Cash-strapped department to make further redundancies in effort to bring soaring budget under control The Ministry of Defence is to axe a further 7,000 civilian jobs as part of the department’s desperate efforts to bring its soaring budget under control, the Guardian has learned. A letter signed by the permanent secretary, Ursula Brennan, will be sent to all staff explaining that cuts are necessary and conceding that the move “will raise questions which cannot be answered immediately”. The decision has infuriated union leaders and defence officials who say they were not consulted. They accused the department of acting in a cavalier fashion without thinking through the consequences. The move means the defence civil service, which is responsible for scrutinising contracts to ensure they do not run over budget, will have been cut by a third within nine years. Last week, the defence secretary, Liam Fox, outlined proposals to cut a further 7,000 military jobs from the army between 2015 and 2020. His statement to the Commons made no reference to civilian posts at the MoD, which are already being cut as part of last year’s strategic defence and security review (SDSR). The review outlined plans to get rid of 25,000 civil servants between now and 2015, and the fresh announcement, which could come on Friday, will add a further 7,000 to that total by 2020. The letter from Brennan, which is being circulated around Whitehall, says that the department needs to “bear down further on non-frontline costs”. “In the SDSR we planned for … a 25% reduction in the cost of civilian personnel by 2015, bringing the size of the MoD civil service down to a total of some 60,000 civilian posts,” the letter says. “As part of the package announced last week we need to make further reductions in … civilian manpower. For civilians, we will be extending the earlier planned reductions, coming down to a total of 53,000 civilians by 2020.” Brennan says she hopes that many of the job losses will be “achieved by natural wastage” and that “compulsory redundancy will only be used as a last resort”. However, the letter concludes: “We recognise that news of further staff reductions … will raise questions which cannot be answered immediately. We will let you have more news on this … over the coming months.” Union leaders said the announcement reflected “what the MoD can afford, not what it needs”. They believe the cuts could backfire with poor quality equipment being commissioned that could put the armed forces at greater risk. Steve Jary, national secretary of Prospect, the union which represents MoD civil servants, said: “A defence civil service of just 53,000 will be just half the size it was in 2005. The further cuts in civilian numbers were not mentioned in Liam Fox’s statement last week and have not been the subject of any consultation.” He added: “The MoD has consistently avoided open and detailed consultation on the changes since the SDSR was published. This is leading to a breakdown in trust; 53,000 is a totally arbitrary figure.” The saga over the MoD’s runaway budget has become one of the most difficult and enduring issues facing the coalition government. Despite all the cost cutting announced in the SDSR, there was still a substantial overspend in last year’s defence budget – estimated at more than £1bn. Officials at the MoD blamed this on the speed in which the review was undertaken, and also privately raised concerns that the government had not properly funded the reforms it wanted to make to the armed forces between now and 2020. This led to demands from the Treasury for further cost cutting. Last week Fox said the army will shrink from its present size of about 101,000 to 82,000 by 2020. The SDSR had already cut the army by 7,000 by 2015 – when troops will no longer have a combat role in Afghanistan. In return, the Treasury has promised that the armed forces will get a 1% real terms budget increase from 2015 to 2020 to help pay for the reforms. However, the Guardian has been told that this is far short of what the MoD believes it needs if it is to build the promised hi-tech Future Force 2020 . Ministry of Defence Military Nick Hopkins guardian.co.uk
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Uncertainty still rules as US political parties fail to compromise on a strategy to tackle economic crisis The White House is drawing up emergency plans for next week’s debt crisis deadline in the event that Congress fails to reach a last-gasp compromise. With only six days left, the White House dismissed as “political theatre” a new bill before the Republican-controlled House that would cut spending in return for raising the $14.3tn (£8.7tn) debt ceiling. The White House spokesman, Jay Carney, addressing the daily press conference today, said the bill was hated by the Democratic-controlled Senate and the White House and was “dead on arrival”. The Senate will not vote for it and, even if it did, Barack Obama would veto it. Fifty-one Democratic members of the Senate, a majority, published a letter pledging to vote against the House bill. Democrats in the Senate are preparing a bill of their own but the chances are Republicans in the House would vote that down too. Global markets, initially sanguine about the crisis and confident of an eventual compromise, were increasingly jittery on Thursday. There were early market falls but US stocks gained and the dollar rose during the day, buoyed by unexpectedly good unemployment figures. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, warned: “Default will rock our financial system to its core.” He expressed hope that there could still be a deal. “Magic things can happen here in Congress in a very short period of time under the right circumstances,” he said. The White House, too, expressed optimism that a compromise could be reached. Negotiations are continuing in private between the White House and senior Republicans and Democrats on a possible short-term emergency deal. But Carney admitted that, in the event there is no deal, the treasury would explain its plans in detail before 2 August. Carney said: “As we get closer to that date, the treasury will explain how it will manage a situation that is impossible.” He acknowledged for the first time that the uncertainty was already causing harm to the US economy. The White House will almost certainly make its priority paying interest on its debts so that the US does not default for the first time in its history. But the consequence could be delaying monthly payments to federal workers, soldiers and other employees, and millions of cheques to social security recipients, veterans and
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Two goldfish, named Shaggy and Daphne after characters from the animated television show Scooby Doo, have become the smallest and hardiest survivors of the devastating February earthquake in Christchurch that killed 181 people. (July 28)
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Footballer David Beckham talks about his new daughter Harper Seven and how him and Victoria would like to have more children. (28 July).
