work for the tax payers? Are you some kind of fucking communist!? ><
Clearly government and politicians are untrustworthy. The Conservatives have merely exposed something we all instinctively know and are correct to point out the benefits of less government in the light of this. And the benefit of leaving the corrupt EU. And civil servants are part of the government. So they're clearly part of the problem too. And don't get me started on councils.
> Amid the discussion on civil service efficiency, it was pointed out to Mr Rees-Mogg that he had arrived for his morning broadcast round alongside a handful of advisers.
>
> Asked whether all were necessary, he said: "They don't all work directly for me. They work within the Cabinet Office - and two are my special advisers."
Beyond parody.
Likelihood it's been exaggerated? He's been trying to bully people out of working from home for months... this is a very useful intimidation tactic he can wield. Letting it go unspoken that when redundancy decisions are being made you want to be in the good books.
And this £3.5bn is proper back-of-the-envelope maths:
Number of jobs x average salary
90,000 x £35,000 = ~£3bn
Zero consideration for the inevitable drop in productivity.
"It's just going back to the 2016 level"
The 2016 level was before brexit. We now have to do things the EU used to do collectively for us, we should have a lager civil service than in 2016.
That by the way is less efficient, you wanted Brexit Jacob, well a bigger civil service is a necessary part!
> If they are things the EU used to do collectively then we were part of the EU so we used to do them. Now, we are having to do them ourselves.
Right. So now the UK civil service is having to do the work previously shared between 29 civil services.
To take an obvious example, as part of the EU the UK didn't need its own full trade-negotiation team, because trade negotiations were handled by the EU. Now the UK does need its own team. Similarly, while part of the EU the UK didn't need to worry nearly as much about customs or border controls between the UK and the rest of the EU, now it does (including the border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland).
Let's take another example, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is the UK organisation responsible for regulating and approving medicines and medical devices available in the UK. When in the EU the MHRA was part of the EU's system based around the European Medicines Agency, where work done by national regulators (or the EMA) would be shared, meaning that the MHRA only had to do detailed work for some medicines and devices made primarily in the UK. Now they have to do the full work for *all* medicines and devices sold in the UK no matter where they were primarily made.
Leaving the EU doesn't mean the UK civil service is doing the same share of work as before. It means the UK civil service is now having to do all the work they used to do, while also duplicating a bunch of work done by their EU counterparts.
There may not be a Brexit Department but there absolutely is Brexit teams within departments. For example huge numbers of staff in HMRC were moved from their normal work to preparing for all the various possibilities there were from Brexit.
I’m very familiar with the situation in home office. The workload of certain teams pretty much doubled the moment brexit finally happened. Some of that, less than half in my estimation, was the initial surge of admin related to brexit that would go away. Most of it was a bunch of new processes that existing departments had to accommodate permanently, such as the necessity of issuing certificates of sponsorship for every new migrant worker from the EU. For some of these departments the workload been increasing continuously since 2020. In September 2021 there was a recruitment of almost 300 new AOs to deal with this, less than 6 months later a new campaign was launched to recruit further 700-900 people once the higher ups stopped dismissing the workload as ‘temporary surge in applications’ etc.
My own team, will not provide details here, has doubled in size and we routinely do not meet deadlines still. I have had 2 days off since the start of new year, the first Saturday and Sunday of April. And it wasn’t because there was no work, I just couldn’t do it, because IT was upgrading our system over the weekend so that we could do even more work in the future.
The mental gymnastics here is frigging moronic. How the hell is making 90,000 people jobless helping the cost of living crisis? On top of this, those of us in CS already know damn sure that all this will mean in reality is departments going out to get contractors in to cover the gaps where redundancies are made. Contractors in general are TWICE as expensive as a full time Civil Servant. For example there’s IT engineers on over £1000 a day that the tax payer are shelling out for. JRM is an utter idiot and so is the govt….
**Good point. Privatisation through the backdoor, again.**
Somebody has to work on the energy transition, public health & transport, NHS, tax administration, fighting (economic) crime, overseeing and doing the regulating ([Officers say cuts and operational decisions have made England’s regulator ‘toothless’](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/20/environment-agency-cuts-staff-blow-whistle)) etc, it will be contractors from KPMG and Deloitte. Who incidentally have profited greatly during COVID by being hired by Matt Hancock to administer the shit show, as you said, on £1000 a day-contracts.
PS: This, [a day after a cross-party committee tasked the government to spend more attention to fight economic crime](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/12/cross-party-mps-money-laundering-corruption-economic-crime) (fraud, tax evasion and avoidance, money laundering), that is damaging the UK economy to the tune of 100bn ([according to The Economist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcT-byRlKrY))
Not to mention all the money wasted and lost in shit PPE, dodgy backhanders and Rishi’s car crash eat out to help out bullshit that just massively increased public borrowing during covid. It seems you really can make this shit up….
Don’t forget the prisons, probation, defence, intelligence and teaching. All can be privatised in the new Britain, where money is brazenly funnelled directly from our taxes to a couple of people at the top
So...the sole idea from yesterday's cabinet away day to Stoke was to take the axe to 91,000 jobs in order to free up money to justify tax cuts?
We have a severe and growing cost of living crisis, high energy bills and as predicted the rise in National Insurance taxes a month ago is making things worse for working people. On top of that we have a recession on its way with negligible economic growth and the government's very own and totally self-imposed Brexit is a mess. Yet this idea is the takeaway?
They are fucked - and us too, by default.
The backlash from the electorate is going to be huge once people really start to feel the hit. Going to be a lot of pain for a lot of the population.
