What would you like to see cut?

If you vote in any way for the Tories to remain in power, this is what you could get.

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/nhs/11290363/Hospitals-and-fire-services-to-be-run-outside-the-public-sector.html

Not what I want. I do not know about the rest of you. Actually I do know about some of you.

I do wish people would stop telling us what the rest of us 'should' be worried about.

There is an epetition on the government website to ask for a debate on the NHS.

epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/64908

It needs a lot more signatures to see if people power works.

www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=5&ved=0CD0QFjAE&url=http%3A%2F%2Faction.sumofus.org%2Fa%2Fweapons-NHS%2F&ei=CT2MVK73KMiBU7rKg-AL&usg=AFQjCNEjOhqm7M3oSvenYV7U8GY1ICqppA&bvm=bv.81828268,d.d24&cad=rja

Sumofus wasn't the only petition on the go, but enough people signed it to call for parliament to reconsider. If it had been a government epetition it would have gone to committee to decide whether it needed to be discussed in the Commons.

There is such a thing as People power, Ana. It was a billion pound contract.
You should be more worried that companies like Virgin and Serco are still taking billions from the NHS under the radar.

999 call for the NHS is trying to organise all the groups which care about the NHS into a single forum. I think this is long overdue.
I have just discovered that the first meeting is today in Darlington, so it's impossible for me to go.

www.999callfornhs.org.uk

Really? They pulled out just because of a petition? No other reason?

Forgot to mention Sumofus. Lockheed Martin have pulled out of NHS negotiations because of their petition.

Giving to charities, yes.
Does the rest produce results?

Which is why some of do not just discuss cuts on here. We lobby our MPs, sign any epetition we can, and give money to charities which are trying to do something.
Open Democracy, Child Poverty Action Group, and False Economy are just three of the groups where you can demonstrate nationally and in your own area what you think of the government cuts and the rise in food banks.

I get the impression that people at the top of the conservative, labour and liberal, are not taking the slightest bit of notice of us.
So we could sit here for 600 years discussing cuts, and it wouldnt make the slightest bit of difference.

Yes the Revenue departments are more than aware of the squillions being made by the accountancy firms who devise ever more complicated tax avoidance schemes. A lot of tax payers money is then put in to try to counter these schemes. Tax payer looses out every which way.

Here's an interesting take on the tax problem from Tax Research.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2014/12/12/why-do-we-have-tax-abuse-because-the-big-4-promote-it/

I have wondered why people from the four accountancy firms have fingers in every pie, even the NHS.

If you want politics, crun, 131 on freeview is the politics programme.
I watch it lots of the time. They show many of the committees in the Commons, which explains why not everyone is in the main house for debates.

Annie, it's a prototype because the main website is so hard to follow. It's still possible to get all the statistics, but often difficult to find what you want. This should make it easier. I tend to look at www.fullfact.org to find statistics the easy way, but they often direct you to the ONS.

I have to agree that Question Time has become less interesting over the last few years.

The woman with the blue hair was a pain in the neck and seemed to be more interested in making herself noticed than in making a valid point.

Yes annodomini, I stopped a long while ago too. I think the last straw was Anne Widdecombe talking over everyone else on the panel every time they spoke. I put it on last night because of Farage and Brand, but 5 minutes was about as much as I could stand.

A few years ago, BBC4 screened an archive debate from an election campaign about 1959(?). There were just four or five panellists debating nuclear disarmament, and there were no fatuous soundbites, no acting up to an audience of baying idiots, everyone had the courtesy to listen without interrupting....bliss!

crun, I gave up watching QT long ago because it was so completely predictable. Once I'd found out who the panellists were, I could pretty well write the script.Luckily Newsnight is on at the same time.

Yes, HS2 should be scrapped and we should withdraw from the wars we are involved in. I know the reason we are there is to protect the UK from terrorism but I think we are only making things worse. And that's without mentioning all the young people who are losing their lives.
We also need to look at people/companies who are not paying their taxes and to penalise them heavily when they are found out. My next suggestion will be unpopular but I think we should re-examine the money this country is paying in overseas aid. Bob Geldof has a lot to answer for, in my opinion, as it now seems to be politically incorrect to even think about reducing it.

I'd like to see Question Time cut, then maybe we can have some political debate instead of entertainment dressed up as political debate.

Limit it to one topic per episode, put experts in the field on the panel, put the politicians and other interested parties in the audience, and leave Joe Public at home.

That's a very interesting website durhamjen, it's a bit disarming to be greeted with the pop up telling you it's a prototype!

I don't know the roads 'oop north' but down here in the south, every blooming road is so permanently crowded that they could all do with an extra lane and that would only solve the problem for a year or so at the most. The roads are filled with speeding frustrated motorists which makes every journey so frightening that I'm stopping driving if I don't absolutely have to!

But we still need the A1 dualling, as it's dangerous as it is north of Morpeth.

The office of National Statistics has now got a new website which is supposed to be easy for anyone to use to find things out. alpha.ons.gov.uk/#!/alpha

Perhaps I should start a separate thread because I do recognise this is a bit of a diversion www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/dec/08/caroline-lucas-infrastructure-bill-british-green-policies-15bn-roads-pollution

but, Caroline Lucas feels to me like the last honest politician and the Greens, the last left wing party. Over and over again she uses her position as an MP to truly challenge the government. I've looked at this thread a few times and I have to admit my first reaction to the question 'what would you cut' was to say 'nothing, we have to fight the cuts'. We go on buying the governments line that the country is just like a housewife's purse and it's all our fault for spending beyond our means when the real culprits are the banks and bankers and the rich and well connected who evade paying their share all the way down the line (as many of you above have posted).

The article I've linked to is about us spending £15bn on the roads, the way in which this avoids building a sensible public transport infrastructure, the additional air pollution which will ensue from this policy and then goes on to point out how the government is making it watertight for fracking companies to do what they like despite our protests. It takes very little looking on the internet to see the dire effects of fracking in a country as large as the US, the health effects, the environmental damage and the silencing of protest in the face of corporate power.

It's all horribly wrong, playing into the hands of the powerful and we are like pawns in their game. Makes me so angry!

I agree, gillybob. Just 30 hours a week on minimum wage means you have to pay tax. That's far too low. That's why there are so many in-work families who have to apply for benefits.

It has to depend on how many hours they work, doesn't it?

I don't think anyone earning minimum wage should be paying tax at all.

I actually agree with you durhamjen the point I was trying to make was that the poor employees of these (corporation) tax avoiding companies do pay their taxes. They have (like the rest of us) no choice. People protesting outside these companies are not "getting at" the tax avoiders they are getting at the employees.