On the plus side, perhaps Japan's crisis will finally end any shred of belief in the ridiculous Keynesian notion that a country can spend its way out of a recession.
There's not any easy answer to this problem (except not to have run up the debts in the first place).
There is no doubt that there are a lot of people in the public sector who deliver a lot of value. However, there are also a lot of organisations and people who clearly aren't - a tidy out was long overdue.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Monument_Syndrome
Of course, managers who act this way should be the first ones kicked out...
Saying that UK public services are inefficient is one thing, probably true.
Saying that the layoffs can be confined to people who "aren't contributing anything productive" and be extension health, policing, education, research etc will not get worse at all is an entirely different thing, and I don't think it's true.
Edit: you can downvote me all you like, but that won't change the fact that the previous government ran up public sector borrowing deficits throughout the decade even whilst trumpeting their proud record of uninterrupted economic growth, and the only real disagreement in the political mainstream is over the _speed_ with which it needs to be returned to balance.
I would argue the result would be different if the investment had been in new fields if these fields went on to be useful/successful.
Particularly, I think it's a good idea for the US to invest in clean/green energy atm. This would hopefully increase the efficiency of the system as a whole as well as create jobs.