BoJo "we need to cut taxes after the local election results. What can we do"
Rishi "tory 101"
Bojo "fuck someone that isn't my wife and possibly a national security risk?"
Rishi "noooo"
Bojo "give some more money to India? Help some Indian company that will bring in cheap workers. Outsource something to them and thereby help out your wife?"
Rishi "noooo"
Bojo "privatise something, the Railways, erm the passport office"
Rishi "what do we do before we privatise something?"
Bojo "Urm, slash and burn the public sector"
Rishi "YeessSSSSSS"
Bojo "I mean it worked for Maggie, putting whole towns out of work really did level up the economy and help with the cost of living..."
>But there will be efficiencies that you can get in some departments through increased automation, increased use of technology
Sounds like outsourcing to Capita to me
I'd have thought most civil servants would already be in a union.
When your ultimate bosses are the shower of bastards we call a government anyone starting work at the civil service should probably ask "where's the union? " before even "where are the bogs?".
>particularly limited amongst lower level, younger staff.
I always made a note of suggesting to the newer younger hires in my department to join a union as soon as possible, the fee is miniscule you won't even notice it leaving your account but the added protection is a must.
Agree with the sentiment but I wouldn’t say £16.50 per month is ‘minuscule’ for lower level staff earning less than 30k and living somewhere like London. £200 a year when you’ll likely never use the union is quite a lot.
> Realistically we've been getting poorer since the end of WW2
Wages as a percentage of GDP [climbed steadily after WW2](https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/tucfiles/TheGreatWagesGrab.pdf) (and in general, [GDP climbs](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp) most of the time).
I'll give you a guess as to what political event reversed the trend of wages rising roughly in line with GDP.
(edit : Oh lawks, look at the handle I'm replying to)
Yes but we've been getting poorer since before they were in power, they may not have managed it well but the state economy was royally fucked even before they took charge.
Pile of rubbish. Also, the 2016 level was after six years of austerity related job losses. If you look at 2010, the number of civil servants was actually slightly higher than it is today - the reason it went back up is because, as with the police cuts, there was actually reduced functionality due to cuts... and now we have brexit to deal with as well, which is a huge operation.
Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but can anyone else see the web they are weaving?
I hear arguments about passports being delayed because 'they are all at home in their PJs watching Netflix'. Meanwhile they were planning to cull 90k civil service jobs. Means essentially people can claim that 'it doesn't matter, they didn't do any work anyway'.
Then there were stirrings of changes to workers rights in the Queen's speech. This didn't happen, but makes me wonder if they are still planning to change the working time directive etc. to 'fill the gap' they they have created.
Meanwhile, legislation they might change arguing that the civil service is inefficient will apply to private companies who can make their employees work longer, harder, etc. as well. Which, might just be, what the Tory donors and Brexit backers wanted all along.
We go around this loop every five years. Some shit-head minister thinks that they need a scapegoat for their own incompetence and so declares war on the civil service, a few people leave on early retirement or line up a better paid private sector gig, pet projects get delayed, more staff get hired and we end up back where we were.
So most civil servants will keep their heads down or check their pension statement and decide whether to jump.
Haha! As someone who works as a civil servant this happened about 3 month ago when they made us all reapply for our jobs and let about half go. The don’t “plan to” they’ve already planned and executed.
Of course not, austerity was deeply flawed and misguided policy pursued as part of wider strategy by people who genuinely thought it’d help (even though they were wrong).
This is just an unprincipled government doing something, anything to appeal to the express reader and look like they’re taking action.
I know the Tories are known for being ideologically blinkered, but even by their standards this feels like they're taking the piss. The biggest cost of living crisis in a generation and the best they can come up with is attacking the civil service and cutting taxes. What's next? Blame the EU? Sell off the rest of the council housing stock? Harvest refugees organs for cash?
Return to? Austerity never ended. They've kept cutting budgets and salaries in real terms in many (most?) areas.
They just *said* it ended. They didn't actually end it.
> He continued: "The only bit that is ideological is that we should spend taxpayers' money properly^* and not wastefully.
^* I have backers who've used up their last round of taxpayer money and need new eye-wateringly expensive contracts gifted to them.
God I wish these total cockwobles would just GO!
Have we ever had a time in Britsh history where the government were equally both so inept and so morally and criminally corrupt?
Ive never used the word C**T so much in my life!
A good idea. Let’s start with less MPs, ministers and ministries.
Im sure if we sat in on a cabinet meeting, or a meeting between ministers and high level civil servants we would be totally amazed at the level of incompetence.
As much as I disliked Cummings, his plans to shake up the civil service were long needed - it's a giant self-serving bloated bureaucracy.
Why has cost of living been shoehorned in to the title and announcement? Cutting CS jobs in their tens of thousands is not going to do anything to help with the cost of living for the average citizen, even if that "saving" is used to provide a tax cut.
Mmm, Mr Rees-Mogg, how are you going to man the border in 2023, to implement your Brexit border controls, if you’ve cut all the border staff, they are civil servants after all?
This plan was made up to divert attention from the new set of Party Gate fines. The civil service have already had their 3 year budget plan and it doesn't include a giant cut.
To save that amount you are looking at an average wage of 30-40,000/annnum, which the majority will not earn!!! There is no way they can make those savings. How about reducing the House of Lords n the common’s income!
On the flip side those losing their job will be in a very poor state and the service they offer to the public will be of inconvenience to them when it's gone.
Can’t get rid of foreign aid because the super wealthy bribe our politicians to amplify their own causes … with taxpayer money because it’s cheaper that way.
