If your a regular reader of SSY you might wonder what the difference is between the three mainstream parties. Cameron says he wants cuts now, and calls for an emergency budget to do so and Labour says they will enact cuts “deeper than Thatchers. Even St Nick Clegg says he wants “savage cuts”. Cuts, deep cuts, savage cuts, it all sounds like Freddy Krueger pissed on the phone giving you abuse. Fortunately Labour MP Ronnie Campbell outlined the unique vision Labour is advancing in it’s campaign, stating

“What I say to people on the doorstep is we will only cut your throat slowly, the others will cut your head off”

This intriguing and novel method of canvassing/threatening to mutilate your own voter base aside, Ronnie, the Tories and the Liberals may all be wrong. Financial experts are predicting that in order to pay off the massive bail out of the bankers greed, head, legs, shoulders, fingers and bollocks may all need to be slashed off with a rusty razor in the name of prudent spending.

The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development predicts half a million job losses, no matter who wins, of public sector jobs – equivalent to a butchering of 10% of the workforce. The CIPD correctly say that these coming cuts are “dwarfing anything explicit in the election manifestos”.

Scotland’s share of these cuts will be brutal, with 15% of the Budget – £5.2 Billion – being cut. Cuts of this magnitude are beyond belief – they would be the equivalent of half the entire NHS budget for Scotland, and double the education budget. They would result in job losses of almost 80,000 across the public sector in Scotland. This is roughly the same to the SSP’s prediction of 100,000 jobs being lost across Scotland due to public sector cuts, because of the Scottish economies disproportionate reliance on public spending since the collapse of manufacturing; 2 thirds of all jobs in Scotland are reliant on public spending.

The lies the other parties have tried to sell are now exposed – you cannot cut double the education budget in Scotland and expect it all to be directed against faceless, backroom bureaucrats. Cuts of this nature will damage people’s health services, attack a whole generation’s education and throw hundreds of thousands of people on to the dole. Scotland will face an economic disaster that will make Thatcherism seem like a walk in the park – whoever wins. SSP economist Raphie Di Santos outlines the real alternative to cuts below,

At the same time over the last two years the government has pumped £375 billion into the banking system through bailouts and quantitative easing. Little of this has flowed back into the real economy. This figure is almost half the total public deficit. The UK banks have £560 billion in capital (cash) and £5 trillion in assets. At the same time UK banks for calendar years 2008 and 2009 have paid out £13.7 billion in bonuses. Taking these banks under full public ownership and control could wipe out the deficit entirely and act as an engine house for the creation of useful, jobs for young and old alike.

The alternative is to make the majority of the population pay for the crisis. As the Financial times pointed out on 15 April 2010 this is massive cuts. They found a short fall of £30 billion in all the three main parties target deficit levels and their proposed “savings”. This is the equivalent to 25% of spending on the NHS, halving the state pension or an extra tax of £1,100 per year on each household in the UK.

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