Apparently 1 in 10 public sector jobs are going to go over the next five years. 500,000 out of a total of 6,000,000.

According to David Hughes at the Telegraph, writing about this back in July, the “natural wastage” in the public sector runs at 6-7% a year. That’s some 400 thousand people who leave of their own accord for whatever reason every single year. By that figure, 2 million people will have gone by the end of this Parliament, and the Coalition – those evil, evil fiends – intend to replace those lost 400,000 each year with only 300,000 fresh faced newbies.

This will of course provoke hysterical screeching, threats of crippling strikes and predictions of armageddon, pensioners starving to death sitting in their own filth, children forced to sweep chimneys and, the ultimate slap in the social democratic face, communities going un-reached out to.

“We need reaching out to!” the communities will cry, but Clegg, hooded and sinister will spit back: No. No more reaching out. You’ve been reached out to enough.

They, being the victims of this nightmare, will call this period the Great Butchering and, lo, Osborne shall be known as The Tiny Wee Butcher. “Cameron” will be a name whispered in hushed tones and babies, assuming babies are still born which, let’s face it, shouldn’t be taken for granted considering the Great Butchery to come, will no longer be called David. People already called David will change their names to Saddam, just to escape the terrible, terrible stigma of being associated with The Evil One.

Yes, dark times are indeed ahead. It’s been nice knowing you all. I’m going to go stick my head in a bucket and wait for Labour to come back in to save us all.

Mind you, the public sector, at the end of the parliament, will still 5.5 million strong. It will still be hoovering up a huge chunk of the country’s wealth for many, many decades to come. In fact, there’ll still be more public sector workers by the time the Coalition is through with their cuts than there were in 1997.

Once again the Coalition is caught looking like right bastards whilst, in reality, actually doing very little at all, except that we’ll now be paying more money for even less. Perhaps I really do need that bucket, after all.

Poor Tories. I really get the sense that they’ve really tried with this one: Saving the country one billion pounds (ish) the Government will stop paying Child Benefit to higher rate taxpayers.

It’s pumping the rich for more cash, which apparently everyone’s in favour of so this news should have welcomed. Except… of course it’s not. Let us deconstruct.

First, when people say “the rich” what they mean is, “those people richer than me.” People who aren’t bankers, for example, want people who are bankers to pay more tax. People with children want people without children to pay more tax.

People want every social problem in the world fixed by the Government, and they love – absolutely love – their free money that comes from some mystical, magical source. But – and this is an important but – they want someone else to pay. I mean, what’s the point of demanding the Government fixes something if they then go and make you pay for it? Doesn’t that defeat the point (the point being you want the Government to fix it and the Government to pay for it. I mean, it’s obvious isn’t it?)

Tax is crap. Paying tax is crap. That’s the truth. The gap between what people would like to pay versus what they actually pay is huge, and in that gap are thousands and thousands of public services, including “free” schools, “free” healthcare, and “free” money. That ‘gap’ is the bit that other people are supposed to pay.

Hmm. So, okay, let me declare an interest. I don’t have children. Now, now, I understand – as long as I’ve got a box to live in and occasional bread and water that’s all I strictly need. In fact, to be honest, that box starts to look like a bit of a luxury with the country’s budget deficit being as it is. My job in this world is to be ‘other people’ because, politically, I don’t have a leg to stand on. I’m healthy. I’m capable of earning a living. I don’t have anyone to look after so I’m in real danger of living a life of decadent, hedonistic pleasure while others have bravely sacrificed their adult lives to raise the next generation like all good citizens should.

Isn’t child benefit a God Given Right? People with children have to buy more presents at Christmas! People with children need to pay more to go on holiday! It’s not fair that they should have to shoulder this burden alone! I mean, not while there’s childless people with boxes that look suspiciously spacious for their needs.

The Tories mistake today has been failing to understand this. Perhaps they actually believe they’re allowed to make some of the richer people with children, in effect, pay more tax. I’m sure someone will explain where they’ve gone wrong and, no doubt, they’ll put things right soon.

One specific way they’ve gone wrong is that a couple could earn £87k and still claim child benefit because, technically, both people fall into the basic rate band, not the higher rate band. In other words, here’s “richer people than us” getting away with it built into it from the beginning. Presumably this is about avoiding the mind-boggling costs of turning Child Benefit into a proper means tested benefit, which is the main reason Child Benefit has been a universal freebie until now. That projected saving of £1 billion begins to look a lot less juicy.

At the core of this problem is the fact that the people affected already pay a huge pile of tax. They consider child benefit a sort of rebate. I don’t have a problem with people complaining about having to pay more money to the Government, but unless they’re also complaining about Government spending and how much tax they pay then really they’ve only got themselves to blame.