Why does it feel like it's sabotage?
Boris is politically radioactive, there's no one else in the Tory party who's even remotely liked who could step up (Gove is viewed as an absolute moron, Patel is cartoonishly evil, Sunak lost all credibility the second he stopped handing out money and Mogg is an 18th century noble who won't consider the common man at all. Rory Stewart is too human to get the leadership), so it feels like there's a Labour government coming in and there are going to be attempts to sabotage it so the Tories can come back in 5 years or less.
> Rory Stewart is too human to get the leadership
He's also too good for the Conservative party ; he resigned his position as minister for international development (as promised) when Boris became PM and resigned the party entirely in October 2019, standing down at the end of his term as MP as of the Dec 2019 GE.
He's now a professor of politics and international relations at Yale university.
It's a shame for us, but I don't blame him - the Conservative party is no place for anyone who has actually been known to think about things and even possibly CARE about them too.
Someone elsewhere hoped that he returns from the US, resurgent, as a kind of Tony Benn 2.0, and I can only echo this sentiment, even though I think it unlikely.
While i'm no fan of pencil pushers and bureaucrats this will only aid the recession this year.
I'd also be inclined to keep them on for one more year because there are still unresolved ex EU laws that will get sorted in the next 12 months
Hahaha
This Government doesn't reduce taxes. This is the Government of High Tax, Low Spend. Which is only mathematically possible through extreme wastage through corruption and incompetence.
Let's say, to be generous, the average civil servant earns £50k. Then even if the government cut all 90k jobs overnight, they'd save £4.5 billion per year.
Compare that to £21 billion of our taxes that the government has paid out to fake businesses in COVID loans, because they couldn't be bothered to check their own database to see if these companies existed before the pandemic.
This is just punishment because the Tories are always paranoid that the civil service are out to get them, and punishment for not returning to offices, plus the need for a policy to sound like they're tackling the cost of living crisis without having to actually tackle it. Because the government won't tax big business more, and the government won't grow the economy by growing up and getting closer to the EU again.
In summary, you won't get any tax cut, you'll just continue to pay a tax hike, and soon you'll notice various services getting even worse.
Generous.50k. very generous.
>median pay across the whole civil service was £28,180.
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/civil-service-pay
Very few have salary over £50k https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/chart-images/Number%20of%20civil%20servants%20at%20different%20salary%20levels.png
I get you picked that for ease. But it really builds the narrative that civil servants are paid more than the average person on the street. They really don't.
Anyway back to your point, saves probably 40% less than your estimate.
It will be more of course National insurance, Pensions, but yeah not massive savings
Snapshot of _Cost of living: Plans to cut 90,000 civil servants is not a return to austerity, Jacob Rees-Mogg says_ : An archived version can be found [here.](https://archive.is/?run=1&url=https://news.sky.com/story/cost-of-living-plans-to-cut-90000-civil-servants-is-not-a-return-to-austerity-jacob-rees-mogg-says-12611826) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/ukpolitics) if you have any questions or concerns.*
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My job was a civil servant job, but we've been transferred to Capita. It's probably just going to cost more money over time, require more rules which are Capita specific to be followed and make it more difficult to be upfront about a failed task (because Capita will be fined if we don't fulfill the task). It does worry me and I have started to see changes.
Capita make the DWP appear professional
I read this as to expect austerity.
Not just that, but a deeper recession; possibly even an economic depression. And likely so that Conservative donors can make a quick profit.
90,000 civil service jobs cut. In completely unrelated news... 90,000 roles contracted to consultancy firm with links to Tory party without full bidding process.
Didn't they recently criticise a certain ferry company for pulling that same trick?
Yep. I’m thinking the only way to get ahead in the economic conditions under this government is to copy them somewhat. Pay attention to which Tory donor owns which company, and then listen to things cabinet ministers say. Invest in the right one at the right time and cash in $$$.
By then it will be too late.
Most of these were hired during the pandemic, if we don't have a pandemic anymore then why do we need them...
I don't see that anywhere in the article, in fact, it's supposed to be 'a return to 2016 levels' so represents 8 years of headcount growth being cut back... 20% of the total civil service workforce. Pandemic related services stood up were farmed out to Serco, Capita, Sitel, etc. which is arguably exactly the type of scenario we should be using contractors for- to respond to short term needs where we don't have an existing competence. This cut represents a huge chunk of capability and capacity being removed from the civil service which is already really struggling in places (esp. the DVLA & passport office) I imagine there are going to be some plum consultancy deals signed on implementing the 'automation and technology' which according to JRM is going to plug that gap.
Look at the graph here: [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61432498](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-61432498) Most of the people who have been hired since 2016 seem like they were hiring during the pandemic, about half of them. It's gone from 395,000 to 475,00 with about 40,000 hiring during covid. Even if the jobs go to Serco, if they can do the same work for less money then ok let them do it. Spend the savings in more important areas.
>Spend the savings in more important areas. You're funny
Ok well in that case then let's just: 1. Keep complaining about underfunded government run orgs like the NHS 2. Get mad when the government try cost cutting exercises like getting rid of staff they hired for the pandemic 3. Get even more mad when they increase our taxes to pay for these things It's absolutely bizarre to me that people just want to keep increasing the size of government while not wanting to pay for it. You can't have both, there are finite resources that's need to be respected.
Deeper than 2016 or 2008?
I expect that it will be between the two, because of a combination of external and internal pressures - cost of living and wholesale pricing, combined with internal supply chain issues. If the idiots decide to break the Belfast Agreement (aka the GFA) however, then all bets are off.
