Editorial

Both public and private sector bodies are warning the coalition government today to scale-back the austerity measures proposed to address the UKs public sector deficit esimtated to be £926.9billion or 63.9% of GDP, with accountancy firm BDO warning that confidence amongst businesses "had been hammered in recent weeks".

The Trade Union Congress is meeting today to agree, a "general strike" by the various unions representing public sector workers, with recent strikes in London involving, train, postal, and government staff at various departments, all underlining the simmering of deep discontent and anger at the proposed 20-30% cuts across the board.

There are no easy remedies, local government in the capital is bloated, in many cases inefficient and costly, the government is correct to want deep cuts here.  In the police force in London, the London Daily News is aware of proposed cuts of around 30-40% affecting call centres, and frontline police staff, again this is the right way. Why is the "norm" for pensioned off police staff to be re-employed being paid a salary and receiving a police pension? The Labour government allowed the public sector to grow without demanding accountability to the taxpayer and real evidence of value to the local population.  The private sector on the other hand, under Labour was over-legislated, de-incentivised to take risks and create employment, and was demoted to a second-tier.  

What we need is wealth creation, not over-paid public servants.  We need people who revitalise parts of the economy through trade and not government subsidy.  We need to work ourselves out of the recession, and not via quantitative easing and house price inflation.  
London has been the centre of the world for banking, engineering, advertising and music, the government must stand by the side of businesses who will invest in people who will pay tax, and who will contribute to the economy.  This is surely the only to way to address the deficit, increasing our income and cutting the wasteful public sector.  How can it be right that council officers in many of the capitals local authorities are being paid over £150,000 for doing what?  

Moreover its time the "honeymoon" enjoyed by many working in the public sector is drawn to an end, with the reality that the economy cannot cope with this type of drain on the finances of the taxpayer.