Proof: Gordon Brown and Labour are unfit to govern (Deficit Bill).

The man Gordon Brown, and the party Labour, proved once and for all last night that they are unfit to govern this country. John Redwood reports on his blog the absolutely diabolical farce that was the debate on Labour's deficit cutting Bill. I'll let John explain:

The day did not improve when we got onto the main business of the Deficit. I got the opportunity to make a speech along the lines of yesterday’s blog. We did drag out of reluctant Ministers the fact that they think they need at least £57 billion of public spending cuts, along with around £28 billion of more taxes, to hit their target of halving the deficit as a proportion of GDP by 2014. The Chamber was virtually empty on the Labour side. Only two backbench Labour MPs were prepared to speak in the debate. Both of them opposed the government’s measure – one because it did not take the deficit seriously enough, and the other because she could not countenance spending cuts.

It turned out when I had the chance to read their draft Bill that it contains a major flaw even within its own silly terms. It requires future Chancellors to cut public spending as a proportion of GDP every year from 2010 to 2016. This means that if there were by any chance another sharp contraction in the economy the government would not under the terms of this Bill be able to use the natural stabilisers which the government has always told us are so important. In a recession tax revenue falls and benefit spending rises, making the deficit worse. This “cyclical” part of the deficit is always thought to be fair enough, as it will self correct when recovery gets underway. Under this Bill it would not be permitted. Under pressure the government then told us that in such circumstances they would bring a new Deficit Bill to the Commons relaxing this one!

So Parliament wasted the best part of a day debating a Bill written by the Treasury to make the Treasury behave in a certain way for the next six years, only to be told that of course if things went wrong they would tear it all up. The Bill makes clear no Minister can be blamed or punished if they fail to hit the deficit targets!

Surely this is the final straw? Even the most ardent of Gordon supporting MPs ca'tn swallow this pathetic attempt to pull the wool over our eyes. The rumours of a senior minister resigning are unsurprising considering the utter mess Gordon Brown and his crony Balls are making of this country and the Labour party.