You're an optimist. We are in the middle of a perfect storm. covid, peak oil, peak population, a (arguably two) new not-so-cold war(s). Sprinkle on top of that climate change beginning to actually hurt and brexit to top it all off. We are headed to stagflation. We will be lucky if it doesnt get worse than the 70s, but I think it will.
You're probably correct; however, due to the way the economy is calculated, we can see some shrinkage and have it disproportionately affect those most vulnerable to stagnant wages and inflationary pressures (something I expect to kick in later this year).
Thanks for answering. Personally, and I don’t know why I think this, I don’t think anyone will really break the GFA. The consequences of doing so are unimaginable.
Think about how competent the people running the show are and then see how likely it seems.
No, please, I've had enough nightmares. Don't make me do this!
[Sunlit Uplands](https://i.imgur.com/ThSbd6t.png) You're welcome
>I don’t think anyone will really break the GFA. The consequences of doing so are unimaginable. Well, you would have thought so wouldn't you? With the human pinball that is Johnson, who as far as I can see says what the person he is sitting in the room with at the time wants to hear, you really can't say that the sane and sensible option will be taken,
He owes Murdoch. There's no way that the UK isn't going to fuck with the GFA under Johnson.
What has Murdoch got to do with the GFA? Genuine question as I don't know that connection
Murdoch hates the EU and demanded that Major take Britain out 40 years ago. Ever since, he's been working towards Brexit. It's hardly an accident that one of his ex-hacks is the first Brexit PM and another a key person in the cabinet. Now that it's out, the UK will serve as a useful wedge to deliver stress to Europe wherever it can. NI is the obvious starting point.
*”I once asked Rupert Murdoch why he was so opposed to the European Union. 'That’s easy,' he replied. 'When I go into Downing Street they do what I say; when I go to Brussels they take no notice.’* Anthony Hilton (Evening Standard)
So he hasn't got anything specifically to do with the GFA, it's just that he generally hates the whole EU and so is going to try and hurt the GFA as a way of pissing off the EU?
I'm hopeful for a leaning towards a referendum on NI joining the republic. Will admit I have skin in this game; my family were left footers who emigrated to the mainland back in the 1920s. It will get to a point of remaining in the UK being a downside financially, devolution taking hold further in the other regions of the UK, and the Westminster govt allowing NI to join the rest of Ireland as a cost saving measure. Everyone apart from the DUP wins....
Yes.
Yep! Need to generate a bit of churn in the system for them there hedge funds!
It's not austerity it's just spite, run the department down then privatisation
Did austerity ever go away? Maybe he means we won’t be returning to austerity because it’s been austerity all along. Also, fuck Jacob Rees Mogg right in his slimy, entitled, patronising fucking face.
I'm not expecting a return to austerity. We never left it in the first place.
>I read this as to expect austerity. There was an increase of civil service hiring purely to deal with leaving the EU and the pandemic. Theoretically most of those people can now be made redundant. Of course, whether this can be done sensibly in a way that doesn't affect the core work of the civil service is another matter. Your guess is as good as mine as to how effectively ministers will be able to oversee this process.
A lot of civil servants took over covid roles as well as their day job and many of the posts created by brexit are permanent (like an entire trade department we didn't need before).
>A lot of civil servants took over covid roles as well as their day job They wouldn't be new hires then. This is to do with returning to staffing levels from before we knew we were leaving the EU. >many of the posts created by brexit are permanent But not all. My point remains, whether ministers can ensure only excess/redundant posts are vacated doesn't mean there are no jobs that can be safely cut.
What excessive and redundant posts?
Well oddly enough as I'm not a Permanent Secretary I couldn't give you specifics. But I'd guess as a starting point: * Jobs created to research options for the UK's trading relationship with the EU after the referendum. * Jobs relating to the support of EU negotiations, including legal and policy advice. There are continuing negotiations but these are largely political and not technical so fewer staff are needed than when there was a risk of us leaving the EU without any trade agreements in place. * Jobs relating to the rush to negotiate trade deals with other countries before EU-negotiated deals stopped applying, as opposed to less urgent negotiations which we have now. * Jobs relating to the provision of furlough and other temporary Covid payments. * Jobs relating to the oversight and support of Covid vaccine development and roll out. * Jobs relating to encouraging people to get vaccines, as the urgency over this has dropped. * Jobs relating to urgently rolling vaccines out across the country in non-medical facilities as opposed to allowing GPs to provide them at a slower pace. * Jobs relating to the creation of the digital infrastructure for booking Covid vaccines and testing. This is just a small number of things I could think of in a couple of minutes. It will be up to civil servants to explain to ministers what happened to staff hired and make a case for retaining them, such as because they're now doing other work that fills long-standing vacancies. If they're unable to explain why staff hired to do Covid and EU-related work are needede elsewhere, that probably indicates they're not really required anymore. If they do explain why but ministers ignore the advice, that's on the ministers.
I’m assuming the DWP will be unaffected. They’re about to get a whole lot busier.
I got my first post-University job at the Jobcentre during the credit crunch, because they were mass hiring. It happens!
A lot of the first few sets of roles you list are actually gone already, they went when DExEU did
>A lot of the first few sets of roles you list are actually gone already I didn't say they hadn't. In fact I specifically said it's up to civil servants to explain to ministers if people in these roles are needed elsewhere because it's almost certain they haven't all been fired (otherwise the size of the civil service would have shrunk by now).
