VIDEO: Bringing the cuts home

Here’s the winner of our cuts video contest, but judging it was tricky, with more than 40 great entries. The judges settled on five winning and commended entries, and we’ll be showing them on the big screen at the rally in Hyde Park on Saturday. If you can’t wait til then, False Economy have rounded them up on their site for a sneak preview.

25 Responses to “VIDEO: Bringing the cuts home”

  1. Andrew Westlake says:

    The ignorance of this video is staggering. If this is the best of the thinking behind the UKUNCUT brigade, there really is no hope for any of you.

    If you want to really understand what this is all about, from the inside, you need to Google “how an economy grows and why it doesn’t” by Irwin Schiff. Once you read that book (which is online as a free pdf) your illusions about economics will be dispelled.

    Until then, all of this posturing, demonstrating and bleating will not help you. Understand economics BEFORE you try and solve an economic problem!

  2. Lal says:

    Laughing at the Tory trolls hand-wringing over the child actress being ‘exploited’ for political purposes. What about the kids in Tory posters and party broadcasts?

    The vid makes a point very well, and yes, our children (I can speak with some authority here because I have one) will be saddled with massive debts through these cuts – they will have no free University, no pensions, crappy jobs with third world T&Cs and it looks like no NHS either. It’s bad enough contrasting my generation with the baby boomers and all the cash/freebies they’ve enjoyed, but God only knows what will be left for my child in 20 years.

  3. Anabel says:

    Greatest video ever :-) )
    Well done…Sharing it with everyone I know!!

  4. Hugo

    I think you need to have a look at the PCS Alternative Campaign that has inspired the March For The Alternative on Saturday 26 March 2011.

    Don’t be hoodwinked into believing that the coalition government’s programme of public spending cuts is the only way. There IS an alternative and we must force this government to think again!

    Check out the details here: http://www.pcs.org.uk/altdoc

  5. Soc says:

    Unbelievably soppy and hideously reminiscent of the Shirley Temple films of my youth. Soc.

  6. Owen says:

    The use of a child in this video is unacceptable, you should have used something emotionally inexploitative like A DYING BABY!!!

    In addition this video makes no political sense. Because obviously the coalition blew all the country’s “money”… And much of the UK public have been little better than Labour. Credit, anyone?

  7. Doddmeister says:

    I’m surprised daddy let her walk off with his chimney brush!! Thought she may of had to make her own, in light of he cut backs.

  8. Andy says:

    Wow, could this propaganda be any further from the truth.
    Labour spent all the money with their attitude of ‘the kids will pay for it” and we’re still racking up huge debts every year (and will do until at least 2016) which our kids will have to pay off. Yet still you’re claiming the attempts to reduce the deficit will make things worse. The dishonesty is simply astounding.

    • Stuart says:

      Andy,

      Stay at home and wait for the cuts to land on your doorstep.

    • simon says:

      Hi Andy. I guess you are looking at the wrong web-site if that’s your attitude. Reducing the deficit by other means is what it’s all about. Not ordering huge cuts to public spending and public services and running the risk of damaging the economy further in pursuit of some right-wing ideological drive is what it’s all about. Making the culpable pay i.e. the banks and global financial organisations that gambled with our futures is what it should be about. Why do we have to suffer for their mistakes? Making our children pay for their mistakes is wrong. Yes, Labour do have some blame in this, but at least they tried to invest in our services like education and the NHS. They overspent because they thought the revenue was going to be there, until the banks caused the economic collapse due to greed. Labour tried to improve our vital services and they put money their way after years of neglect. Under the condem government, we are going to end up with Third World public services. The poor will be poorer, workers will be working longer and for less pay and our children will be racking up huge debts if they want to get a higher education. Don’t you think something is wrong with this?

      • W says:

        OK so which is it? Is it about services and how we’ll suffer in the short term or is about burdening our kids with debts?

        Anyway, the point is also that the video paints the false picture that what’s being done today will make it worse for our kids. The fact of the matter is however that what’s being done today may be bad for *us* rather than being bad for them e.g. by reducing funding to services and such, but will in fact be good for our kids by ensuring we deal with the tremendous amounts of debt currently on public shoulders.

        You might disagree about the best way to prevent saddling the future generation with the profligacy of our generation and its banks, but it’s a false represenation to pretend that the current cuts are not an attempt to address precisely the effects of that profligacy and state we find ourselves in.

