Labour Spending cuts, Ed Balls speaks!

Having gone from the ridiculous position of "Labour investment verses Tory cuts" to admitting that Labour will have to cut spending Ed Balls announced that he thinks he can save £2 billion in education. (The BBC has this here)

He does have some good suggestions, like cutting 300 staff in Whitehall who issue curriculum advice. This will have more than he thinks as well, as the rubbish they write has to be read by teachers and consumes an enormous amount of time for very little gain.

However where he is wrong is thinking that one head master can run several schools. The rational is there, because secondary head teachers used to be fairly well paid and are now ridiculously well paid, but the problem is a school needs a figure head and that is its head master/mistress. Having one super head over several schools and then a series of deputies will make a lot of schools feel rudderless.

Still, on the plus side, at least Labour no longer see our pockets as bottomless pits of cash that they can raid.

Government spending cuts

It seems the debate has moved on from the very facile "Labour investment versus Tory cuts" to the merely somewhat facile nasty Tory cuts versus Labour's caring ones.

The reality is this:

Labour have been spending money like it was water over the last 12 years and have now run out. Thing is, its our money not theirs.

They seem to have measured success less by what they have achieved and more by what they have spent. We now have the best paid doctors in the OECD and spend more per head on education than most countries in Europe to less effect.

Now up pops Lord Mandelson who claims Labour must be wise spenders not big spenders. Well, up until now they have been both big and stupid spenders.

Take for example prison policy. One day a prisoner will be released. In fact pretty much every day prisoners are released. You will bump into them. Someone was running a course on comedy in prisons. The project was cancelled when Jack Straw got to hear about it. Now ask yourself this: Could you rather an ex con told you a really good joke or mugged you?

See what I mean.

The BBC has this.

Government Education cuts!

After all the waffle and lies from Labour about "Tory cuts" and calling David Cameron Mr 10% now at least we have some truth!

Labour is cutting the funding of university teaching by £65 million.

The BBC has this!

Still, certain course can recruit more students, particularly ones teaching technology, they just can't have any more money!

Labour lies on Labour cuts

It is fascinating to watch Labour lying its head off on the spending cuts it is planning and has listed in the budget.

The thing is that the only time since the war that there was an actual spending cut in cash terms was under Labour in 1947.

I have already written about how Labour cuts will be worse that those under Margaret Thatcher.

Now Andrew Lansley has said that the Conservatives are committed to protecting spending on the NHS, schools and international development and that will mean cuts elsewhere of something like 10%.

Labour have been running around shouting "Tory cuts". The only problem is that journalists are questioning Labour over Labour cuts. That is making it harder for Labour to get away with its lying.

The BBC has this.