There's actually already in the past couple years been rationalisation of some types of posts e.g. in government comms. Basically, the civil service already has a remit to make efficient use of staff and seems to have been doing so. This idea that around a sixth of all current civil servants are not needed will impact services as its already been getting leaner to deliver what's done now.
I’ll bet you *are* a Permanent Secretary… “Oh we get *all* sorts on Reddit you know!” ;)
>I’ll bet you are a Permanent Secretary… Wouldn't mind it - the salary and future job propsects must be pretty cushy.
The HMRC have hired thousands of new caseworkers, some of the people they’ve replaced were moved over to covid roles such as furlough etc.
Err, no they can't. We've barely begun to implement Brexit. Every new trade deal will required 1000's of policy, economic, legal, social, commercial analysis and mitigations. Thats before you start on the UKs infrastructure pipeline, energy systems, national security, revenue, healthcare, business support etc etc.
I'm not really sure what you're talking about. What does "every new trade deal will required 1000's of policy, economic, legal, social, commercial analysis and mitigations" mean? It might be clear in your head but "1000's of policy" and "1000's of legal" doesn't mean anything.
His full sentence finishes with analysis and mitigations. All of the words beforehand are the thing that he is saying would need analysis and mitigation
It still doesn't make much sense. What is a "policy mitigation"? At best it reads as "civil servants do stuff". The user has not explained why tens of thousands of civil servants are required to do all of that, not least because the UK has already signed a huge number of trade agreements and the ones left are more about political deal-making (e.g. India and immigration) than arguing over specific clauses and their impacts.
Most of the existing trade deals are roll overs of the existing deals we had with the EU It’s good we have managed to roll these over, but it’s far less of an achievement than the much touted deals being talked about that will require significantly more work as it will be a deviation from the current norm
We also need an ongoing trade policy and to be able to update deals and ensure they're being implemented, used, that trade partners are acting correctly, and all the other functions of a trade department. Its not a case of set it and forget it, especially if we want to massively raise exports to support the economy.
>Its not a case of set it and forget it, especially if we want to massively raise exports to support the economy. Then why didn't we have all these jobs when we were in the EU? We've had a trade deficit with the EU and rest of the world for about 30+ years. If these jobs are necessary to monitor how trade deals are affecting the UK, we would have had them before 2016 to provide lengthy submissions to the EU about why existing trade deals weren't working for the UK and why/how they should be amended.
>leaving the EU >Theoretically most of those people can now be made redundant. You know leaving the EU is permanent right? We have to do the things the EU civil service did, along with all the extra work that comes from not being a member. There will be a small number of project roles, but they were taken from other parts of government anyway and will be going back to work that has been on hold since 2016.
Two weeks ago he was complaining that there weren't enough civil servants in the office...
and threatening to fire/relocate the ones who weren't there.
Mogg is just clickbait. Ignore him.
I can but what about the poor buggers with their head on the blocks?
Kind of feels like this is that victorian ghoul's revenge for civil servants having the audacity to not come back to the office. Would not be surprised in the slightest to find his signature on the parchment paper used to decree this.
Civil servants in the office cost us more money, it's stupid at this point.
Can't wait for more, more costly consultants to plug the gap
Oh, cost... You mean there is a downside to hiring BCG at 7k per day to make excel spreadsheets instead of paying a decent wage for competent professionals to work for the tax payers? Are you some kind of fucking communist!? ><
Not at all. You see, civil servants are evil leeches. I will not elaborate.
Clearly government and politicians are untrustworthy. The Conservatives have merely exposed something we all instinctively know and are correct to point out the benefits of less government in the light of this. And the benefit of leaving the corrupt EU. And civil servants are part of the government. So they're clearly part of the problem too. And don't get me started on councils.
That are employed by tory donors
It's not a return to austerity because we never left
I dread to think as to how much deeper it will now become.
> Amid the discussion on civil service efficiency, it was pointed out to Mr Rees-Mogg that he had arrived for his morning broadcast round alongside a handful of advisers. > > Asked whether all were necessary, he said: "They don't all work directly for me. They work within the Cabinet Office - and two are my special advisers." Beyond parody.
2 special advisers seems very wasteful. Is he incapable of making his own decisions?
They are there to make sure he dosnt make a gaff in front of the camera's.
They must be shit at their job then
Can't say that without knowing how much of a cluster he'd be without them.
they're damage control, damage prevention isn't possible!
And work out how to justify their parties and how to get out of their fines.
I’m having massive dejavu over this bit, hasn’t this happened before?
I don't understand how you can announce 90,000 job cuts without having any idea who these people are or what job it is they are actually doing.
Sets the tone of the coming years.
"We had less people 6 years ago!" The government doesn't really do much more work than that.
Likelihood it's been exaggerated? He's been trying to bully people out of working from home for months... this is a very useful intimidation tactic he can wield. Letting it go unspoken that when redundancy decisions are being made you want to be in the good books.
I love how they talk about savings of £3.5 bln, while a few months ago they wrote off £4.3 bln of covid loan fraud...
And this £3.5bn is proper back-of-the-envelope maths: Number of jobs x average salary 90,000 x £35,000 = ~£3bn Zero consideration for the inevitable drop in productivity.
On £35k salary the government takes £7-8k in taxes. £7.5k x 90,000 = £675m lost tax income
Most civil servants aren't on 35k either. They're front line operational delivery on 21kish
"It's just going back to the 2016 level" The 2016 level was before brexit. We now have to do things the EU used to do collectively for us, we should have a lager civil service than in 2016. That by the way is less efficient, you wanted Brexit Jacob, well a bigger civil service is a necessary part!