This morning I’ve been attempting to uncover the rules governing the selection of Labour Party’s Shadow Cabinet – you know, that thing that David Miliband doesn’t want to be a part of.

Labour has different rules governing its behaviour during periods of opposition and periods of government. When they’re not in Government suddenly things start looking a lot more democratic with elections and the like, while in government they empower the leader to take politically useful shortcuts. Their rules say that in opposition the Shadow Cabinet must be nominated and elected by the MPs, not merely appointed by the Leader.

However, for a vote to be valid, an MP must vote for 6 men and 6 women. Ugh. Here we go again. Labour has no qualms with positive discrimination – consider how successful the tokenisation of Diane Abbott was, how Labour created the illusion that women are TOTALLY allowed to run for the leadership, thus inspiring the next generation of women and girls who look forward to being humiliated themselves one day.

By successful, you should read “abject failure”, obviously.

But then, what did we expect? Not enough MPs actually wanted to nominate Diane to stand – it was only because Labour panicked and decided that getting her on the ballot would be a cheap and easy way of demonstrating their equal rights credentials. Yet it didn’t change the underlying reality: No-one really wanted Diane Abbott because she’s a pompous, passive-agressive arsehole.

Want proof? She whinged to Polly Toynbee during the campaign that the contest was unfairly stacked against her.  David Miliband’s campaign had hundreds of thousands of pounds and a team of over 90 people, whilst hers had 2 and a half people and £1,700. This, she says, is a failure of the rules to level the playing field. Wouldn’t it have been fairer for the party to fund their campaigns, perhaps, and provide the volunteers, perhaps, so that she wouldn’t disadvantaged by the fact that people didn’t actually want her to be leader?

What a role model! What a superstar!

Far from providing a shining beacon of ‘what’s possible’, Diane was turned into a freak show and a warning. She was given a leg up through tokenism and that’s all her candidacy was ever seen as. It made things worse.

Still, no-one ever accused Labour of learning from their mistakes. Another contest, another chance to prove how “equal” they really (really) think women are.

Gordon Brown, for all his faults, was a successful Labour leader. His uncompromising ability to manipulate, control and ride the power structures within the Labour Party not only led to his Coronation (that was David Miliband’s mistake, obviously, letting people have a choice), it also allowed him to survive repeated attempts to dislodge him. Brown’s weakness was that he couldn’t translate his mastery of the Labour Party into mastery of the British People.

Great news for us, obviously. Bad news for Brown.

Ironically many Labour members and supporters love a soft, squishy, caring leader – especially one that consults and empowers them. They’re not exactly keen on these Totalitarian dictator leaders themselves, for obvious reasons, but the more oppressed, silenced and ignored they are, the better chance their leaders have of getting into power. It’s a mighty pickle, alright. That’s, perhaps, why they voted more for David. I mean, David, if nothing else, looks like he’s probably a mean, cynical bastard behind closed doors and perfectly capable of keeping Labour under control.

It’s not surprising that typical dreams of an incredible grassroots progressive movement amount to, in reality, “lots and lots of teenagers and students delivering leaflets and giving us money.”  Loyalty! Unity! Solidarity! These are all buzzwords for shut your mouth, do what you’re told and stop fucking things up for ‘everyone else’. That’s what Brown achieved (if not the ‘incredible grassroots movement’ part of the deal). He got everyone singing from the same book and everyone knew who was Boss Of Labour.

But, lo, it came to pass that Labour (well, the Unions) elected someone who, despite his Red Ed epitaph, is no wannabe Stalin. He’s cuddly. He’s soft. He cares about what you think and wants to nurture you into a squishy world of love and puppies.

The Labour Party is going to eat him alive. My prediction is that he’s not got the authority or the power to hold Labour together. Factions are going to start openly fighting with each other because, for the first time since the era of the TB-GBs, there’s no Clunking Fist keeping their more embarrassing and electorally disastrous tendencies in check.

Of course, I’d love to be wrong… but Socialism is a game for fearless ruthless hard-men with a book of “favours owed” and “secrets known”, not fresh faced newbies with hearts of gold and brains of putty.

So Ed Miliband, the Agent Of Change, has emerged triumphant. He inherits a party in Opposition at the “Tories cleaning up the mess” phase of the Labour Power Cycle and very happy about this he will be.

The calculation – that after 5 years the deficit will be fixed and, at this point, there will be no excuse for further cuts, he’ll be able to argue that the Tories and Lib Dems are a bunch of bastards and that the public should vote for him so that he can grant public sector workers more money.

I heard the news in the company of a “wannabe” Labour member who is thrilled with this news. I am too. Lovely!