Budget, GPs & Economy - Brown and Darling are incompetent and untrustworthy.

I woke up this morning to my Blackberry alerting me to three press releases, all of them were in some way critical of Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling. The first from the Press Association described how 59% of those questioned in a YouGov survey were sceptical about the Government's anti-pollution justification for taxes on motoring and flying. The survey found that most people believed that Darling's "green taxes" on flights and 4x4s (to be announced in tomorrows budget) are mainly to fill the government's coffers - not to encourage us to be greener. As George Osborne points out, this will always be public opinion if Brown and Darling do not promise to use the money collected to reduce tax in other areas.

The second news alert from George Monbiot of the Guardian accuses the Government of a "bare faced lie" over the GP opening hours saga, George says:

The government launched its campaign a year ago, with a press release published by the Department of Health. This claimed that a report by the Cabinet Office, published the same day, "reveals that nine out of 10" people polled "said they want public services, such as GP surgeries, that are open some evenings and weekends, even if that means they would sometimes be shut during the working week". This was reported verbatim by the press, but it was a complete fabrication. I have read the report. It contains no mention of this poll or anything resembling it. The terms "surgeries", "evening", "weekend" and "working week" do not occur.

George tells us of a massive survey of 2.6 million people carried out at the time of the government's press release. The government did not like the results of the survey. It found that 84% of those questioned were satisfied with the hours their GP practice was open during the last six months". These results were duly ignored and the government pressed on. The reason? Well according to George it's all to do with Business wanting to take over the 40% of the economy controlled by the state - and Gordon is finding sneaky ways to give it to them. Please read George's article, he explains all.

The third news alert (from the Independent) told how those same business leaders are losing faith in Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling's ability to run the British economy through the troubled waters ahead of us. A poll of top businessmen and women carried out by ComRes produced some exceedingly damaging results for Brown and Darling. Three quarter of those business leaders believed the Cameron/Osborne team were most able to "steer the economy through global economic turbulence." Confidence in Brown and Darling has fallen to 20 and 11 per cent respectively, whilst Cameron and Osborne's confidence ratings are at 62 and 56 per cent. Most damning of all is the fact that only 17% of those questioned thought that Darling understood business and 67% believed him to be out of his depth.

Just one more thing (because I really don't like him):

Ipsos MORI found the net satisfaction rating of Nick Clegg, was minus three points: lower than Sir Menzies Campbell (+6) and Charles Kennedy (+13) after they had led the party for two months.