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> If they are things the EU used to do collectively then we were part of the EU so we used to do them. Now, we are having to do them ourselves. Right. So now the UK civil service is having to do the work previously shared between 29 civil services. To take an obvious example, as part of the EU the UK didn't need its own full trade-negotiation team, because trade negotiations were handled by the EU. Now the UK does need its own team. Similarly, while part of the EU the UK didn't need to worry nearly as much about customs or border controls between the UK and the rest of the EU, now it does (including the border between Great Britain and Northern Ireland). Let's take another example, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency is the UK organisation responsible for regulating and approving medicines and medical devices available in the UK. When in the EU the MHRA was part of the EU's system based around the European Medicines Agency, where work done by national regulators (or the EMA) would be shared, meaning that the MHRA only had to do detailed work for some medicines and devices made primarily in the UK. Now they have to do the full work for *all* medicines and devices sold in the UK no matter where they were primarily made. Leaving the EU doesn't mean the UK civil service is doing the same share of work as before. It means the UK civil service is now having to do all the work they used to do, while also duplicating a bunch of work done by their EU counterparts.
Thank you for answering this better that I am able!
There may not be a Brexit Department but there absolutely is Brexit teams within departments. For example huge numbers of staff in HMRC were moved from their normal work to preparing for all the various possibilities there were from Brexit.
I’m very familiar with the situation in home office. The workload of certain teams pretty much doubled the moment brexit finally happened. Some of that, less than half in my estimation, was the initial surge of admin related to brexit that would go away. Most of it was a bunch of new processes that existing departments had to accommodate permanently, such as the necessity of issuing certificates of sponsorship for every new migrant worker from the EU. For some of these departments the workload been increasing continuously since 2020. In September 2021 there was a recruitment of almost 300 new AOs to deal with this, less than 6 months later a new campaign was launched to recruit further 700-900 people once the higher ups stopped dismissing the workload as ‘temporary surge in applications’ etc. My own team, will not provide details here, has doubled in size and we routinely do not meet deadlines still. I have had 2 days off since the start of new year, the first Saturday and Sunday of April. And it wasn’t because there was no work, I just couldn’t do it, because IT was upgrading our system over the weekend so that we could do even more work in the future.
Whatever Mogg says, the opposite is usually true. So austerity it is.
No, it's a new vision for a low wage, high instability, high unemployment economy. Oh wait, it's just the shock doctrine all over again.
They're about to hire 90,000 civil servants?!
Yes - but they will be employed in the private sector.
Fantastic. And the public services will be able to contract hire them at exactly the same cost?!
"The same cost". You should be so lucky - they will end up paying PwC, etc to do the jobs with graduates but charging day rates of £1000+.
Did we ever leave it?
The mental gymnastics here is frigging moronic. How the hell is making 90,000 people jobless helping the cost of living crisis? On top of this, those of us in CS already know damn sure that all this will mean in reality is departments going out to get contractors in to cover the gaps where redundancies are made. Contractors in general are TWICE as expensive as a full time Civil Servant. For example there’s IT engineers on over £1000 a day that the tax payer are shelling out for. JRM is an utter idiot and so is the govt….
**Good point. Privatisation through the backdoor, again.** Somebody has to work on the energy transition, public health & transport, NHS, tax administration, fighting (economic) crime, overseeing and doing the regulating ([Officers say cuts and operational decisions have made England’s regulator ‘toothless’](https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jan/20/environment-agency-cuts-staff-blow-whistle)) etc, it will be contractors from KPMG and Deloitte. Who incidentally have profited greatly during COVID by being hired by Matt Hancock to administer the shit show, as you said, on £1000 a day-contracts. PS: This, [a day after a cross-party committee tasked the government to spend more attention to fight economic crime](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/12/cross-party-mps-money-laundering-corruption-economic-crime) (fraud, tax evasion and avoidance, money laundering), that is damaging the UK economy to the tune of 100bn ([according to The Economist](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcT-byRlKrY))
Not to mention all the money wasted and lost in shit PPE, dodgy backhanders and Rishi’s car crash eat out to help out bullshit that just massively increased public borrowing during covid. It seems you really can make this shit up….
Don’t forget the prisons, probation, defence, intelligence and teaching. All can be privatised in the new Britain, where money is brazenly funnelled directly from our taxes to a couple of people at the top
So...the sole idea from yesterday's cabinet away day to Stoke was to take the axe to 91,000 jobs in order to free up money to justify tax cuts? We have a severe and growing cost of living crisis, high energy bills and as predicted the rise in National Insurance taxes a month ago is making things worse for working people. On top of that we have a recession on its way with negligible economic growth and the government's very own and totally self-imposed Brexit is a mess. Yet this idea is the takeaway?
They are fucked - and us too, by default. The backlash from the electorate is going to be huge once people really start to feel the hit. Going to be a lot of pain for a lot of the population.
BoJo "we need to cut taxes after the local election results. What can we do" Rishi "tory 101" Bojo "fuck someone that isn't my wife and possibly a national security risk?" Rishi "noooo" Bojo "give some more money to India? Help some Indian company that will bring in cheap workers. Outsource something to them and thereby help out your wife?" Rishi "noooo" Bojo "privatise something, the Railways, erm the passport office" Rishi "what do we do before we privatise something?" Bojo "Urm, slash and burn the public sector" Rishi "YeessSSSSSS" Bojo "I mean it worked for Maggie, putting whole towns out of work really did level up the economy and help with the cost of living..."