        Certainly, maintainging services in the face of falling tax revenues, thus by increasing borrowing and deficit spending, seems foolish in the extreme. It is a leap of faith that somehow the economy will recover sufficiently in the near future to allow us to repay all this extra debt before it lands on the future generation’s lap — We cannot and should not be gambling with their future.

  9. Holly Clift-Matthews says:

    Hello. I am a student doing some work for The Independent and we are looking for people willing to have their photo taken (or send us one) and answer some questions for us. You will likely be in an article in The Independent on Sunday. We are looking for sufragettes and those wearing purple and green, anyone who is disabled and joining in the protest from home, a first-time protestor, someone who is newly redundant, someone very anti-war and perhaps a child. Please feel free to contact me: hollycm1@yahoo.co.uk if you are interested in being in the paper. Thank you.

  10. Vera says:

    OMG, amazing! This is an instant share! Well done, guys.

  11. Matthew says:

    I think closing sure start centres, cutting respite care for disabled children and putting education out of the reach of thousands upon thousands of children is far more disgusting

    • Robert1 says:

      You think that the expolitation of children is in the same league as the cutting of a benefit concocted by the last labour governemnt, only a reasonably short time ago, when there was still money to spend? You should seek help, you obviously have issues!

      • Robert1 says:

        obviously I was only referring to Sure Start. Regarding the other two, education wll not be out of their reach, they will just have to pay for it like everything else. After all you would not expect the taxpayer to buy your house would you…..or perhaps you do! lol

        The cut in respite care is tragic but all benefits need to be trimmed. Its not as though it has been cancelled altogether and who sais it cannot be increased a later date (after tax cuts first of course)

      • Matthew says:

        Hi Robert,

        I don’t want to sound rude but you do realise that the child in the video is an actor? She wasn’t really forced to clean a chimney. Also the last time I checked children have been performed as actors in a wide variety of settings for a rather long time

        And yes, like most people I find the damage being done through these cuts to the children of the UK and their future far, far worse than using a child actor in a short video.

        • W says:

          Matthew, **of course** the video is fictional and the child an actor! Do you really think that Robert though the child was not an actor? Come on!

          Let me spell it out: The point Robert was making (quite correctly as far as I’m concerned) is that using child exploitation as a metaphor/analogy for what the current government is doing is well out of line, completely inappropriate and unwarranted and dangerously misrepresenatative, precisely because child exploitation is (obviously) much much worse!

          (I really must wonder how you could not understand that from what he wrote…)

          In fact, as I’ve pointed out in a prior post, it’s actually the other way round — Our children will be the ones to pay in decades to come if we dont deal with the excessive debts of today and spending excesses still present in the system (created only recently by the previous government). What exactly is the problem with curbing excessive spending that we collectively can ill afford at this point in time?

  12. Robert1 says:

    Using a child to score a political point, disgusting!

    • Sara says:

      you are taking completely out of context!!
      what’s wrong with you?? Goodness this society is getting so repressing with so many “don’t use” “don’t do” “that’s wrong” “I will sued you…” “don’t touch that..”…. tiriing

  13. camara says:

    I am a student at Dartford Grammer School and am participating in the bbc school news report. We are writing a story which will air at 2:00 on the 24th of March. I would like to use the video BRINGING HOME THE CUTS for our website. I need your permission because we need to make sure it is not copy write. please :)

    • m4ta says:

      You’re very welcome – good luck with the report!

    • Coral says:

      I think you are getting mixed-up between copyright, referencing and plagiarism. Well done on your efforts, though.

      I’m sounding pedantic in this conversation, but I don’t work in education for no reason!

  14. Hugo says:

    “Don’t burden your kids with a lifetime of debt. Oppose the cuts”

    Er, what?

    Government debt is currently increasing. Cutting government spending is the only way to stop this. Therefore it should be “Don’t burden your kids with a lifetime of debt. Support the cuts.”

  15. Jan says:

    While I totally support the campaign against the cuts, I find this video using an exploited child unacceptable.

    Children really are exploited in this way in many parts of the world and to use this analogy to ‘amuse’ is unacceptable – it is so disturbing that it doesn’t get the message across.

    Equally, many children in this country are forced to leave their parents home against their will as their parents are unable to take care of them safely – admittedly not in circumstances like this, but nevertheless it makes for uncomfortable viewing. I think making a joke of this is distasteful.

    I would suggest that you rethink your use of this material before broadcasting and causing a great deal of offence.

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