I didn't notice you had 'that the cuts should be stopped' in there too. 18-24s were the only generation that had net approval for deficit reduction being prioritised over growth. I'm one of that age group that disagrees with the statement (and Labour disagrees with them too on that), but let's not pretend that it's just opinion on the welfare state where the current generation is more economically liberal than its predecessors.

 

But yeah, they agree that governments have a duty to stop employer exploitation and that the NHS needs protecting. So does Labour. Far moreso than the Tories in that they'd actually do something about it. Just because it isn't the simplistic 'ban all zero hours contracts, legislate for a universal living wage immediately' solution (although we do have the 'just reverse it' policy for protecting the NHS) doesn't mean we have economically right wing policies.

 

Admittedly I'd never seen that poll before (and I'd question how reliable it is since it uses the terms "deficit reduction" and "growth", both of which are nebulous terms to most people outside of the chatterati), but it runs counter to that Lord Ashcroft poll a while back which asked straight-up whether people wanted 5 more years of cuts and found the majority saying no.

Edited July 18, 201411 yr by Danny

You'd pretty much expect it to be consistent across all age groups if there were that nebulous bias there though...

 

In any case, I'd question whether 'want' would've been the best word to use, given there are a lot of reluctant 'well, I don't like it but maybe it's what we need' attitudes out there on deficit reduction. Polling (up until this year I think) has always pretty consistently shown the public position's quite nuanced - even in 2012 it was never as simple as 'stop the cuts', it was always a plurality/majority saying the cuts were necessary, but also saying they were unfair, being done too quickly and done too deeply. Can't remember which party had that position though.

You'd pretty much expect it to be consistent across all age groups if there were that nebulous bias there though...

 

In any case, I'd question whether 'want' would've been the best word to use, given there are a lot of reluctant 'well, I don't like it but maybe it's what we need' attitudes out there on deficit reduction. Polling (up until this year I think) has always pretty consistently shown the public position's quite nuanced - even in 2012 it was never as simple as 'stop the cuts', it was always a plurality/majority saying the cuts were necessary, but also saying they were unfair, being done too quickly and done too deeply. Can't remember which party had that position though.

 

Sorry, I got it wrong, the question wasn't whether people wanted 5 years more of cuts, it was whether people felt it was needed. Around 40% said it was needed, compared to 60% saying either no cuts were ever needed, or that they were needed at first but aren't needed now that the economic crisis is over. The proportion among under-30s saying they weren't needed is slightly higher than the average (though not as radically different as I remembered it being). And this is at a time when the political debate is DOMINATED by people presenting it as a fact of life that cuts are needed, so just imagine what it would be like if someone actually had the guts to say something different.

 

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/up...mary-140527.pdf

 

http://lordashcroftpolls.com/wp-content/up...Full-tables.pdf

Edited July 19, 201411 yr by Danny

the country still pays out buckets of cash in interest payments, money which could be used for something useful. Instead of a blanket-cuts approach where everyone suffers, there should be serious cuts in areas that are utterly not needed by anyone, like media relations departments in councils; transferring staff to the private sector (but keeping the work to dump on the remaining staff) and then paying them a fortune for work they don't actually do; deciding to compete in the private sector to get extra cash for councils, paying a fortune to new staff to promote this, and the net result: lost jobs in the private sector and less competition.

 

This, unbelievably, (and being specific here) is not the action of a socialist council, it's the action of an insane hypocritical one...

 

Meanwhile, day centres have virtually all closed in area that has special needs for older people.

 

Sorry, I got all local there, but these actions are a response to government non-targeted cutbacks - just "we're cutting your money" instead of "you need to cut back on people not actually doing anything useful". Not going to stop job losses of course, but at least they can try and get more gainful employment, say, a supermarket check-out where a useful service is provided.