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Click here to view this media Republican presidential candidate Michele Bachmann Thursday refused to say if she thought reparative therapy could “change gay people into being straight” because it was not relevant to her campaign. “Recent reporting has revealed the clinic you co-own with your husband engages in a kind of therapy that helps people get over their homosexuality,” National Press Club president Mark Hamrick told Bachmann. “Do you believe that reparative therapy can change gay people into being straight and has any federal funding gone for your clinic?” “Well, I’m extremely proud of my husband and I have tremendous respect and admiration for him and we’ll celebrate our 33rd wedding anniversary this coming September,” Bachmann began. “But I am running for the presidency of the United States.” “My husband is not running for the presidency. Neither are my children, neither is our business, neither is our foster children,” she said. “I am more than happy to stand for questions on running for the presidency of the United States.” “To be clear, you don’t believe your personal finances are something that should be questioned by the American people?” Hamrick asked. “I am running for the presidency of the United States and I have no doubt that every jot and tittle of my life will be looked at and inspected prior to November 2012,” Bachmann replied.
Continue reading …CBS’s Schieffer Wrongfully Claims Social Security Checks Can’t Go Out Without Debt Resolution
July 28, 2011 No Comment
On three occasions between July 22 and July 26, 2011, CBS's Bob Schieffer carried water for President Obama when he echoed the Democrat's inaccurate claim about Social Security: ” Millions of Americans … may not get their next [Social Security] check if the debt ceiling crisis is not resolved .” In reality, there is enough federal revenues and authorized expenditures to pay for the program [audio clips available here ]. Schieffer gave a preview of the CBS Evening News nine minutes into the 8 am Eastern hour of the July 22, 2011 Early Show with his dire warning about Social Security: SCHIEFFER: Every month, millions of Americans depend on Social Security to support their families and make ends meet. But now, they may not get their next check, if the debt ceiling crisis is not resolved. [ Video clips below the jump ] More than ten hours later, the CBS News anchor repeated his hype about the federal program as he introduced correspondent Michelle Miller's story, which was filled to the brim with potential sob stories if the false prediction came to be. Miller included a clip of the President's own: SCHIEFFER: The late developments in Washington mean that a deal between Congress and the White House is now very much in doubt on the debt limit, and if the government does default, the people who rely on Social Security may end up being the first to get hurt . Here's Michelle Miller. MILLER (voice-over): …For 26 years, Mattie Jones worked as a nurse's assistance in south Florida….Now 69, Jones completely depends on her monthly Social Security check. JONES: $955. MILLER (off-camera): Every month? JONES: Every month. MILLER: And you live entirely off of that? JONES: Yes. MILLER (voice-over): Jones's next check and rent bill are both due August 3, the same day a debt ceiling deadlock could stop the Treasury from seconding out checks . PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3 if we haven't resolved this issue. JONES: It's scary, you know? Because you don't know what's going to happen. MILLER: Nearly 55 million people received Social Security benefits in June. That monthly check was the primary source of income for almost nine million recipients ages 65 and older. Many, like Mattie, also depend on government-funded services, like this meal plan at her local senior center. Now, her most important daily meal could be on the chopping block . But seniors aren't the only ones at risk. More than four million beneficiaries are children like ten-year-old Anthony Hines ….Anthony has autism. His mother, Claudia Pachon, is a single parent. She had to quit her full-time bank job and take part-time work, without benefits, to find time to care for her son….She gets $400 a month from Social Security to help make up the difference. PACHON: For me, losing this $400 a month is a lot. I mean, I can't- it's not an option for me. MILLER: Government money also covers the cost of Anthony's special needs school. PACHON: Everyday, you got to struggle, and I just pray that everything is going to get better, not worse. MILLER: On August 3, Pachon, Jones, and 27 million other Americans could find the system they paid into does not have the money to pay them back . Fear mongering notwithstanding, there is actually enough money to pay the checks to those who depend on Social Security. On July 8, The Weekly Standard cited a study from the Bipartisan Study Center which “projects there will be $172 billion in federal revenues in August and $307 billion in authorized expenditures. That means there's enough money to pay for, say, interest on the debt ($29 billion), Social Security ($49.2 billion), Medicare and Medicaid ($50 billion), active duty troop pay ($2.9 billion), veterans affairs programs ($2.9 billion).” As NewsBusters's Noel Sheppard noted, even left-wing hero Senator Bernie Sanders acknowledged on Ed Schultz's MSNBC show on July 13 that “you can figure out a way…[to] make sure that seniors and disabled vets get their checks….[W]e can pay Social Security.” Despite this, Schieffer took to the airwaves one more time at the beginning of the July 26 edition of CBS Evening News to trumpet that it was “one week and counting to August 2, the day the President says the government will run out of money and, among other things, will have to stop sending out Social Security checks .”
Continue reading …A health scare for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie today: He was taken to the hospital after having trouble breathing, reports the Star-Ledger . A spokesman is downplaying the severity of the problem and says Christie went “out of an abundance of caution.” The governor has asthma, the spokesman says, and…
Continue reading …Here’s something you don’t see every day: good news from the labor market. New jobless claims fell by 24,000 in the week ending on July 23, to 398,000, the Labor Department announced today. That’s the lowest level of job loss since April, and significantly better than the 415,…
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Thursday’s links take you from cushy prisons to picturesque villages. Join us, won’t you? Prison or Hotel? If Anders Breivik is convicted of carrying out the Norway twin terrorist attacks, he could end up in this prison — which is the most humane (and cushy) in the world. (TIME) Hard Bargain: Stock up on these
Continue reading …According to Amy Winehouse’s family, booze didn’t kill the singer: The lack of booze did. Family sources tell the Sun they believe she cut herself off from alcohol too quickly, giving her body a fatal “shock.” Doctors had warned her to quit drinking gradually, but instead she went cold turkey…
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