War on public sector pay

David Cameron, Prime Minister, said that since taking up their new posts, his ministers had been horrified at the spending decisions taken by their predecessors.

"From the large to the small, we are going to take action to stop the very bad decisions that were taken in the dying days of the last Labour government,” he told on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show.

A source told the telegraph that cancelling the pay-outs should be seen as an “emblem” of the new coalition Government’s desire to get spending within the public sector under control.

In deed, there has been growing anger about the level of remuneration in local government – last month it came out that 31 town hall chiefs were paid more than the Prime Minister. The number picking up six-figure salaries rose by 14 per cent last year.

In the same article, Francis Maude, Cabinet Office Minister said it was right that the most highly paid civil servants "play their part" in reducing the public sector pay bill.
He added: "An effective system will reward the best performers and provide the right incentives for all to get the best for the taxpayer,"

An article in the daily mail reports similar statements.

Mr Cameron said: ‘What we’ve seen so far are just individual examples of very bad practice and frankly quite bad behaviour – spending decisions taken in the last year or so of the Labour government that no rational government would have done.
‘We’re going to take action to stop the very bad decisions that were taken in the dying days of the last Labour government.’

Both styles of language declare the same opinion and show signs of appreciation for David Cameron’s decisions.

However, the Guardian expresses different concerns. The article focuses on the future of the British economy. Indirectly agreeing with public sector pay cuts but for different reasons. The necessity of these pay cuts is clearly shown in the article:

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS) conducted a health check on the sovereign debt of countries in the developed West, it concluded: "Since the start of the financial crisis, industrial country public debt levels have increased dramatically. And they are set to continue rising for the foreseeable future."

The BIS adds: "Our projections of public debt ratios lead us to conclude that the path pursued by fiscal authorities in a number of industrial countries is unsustainable. Drastic measures are necessary to check the rapid growth of current and future liabilities of governments and reduce their adverse consequences for long-term growth and monetary stability."

And when the BIS says unsustainable it means unsustainable. Its projections for the UK, for example, show the stock of gross national debt as a proportion of gross domestic products rising ten fold in the next 30 years, from just over 50% now to 500%. Britain, according to the BIS projections, is sitting on a public debt time bomb.

After reading these articles and looking at the situation from different views, I believe David Cameron is definitely on to something. His strong will to rebalance the UK economy is good and he seems to be following the course of action he promised the public.