Who Pays For The Deficit?

It's really quite simple.

The UK has a lot of debt, yes? We know this. We know the banks made a massive cock-up and lost loads of our (our) money, and we know that they've all been talking about how we should rectify this, how we need to stop borrowing, start saving, cut the deficit. Let's be a prosperous nation once again.

David Cameron and George Osborne had a little light-bulb moment some years ago and came up with this idea about how we might achieve this. David said, "Hey George, let's keep all the money for ourselves", and George said, "What a jolly good idea, David." And so that is what they did.

They took money out of services. Apparently, we shouldn't be spending money on services - pssh, what a waste, people don't need to be looked after! Lewisham Hospital is one thoroughly-documented example for us living in South London, but there are many other examples throughout the UK, too. Services for sick people, old people, young people, people with children, disabled people... Everyone knows someone who's been affected, unless the only people you know opt to always go private because, as they well know, "The NHS is shit!" Maybe it's shit because there's not enough money put into it, or because the money's being put into the wrong places. You can usually find the money in the blazer pocket of the dude wearing a suit. Just a guess.

When you cut money from services, people lose their jobs. Cutting back on stationery supplies isn't really going to save you money like cutting the job of someone on £25k a year, is it? That person who's just lost their job doesn't then evaporate along with their tax contribution; they still exist, they still have to feed and clothe themself (and maybe their family, too) and heat their home. And so, they go on "jobseeker's allowance", aptly titled as such because yes, they want a job. Being on jobseeker's allowance isn't fun. You have to work your way through two sets of security guards to get into the building to sign on (hey! I think I just invented a new video game!), and it's not lottery figures you're getting paid every week. It's a pittance, and you're made to feel by all the rest of the society that you are a worthless, lazy bum. Which simply is not true.

If you're on jobseeker's allowance, you might be entitled to other benefits, too: housing benefit, for one. Only, because Margaret Thatcher decided to sell off shit-loads of council property back in '80s and not build any new ones, most people live in privately rented accomodation these days, which as we all know is pretty damn expensive. Landlords can charge whatever they like, and if you're on benefits, guess who pays for that rent! Yep: the state does. The taxpayer. You, most likely.

So currently we have:

• a decline in services and quality of services,
• someone who was once paying tax now no longer paying tax,
• yet another person on benefits, and
• a chunk of those benefits going into the pocket of someone who already makes a decent sum.

They might tell you that unemployment figures are going down, but they choose not to include people out of work but not on benefits, or people put on "work schemes" or apprenticeships which pay next-to-nothing, or people forced to register as self-employed because they might find some work (not a lot, but some), or people only working part-time because something is better than nothing. And oh, this list is not exhaustive. There's more.

There's the impact cutting these services has on the people of the UK. There's the old person who sits in their own excrement for hours because no one's being paid to come and clean them. There's the graduate who sits, at the age of 21, with thousands of pounds worth of debt and no hope of a job, only of "work experience", if they're lucky. There's the parent of that student, who grew up in the '80s and has been there, done that and now has to support their adult child to get by. There's the parent who can't afford childcare and so only works part-time, or not at all. There's the child who grows up in poverty, being made to feel as though this is somehow the fault of their people; don't bother with an education, it doesn't get you anywhere.

And then there's David Cameron and George Osborne, and a few of the other lucky elite. Tax breaks for millionaires, and rich politicians charging the cost of their family holiday to France to their expenses, sending their children off to Eton and then Cambridge, hiring a personal carer for their parent when they become too old to take themself off to the toilet alone, telling us, "We're all in this together." And then they turn around and point the finger at you. Or maybe not at you, but at your immigrant neighbour who bought a new lawnmower last week (holy shit! Not a new lawnmower!), or the single mother down the road who just got pregnant again (because vaginas seem to make a habit of causing massive economic crises). Maybe it's their fault, maybe you should blame them. Blame anyone, but do not blame the twats who got us into the mess in the first place.

That's the last thing they would want you to do.