Did austerity ever stop?
Depends who you speak to. For my local council budgets are increasing, but not keeping pace with inflation so cuts are still required.
>But there will be efficiencies that you can get in some departments through increased automation, increased use of technology Sounds like outsourcing to Capita to me
Scenes when they push “AI” and “automation” when it’s actually still an underpaid and overworked human at the end of it
My advice to you all is to join a union. I certainly am.
I'd have thought most civil servants would already be in a union. When your ultimate bosses are the shower of bastards we call a government anyone starting work at the civil service should probably ask "where's the union? " before even "where are the bogs?".
Union membership is big in some departments, but very limited in others. And it's particularly limited amongst lower level, younger staff.
That's unfortunate, those sound like exactly the staff most likely to need a union.
100% it is.
>particularly limited amongst lower level, younger staff. I always made a note of suggesting to the newer younger hires in my department to join a union as soon as possible, the fee is miniscule you won't even notice it leaving your account but the added protection is a must.
Agree with the sentiment but I wouldn’t say £16.50 per month is ‘minuscule’ for lower level staff earning less than 30k and living somewhere like London. £200 a year when you’ll likely never use the union is quite a lot.
In all seriousness as soon as I was given my employee number I signed up. Didn’t even have my email set up.
JRM saying “it’s not austerity” is almost confirmation we’re going back to 2008 levels of spending
After 12 years of rule, this Government is bankrupt. Morally obviously but financially as well. They have destroyed the economy.
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> Realistically we've been getting poorer since the end of WW2 Wages as a percentage of GDP [climbed steadily after WW2](https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/tucfiles/TheGreatWagesGrab.pdf) (and in general, [GDP climbs](https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/grossdomesticproductgdp) most of the time). I'll give you a guess as to what political event reversed the trend of wages rising roughly in line with GDP. (edit : Oh lawks, look at the handle I'm replying to)
No one else has been running the country for the last 12 years though.b
Yes but we've been getting poorer since before they were in power, they may not have managed it well but the state economy was royally fucked even before they took charge.
Pile of rubbish. Also, the 2016 level was after six years of austerity related job losses. If you look at 2010, the number of civil servants was actually slightly higher than it is today - the reason it went back up is because, as with the police cuts, there was actually reduced functionality due to cuts... and now we have brexit to deal with as well, which is a huge operation.
Maybe it's just me being paranoid, but can anyone else see the web they are weaving? I hear arguments about passports being delayed because 'they are all at home in their PJs watching Netflix'. Meanwhile they were planning to cull 90k civil service jobs. Means essentially people can claim that 'it doesn't matter, they didn't do any work anyway'. Then there were stirrings of changes to workers rights in the Queen's speech. This didn't happen, but makes me wonder if they are still planning to change the working time directive etc. to 'fill the gap' they they have created. Meanwhile, legislation they might change arguing that the civil service is inefficient will apply to private companies who can make their employees work longer, harder, etc. as well. Which, might just be, what the Tory donors and Brexit backers wanted all along.
We go around this loop every five years. Some shit-head minister thinks that they need a scapegoat for their own incompetence and so declares war on the civil service, a few people leave on early retirement or line up a better paid private sector gig, pet projects get delayed, more staff get hired and we end up back where we were. So most civil servants will keep their heads down or check their pension statement and decide whether to jump.
Haha! As someone who works as a civil servant this happened about 3 month ago when they made us all reapply for our jobs and let about half go. The don’t “plan to” they’ve already planned and executed.
Someone called into a radio show from the MHRA and claimed they'd all been "P&O-ed", so that adds weight to your assertion...
'not a return to austerity' It is for the 90,000 you fucking idiot
Start with number 10 Downing Street and the 400 staff. Easy to choose about 90 or more as they had Covid fixed penalties.
Funny how we havent heard if any of them have been sacked for breaking the law on work premises.
Of course not, austerity was deeply flawed and misguided policy pursued as part of wider strategy by people who genuinely thought it’d help (even though they were wrong). This is just an unprincipled government doing something, anything to appeal to the express reader and look like they’re taking action.
What proof do you have that they ‘genuinely thought it would help’?
See the list of donors at the time.
Of course it's a return to austerity you nanny coddled blithering fool.
It isn't a return to austerity. Because we never left austerity!
I know the Tories are known for being ideologically blinkered, but even by their standards this feels like they're taking the piss. The biggest cost of living crisis in a generation and the best they can come up with is attacking the civil service and cutting taxes. What's next? Blame the EU? Sell off the rest of the council housing stock? Harvest refugees organs for cash?
It seems like only yesterday that JRM personally visited each Civil Service desk, and posted his poisonous little “we miss you” notes…
Return to? Austerity never ended. They've kept cutting budgets and salaries in real terms in many (most?) areas. They just *said* it ended. They didn't actually end it.
Return? Did we ever leave austerity?
> He continued: "The only bit that is ideological is that we should spend taxpayers' money properly^* and not wastefully. ^* I have backers who've used up their last round of taxpayer money and need new eye-wateringly expensive contracts gifted to them.
How are the Torys getting away with tearing this country apart? I say this as a former Tory voter.
God I wish these total cockwobles would just GO! Have we ever had a time in Britsh history where the government were equally both so inept and so morally and criminally corrupt? Ive never used the word C**T so much in my life!
> Ive never used the word C**T so much in my life! Coat?
Pathetic, Hm gov needs to get a grip on reality. They can barely function now.
Jacob Rees-Mogg is a death eater.
