Tyler vs....the Civil Servant

OK firstly this;

Civil servants don't pay tax. They are paid for by taxpayers. Some *think* they pay tax, like Gace Fletcher-Hackwood, but they are deluded. Or delusional. Or both. Their pay is effectively recieved net of tax, deducted at source.

A good way to spot a civil servant is the univeralsity test: Can you move abroad yet RETAIN your current employer? Anyone in the private sphere can do this. No-one in the public pay can (other than diplomates I guess, if you fancy being difficult).

Under Labour, we've seen a massive explosion in the number of civil servants. Almost a million in fact. Their levels of pay have also massively shot up, now overtaking the private sector, which has to foot the bill for them. One would think that this is a good thing - more people in work, and more Doctors/Nurses/Policemen/Teachers etc. And it would be, if Labour had actually hired proffessionals.

Its now hard to see a GP out of hours, and much of that is covered by foreigners working for private firms. Nurses are increasingly being recuited from abroad, we have about 20,000 new police over the last 10 years, but thanks to paperwork burdens the time spent actually on the beat has decreased. As for schooling, Labour spews out tractor production statistics but in real terms, we are falling down international league tables in all areas, and basic numeracy and literacy is falling.

Anyhow, back to the point. We have lots more civil servants now, mostly involved in ever increasing layers of box ticking. Labour loves targets and it's box-ticking culture, but that is only partly the reason for the explosion in their numbers.

If you are beholden to someone for your existence, and if you vote for the other guy your job may disappear, you are likely to vote for the former, right? Brown knows this, and a lot of Labour votes would go the way of the Dodo is he suddenly turned round and said thats whats going to happen.

But, unfortunately for all you civil servants out there, this is what is going to happen. The budget deficit is so huge that it will have to be cut massively under any future government. The deficit is £175bn, of which something like £110-120bn is structural (i.e. not caused by Bank bailouts or the recession directly).

The government has to cut its wage and pensions bill...so paycuts are going to happen, and I expect heavy job cuts in the civil service will also follow. Councils have already started. Just to put it into perspective, if you cut 1 million civil servants jobs, assuming they earn £30k PA, you will still only save £30bn a year. At best.

So, when all you lefties out there start crying about job losses after the election if Cameron is in charge remember this - it was Brown who created the problem in the first place.