Wednesday will show us just how low Gordon Brown and his puppet Chancellor, Alistair Darling, are willing to stoop. If Darling really wants to save the economy, he has no choice but to cut spending and/or introduce major tax increases.Alistair has already leaked to the press (leaks are OK when they're doing the leaking) that he is going to cut £15bn from Whitehall spending. Wow £15bn, sounds a lot doesn't it? It is, but unfortunately it is just a drop in the ocean compared to the likely to be announced borrowing figure of £160bn. Not only that, but these cuts are planned in for 2010-2012 (i.e. after the general election). Obviously this means that Brown and Darling are in fact cutting absolutely, positively nothing. They won't make cuts before an election and they most definitely will not raise taxes. They will put their jobs before economy and country, all for a few more years feeding at the trough.
I think it's pretty obvious that if this were to be the first budget of a new term in office, then any Chancellor worth their salt would be both cutting spending and raising taxes. They are betting that they can just hang on to power if they don't make the real cuts needed - or raise taxes sufficiently. It's a win-win situation: If their do nothing (before the election) policy works, then they get a few more years in power, but if they lose the general election, all the debt is David Cameron's problem. It's the last throw of the dice, and Labour are willing to gamble with our lives.
What I want to know is: if Whitehall is inefficient to the tune of £15bn, why can't these cuts be made now? And perhaps more importantly - why have they been allowed to become so massively inefficient? Why has nothing been done before now? I think you know why.
Maybe Labour's cheerleader J.K. Rowling has been helping write the budget: Alistair Darling and the budget of imaginary cuts.
4 comments:
The £15bn figure is a load of hogwash. It's going to be saved over 6 years, who is even going to notice it? And they're not even cuts, they're restrictions in growth!
Sadly, Call Me Dave is offering us nothing better. If you want serious cuts in government spending, vote Obo.
S'right Steve - Brown is going to have to be dragged from office by his feet as his nails dig into the mahogany furnishings of number 10. He believes in his messianic destiny to lead, and no mistake...
Mind you, so did Ghengis Khan, Napoleon and Joe Stalin....
Dave needs to start vocalising a bit more about what the Tories intend to do. This abhorrent government's main aim is clinging on to power at any cost - they prove that daily. So it shouldn't be too diff. to convince the electorate.
Cameron doesn't actually need to make any pledges at this stage, especially as every good idea (and laughably a couple of the bad ones - electric car points, and the power stations they'd need to build to support this - oh my aching sides) they have is stolen by Brown.
In any case what's the point of announcing firm policy now when the full extent of the damage from another 12 month's of Gordon saving the world cannot even be guessed
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