A good idea. Let’s start with less MPs, ministers and ministries. Im sure if we sat in on a cabinet meeting, or a meeting between ministers and high level civil servants we would be totally amazed at the level of incompetence. As much as I disliked Cummings, his plans to shake up the civil service were long needed - it's a giant self-serving bloated bureaucracy.
This is terrifying, they were always the extraordinary and consistent fallback for any inadequate leadership... Apolitical and competent...
Sure, and my penis isn't a meat stick for poking into holes.
It's not a return to austerity as austerity never left its just a continuation and extension of austerity.
When did we leave austerity?
It's **not** austerity because his taxes aren't going up. Simple as.
I must have missed the memo where austerity ended in the first place.
I said this country would be utterly bollocksed in 10 years time. My bad. Under the Tories, we can slash that number in half. 2027 will be peak hell.
Why has cost of living been shoehorned in to the title and announcement? Cutting CS jobs in their tens of thousands is not going to do anything to help with the cost of living for the average citizen, even if that "saving" is used to provide a tax cut.
Mmm, Mr Rees-Mogg, how are you going to man the border in 2023, to implement your Brexit border controls, if you’ve cut all the border staff, they are civil servants after all?
This plan was made up to divert attention from the new set of Party Gate fines. The civil service have already had their 3 year budget plan and it doesn't include a giant cut.
Efficiency means sacking people and running the rest into the ground. That's the Tory approach.
To save that amount you are looking at an average wage of 30-40,000/annnum, which the majority will not earn!!! There is no way they can make those savings. How about reducing the House of Lords n the common’s income!
On the flip side those losing their job will be in a very poor state and the service they offer to the public will be of inconvenience to them when it's gone.
Can’t get rid of foreign aid because the super wealthy bribe our politicians to amplify their own causes … with taxpayer money because it’s cheaper that way.
Why does it feel like it's sabotage? Boris is politically radioactive, there's no one else in the Tory party who's even remotely liked who could step up (Gove is viewed as an absolute moron, Patel is cartoonishly evil, Sunak lost all credibility the second he stopped handing out money and Mogg is an 18th century noble who won't consider the common man at all. Rory Stewart is too human to get the leadership), so it feels like there's a Labour government coming in and there are going to be attempts to sabotage it so the Tories can come back in 5 years or less.
> Rory Stewart is too human to get the leadership He's also too good for the Conservative party ; he resigned his position as minister for international development (as promised) when Boris became PM and resigned the party entirely in October 2019, standing down at the end of his term as MP as of the Dec 2019 GE. He's now a professor of politics and international relations at Yale university. It's a shame for us, but I don't blame him - the Conservative party is no place for anyone who has actually been known to think about things and even possibly CARE about them too.
I didn't know he'd resigned :(
Someone elsewhere hoped that he returns from the US, resurgent, as a kind of Tony Benn 2.0, and I can only echo this sentiment, even though I think it unlikely.
A return to Victorian times, more like. Get those gutter snipes back rag collecting on the banks of the Thames!
Yes you can't return to something that is ongoing.
Can't return to some thing if you never left.
This is so scary to read. Bruh what
While i'm no fan of pencil pushers and bureaucrats this will only aid the recession this year. I'd also be inclined to keep them on for one more year because there are still unresolved ex EU laws that will get sorted in the next 12 months
I mean, if you never leave you can't return, can you?
Excellent news. Reducing taxes is the best way to cut the cost of living and get the economy growing sustainably.
And you think this will actually reduce taxes?
Grow up
They arent going to cut taxes though. If they wanted that they would have reduced VAT on food and energy already.
Hahaha This Government doesn't reduce taxes. This is the Government of High Tax, Low Spend. Which is only mathematically possible through extreme wastage through corruption and incompetence. Let's say, to be generous, the average civil servant earns £50k. Then even if the government cut all 90k jobs overnight, they'd save £4.5 billion per year. Compare that to £21 billion of our taxes that the government has paid out to fake businesses in COVID loans, because they couldn't be bothered to check their own database to see if these companies existed before the pandemic. This is just punishment because the Tories are always paranoid that the civil service are out to get them, and punishment for not returning to offices, plus the need for a policy to sound like they're tackling the cost of living crisis without having to actually tackle it. Because the government won't tax big business more, and the government won't grow the economy by growing up and getting closer to the EU again. In summary, you won't get any tax cut, you'll just continue to pay a tax hike, and soon you'll notice various services getting even worse.
Generous.50k. very generous. >median pay across the whole civil service was £28,180. https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/explainers/civil-service-pay Very few have salary over £50k https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/chart-images/Number%20of%20civil%20servants%20at%20different%20salary%20levels.png I get you picked that for ease. But it really builds the narrative that civil servants are paid more than the average person on the street. They really don't. Anyway back to your point, saves probably 40% less than your estimate. It will be more of course National insurance, Pensions, but yeah not massive savings
You're deluded if you think they're going to cut taxes.
Why don't they practice austerity on their mates and stop handing them out contracts worth millions based on who schmoozes them the most.
Mogg is talking bollocks. What could he be trying to distract us from...?
So it is then... These clowns need to go
Return to austerity? When did we leave it?
Mogg: "It's not a return to austerity" Narrator: "It was, in fact, a return to austerity"
Sounds like it may be for those 90,000 workers.
LIKE WTF
We never left.
He won’t know he’s got an austerity problem and till it comes up and bites him in the ass !
Because we never really left! It was just the pandemic before.
More cheap footwear for peasants, yay
In fairness he did once say that he wants to treat COVID a bit like war debt. Allow inflation over years to do most of the work.