Cuts go from ridiculous to plain stupid.

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The government-owned Forensic Science Service, which employs 1,600 people, is to be wound up - closing by 2012.

Crime Reduction Minister James Brokenshire said the Birmingham-based service was losing about £2m a month and could run out of money in January.

Its evidence was key to the arrest of serial killer Steve Wright and in the case of missing girl Shannon Matthews.

The Prospect union, representing 1,000 FSS professionals, said the decision made a "mockery" of the justice system.

Its deputy general secretary Mike Clancy said: "Cost will now determine justice in the UK. The government is putting its faith in an untested market to deliver forensic science at a time when it has never been more important to the detection of crime."

The decision would "destroy a world-class body" that was envied by international police and lead to an over-emphasis in profits in the sector which could threaten the quality of the science, he added.

However, the FSS had faced increased private-sector competition for police contracts and Mr Brokenshire told the BBC this was enabling forces to achieve greater efficiency.

Clearly Crime-fighting is now a "for profit" enterprise? In a Dave New World, you have to pay for Blood Spatter Analysis, and if you can't afford it, you don't get it, and boom, evidence fail.
It feels a bit like I'm in the opening montage of a Dystopian thriller, where they demonstrate all the evil things that have happened to destroy the nation since "Next Sunday AD."

As someone with much family in Britain, I'm horrified by what's going on there. When will people learn that the right wing there is evil? This insidious ideology that claims that all government functions must be run for profit - the stupidest thing. Yes, the motorways must be for profit too. What nonsense. They're just bloodsuckers for the plutocracy.

While Government is not a profit driven business, they shouldn't be spending more than they take in and piling on debt. A lot of these cuts wouldn't even be happening if the debt in the UK had been dealt with earlier.

The longer the problem isn't handled the worse the problem will be and more drastic the cuts will be.

Some of these cuts I imagine may not be permanent, because if the UK pays down their debt they won't be paying as much in interest. That money could then be used to restart some of what they cut, but with more care to make sure they aren't deficit spending.

Nothing new here, then.

It's completely rubbish. I did forensics 20 years ago at uni (part of an archaeology degree) and the take up even then was woeful. The bodies of the West's victims dug up with spades! Also, I saw the severe invalidity benefit is going to be cut too, so no more independent living for those who were dependent on it. I wonder where/how the government thinks they will live?

Explain exactly how a Forensics department is supposed to "profit", except by being farmed out to a private contractor who will then be paid by government? It isn't a "For Profit" job. A lot of services are not designed to "make money". In this case it is there to serve the cause of justice, and shouldn't be cast aside just because it doesn't make money.

I remembered the Dystopian future I was thinking of. Robocop, where Law Enforcement is sold to private companies. (In that case Omni Consumer Products.) Grim.

When Cameron was announcing his Age of Austerity, articles were published about how private contractors were "salivating" over the huge profits they stood to make doing government work... each penny of profit being taken from the government during austerity! This is vampirism, this is evil.

Not to mention the fact that the private contractors that already exist in "government" jobs are generally quite poor. A4E, ATOS.. unfit for purpose, but STILL hired on regardless.

Not just the right wing, the left wing as well, and the middle wing, read some history on Benjamin Disraeli and David Llyod George, British Prime Ministers who didnt hide who really runs our country.

You mentioned motorways, well along with all the other parts of British infrastruction that has been sold off, often to foriegn firms, have a read of this article and tie it in with the above paragraph.
You might also wonder why the country is being destroyed for the purpose of the banks who continue to pay themselves huge bonuses.

From The Sunday Times
August 30, 2009
NM Rothschild pitches motorway privatisation plan
Robert Watts and Dominic O’Connell

A radical plan to raise £100 billion by privatising the motorway network has been presented to the three main political parties by NM Rothschild, the influential investment bank.

Rothschild, an architect of several privatisations, made its pitch in the weeks running up to the summer recess on July 21, Whitehall sources said. Bankers told leading politicians that the sale of the roads overseen by the Highways Agency — all motorways and most big trunk roads — could help revive battered public finances.

Toll-road companies and infrastructure funds would compete to operate and maintain stretches of the network.

In one version of the scheme, the government would pay for upkeep through a system of “shadow” tolls. A more radical, and less politically palatable, option would be for companies to charge motorists directly through toll booths or electronic card readers. The RAC Foundation, a motorists’ group, advocated privatisation in a report last week.

The Rothschild plan has already won the support of Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader and Treasury spokesman.

“This is an attractive, positive idea which could release considerable resources to the public finances and may have real environmental merits,” Cable said. “The scale of it is vast — it makes rail privatisation look like small beer.”

Theresa Villiers, the shadow transport secretary, said the Conservatives had “no plans” to back Rothschild’s proposals: “Rothschilds, like many other banks and consultancies, have approached me and my team on a range of ideas for our transport network, including their ideas for our road infrastructure, but we are not working on any proposals for privatisation of the strategic road network and have no plans to do so.”

Motorway privatisation was considered by John Major’s Conservative administration, which sold British Rail, but was rejected.

A spokesman at the Department for Transport said: “It is not unusual for organisations to suggest ideas to government departments but ultimately all policy is decided by ministers and there are no plans to sell off a stake in the Highways Agency.” Rothschild declined to comment.

The bank was behind many of the key privatisations of the 1980s and 1990s, including British Steel, British Gas and British Coal. It has close links to the Conservatives, having employed several senior Party figures including Lord Lamont, John Redwood and Lord Wakeham. Oliver Letwin, the former shadow chancellor, works there part-time.

Politicians of all Parties are seeking ways to decrease the need for large tax rises or heavy cuts in public services. The bank bailouts and a recent collapse in tax revenues has seen public sector debt rise to more than £800 billion, 56.8% of GDP — up from 35.5% just two years ago.

Road tolls are unpopular, however. When Labour mooted road pricing two years ago, more than 230,000 signed a petition on the Downing Street decrying the plan .

Theres direct action to target atos and a4e tommorow. I shall think i will be asleep in my lonely word instead.

Anyway the good news is that ukuncut have tweeted about it and theres going to be a thousand people involved. According to facebook attendance votes.

I'm aware that New Labour has been part of the problem too, but this whole contracting mania is a corrupt practice introduced in the name of Small Government as pushed by the Right Wing. The Right is driving this corrupt practice. New Labour bought into this as part of the whole There is No Alternative business and naturally were in on the corruption too - but the intellectual backing for it comes from the Right, the whole "government is the problem", the private sector does everything better nonsense.

It that way in the US too...the right wing has this idea that if there is a need, the private sector will provide for it and meanwhile al the money goes to crushing programs that benifit the poor, some programs that are the poor's only hope and then giving huge breaks for the rich. I hate that my brit friends are going into a time where money= basic access to freedoms.

I think the world is going to hell really fast with our TSA (aka police state) crisis, and your country cutting basic needs. And the global group stalking epidemic taking hold, kinda makes me wonder of there is this covert nazi take over