As a midwife in Britain’s ever-expanding National Health Service, Rachel Voller has been one of many millions who have benefited from the Labour government’s decade-long spending boom.
Her pay has risen over 11 years by more than 20 percent in real terms, to £35,000, or $53,000. And she is due for a 2.5 percent increase this year.
As Britain confronts the challenge of reducing its deficit of 12 percent of gross domestic product ”” second in size only to Greece’s among European countries ”” Ms. Voller, 34, is prepared to do whatever it takes to protect her small piece of the pie.
“We work hard and struggle to make ends meet ”” but they are the ones that get the bonuses,” she said, as she and a small group of colleagues gathered in front of Royal Bank of Scotland’s headquarters in London on Monday to sneer at investment bankers and pre-emptively protest any government wage or job cuts.
Yet despite the financial meltdown and the worst recession since World War II, Britain is showing little appetite for taking a knife to a welfare state that by some measures has become the largest in Europe.
This was a pre-election budget – little hard news with another “real” budget expected after the election in 6 weeks time. Plenty of expressions of intent to reduce the deficit, but when reporters phoned government departments for details of cuts which the Chancellor claimed would come from them, few had any clued what was being talked about.
It it the usual story – Labour governments tax and borrow and expand the public sector inefficiently and end up with huge deficits. There is quite a high chance they will be booted out, and someone else will have to clear up the mess they leave.
However, with Cameron-led Conservatives expousing more and more left-wing policies, they may well leave their core vote behind.
It is all a mess.
Amen
In the modern welfare state how do you cut entitlements? They always seem to be on a one way ratchet–forever up, at least until the state goes bust.