Can we find new jobs for all the unemployed?Here’s what I think ... spending cuts

Y OUR correspondents writing on the need for Government cuts seem to be blaming either the previous Government or the bankers.

The reality is that both are to blame.

The Labour Government was spending money that it did not have a long time before the recession hit. The need to rescue the banks after their irresponsible lending was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

But still the Government did not stop spending as was demonstrated by the unprecedented action of senior civil servants who wrote to Cabinet Ministers in the last few weeks of the Labour Government warning them about the ongoing levels of spending. We are all aware of the note left by Liam Burns the outgoing Treasury Minister warning his successor that there was no money left.

Of course it is right to condemn the bonuses that bankers are paying themselves – it’s as immoral as the increase from £90,000 a week to £250,000 that Wayne Rooney is being paid.

But these bonuses started during the life of the previous Government who should have included watertight conditions as part of the bank bail out to stop their payment.

The challenge to the current Government is to rectify the mess that we are in and loss of jobs in the public sector is essential.

During the 10 years up to 2009 the Government created 849,000 public sector jobs and 911,000 private sector jobs. You do not need a degree in economics to realise that this ratio of almost 1:1 cannot be sustained.

During the recession of 2008/2009 jobs in the private sector decreased while those in the public sector increased.

The private sector would have seen a far higher level of job losses if it had not been for employees agreeing to job share/reducing hours/taking unpaid leave in an attempt to ensure their firms continued trading.

In considering where job losses must occur the obvious start has to be the industry of “telling us all what we can and cannot do in our lives” – an industry which probably accounts for 50 per cent of the new public sector jobs in the last 10 years.

So let us do away with those who ban conkers, stop egg and spoon races, make you walk during a pancake race, topple head stones in cemeteries, issue reprimands if you order black coffee, stop you holding brain storming sessions, ban harmless children’s books such as Noddy – the list is endless. But the major issue is those who are employed in delivering senseless training, those employed in media to protect their bosses, all those who produce and deliver equality and diversity training to protect people who in many instances do not want protection.

These are the people that need to go in the public sector which I am sure would be a great relief to those frontline staff who could be left to get on with the valuable job of serving the public without continually looking over their shoulders.

The challenge this Government faces is to repeat the record of the John Major Government who from 1991-1997 shed 800,000 public sector jobs and replaced them with 1,700,000.

Mike Barrow, Keynsham.

WHILE we were all absorbing the cuts that will no doubt change many lives for the worse, the European Union voted in a 5.9 per cent increase in their budget. All arranged without a single vote from us who will be funding it!

Let’s leave the undemocratic organisation before it sinks under its own weight. Why trade with Europe only when we could trade with the whole of the rest of the world? The up and coming markets are India, Brazil and China whereas the European states are all broken and not in a position to trade with anyone. I endorse what I heard someone say – Love Europe, hate the EU.

Dean Stonehill, Address supplied.

REFERRING to the letter from Mary Martin, she is absolutely right in saying that “senior citizens are reassured that the winter fuel payments and free bus pass will remain”.

What has not been said is that the Spending Review has stated that it is only over 75s who have that reassurance. Nothing is said of those pensioners who are aged 65 to 74

What about those pensioners ?

David White, Knowle.