Economic Incoherence
The Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Philip Hammond, gave an off-camera briefing ahead of the Budget yesterday lunchtime. Not quite sure how this squares with Dave's commitment to the "New Politics" of openness and transparency or his boss George Osborne's "open source politics 2.0" which he said would see a Tory government "become more accountable, more transparent and more accessible - and so bridge the growing gap between government and governed." Having an off camera briefing in the Lobby room seems less than transparent and rather inaccessible to the governed.
Perhaps he has good reason to explain Tory economic policy out of sight, being too timid to put the case for tax relief for the struggling middle classes and reducing state over-spending. The Tories basically accept that because of the dire fiscal position Chancellor Osborne will stick with Gordon Brown's tax and spending plans. As we tip towards worldwide recession and a global financial crisis the Tories are advocating "tax hikes on alcopops!" and the LibDems "tax cuts for smoothies!" Pathetically unambitious.
Perhaps he has good reason to explain Tory economic policy out of sight, being too timid to put the case for tax relief for the struggling middle classes and reducing state over-spending. The Tories basically accept that because of the dire fiscal position Chancellor Osborne will stick with Gordon Brown's tax and spending plans. As we tip towards worldwide recession and a global financial crisis the Tories are advocating "tax hikes on alcopops!" and the LibDems "tax cuts for smoothies!" Pathetically unambitious.
54 comments:
The present Govt is wasting money hand over fist, as is local govt.
Time to redress the balance between the political sector on one hand and the creative sector on the other?
Tax cuts?
Yes please!
There comes a point when the Tories have to accept that they won't win the next election by default. They actually have to take a position.
Surely Osborne doesn't accept the financial incontinence and incompetence of Brown and his sock-puppet chancellor Darling.
Madness. Brown/Darling have utterly failed and it's high time to slim down the state and cut taxes
I sometimes think the Tories don't want to win the next GE. What are they scared of?
Pathetic isn't it.
Brown is concentrating on plastic carrier bags.
The Tories are going to do nothing different.
The LibDems can't even be bothered to vote.
And MPs of ALL persuasions are fiddling their expenses on an industrial scale.
Let's face it - all the politicians need some quality time with a lamp post and some rope.
But lets leave the NuLabour ones until last - after all, it's business first, and then pleasure.
Leadership. Yes, I know it's a novel concept to the modern politician, but it might just be worth trying.
I think Osborne and Cameron are very naive, and are still to grow up into adults who more importantly treat the public as adults.
Both of these fucking mongs still think that being Bliar clones is what will win the next election, totally oblivious to the fact that it is exactly that that will lose them the one after.
Better to tell the public fiscal truths like, Brown and Labour have fucked it up totally, so until we sort out the mess we promise nothing Also give some strong talk on 80's deja vu.
Pussy footing around won't cut it with an increasingly well informed electorate.
Dear Mr Osborne,
Can we please have a medium sized tax cut and a significant spending cut - especially on public sector pensions, IT projects, quangos and waste. That way I'll have more in my pocket, the national debt will progressively be sorted out and the most useless and undeserving parts of the public sector will be starved.
Many thanks in advance.
Yours sincerely,
Patrick (pissed off taxpayer)
The lack of any coherent long (or even medium) term plan for the economy does make me the fear that the politicians know something we don't about just where our economy will be governed from in the very near future.
The plastic bag tax, the alco-pop tax etc all have a ring of "arranging the deck chairs on board the Titanic" about them, don't they?
With the economy in collapse, inflation on the rise, PSBR out of control and no doubt public sector union unrest on the rise as demands for increases in wages to keep pace with RPI - We are slowly and inevitably being dragged back to 1979.
Neither the Labour nor Tory party seem to recognise this yet. However, with every day that passes a good dose of economic reality and strict return to fiscal and financial probity becomes screamingly obvious.
I am not saying we should return to Thatcherism but we do need Cameronism. The public are ahead of politicians on the economic issue - the furore over MPs pay and excutive pay and non-doms is just a symptom of that. People feel worse off and they know that something has to be done about it and they are ready to accept the medicine - providing economic fairness in taxation and economic sense in spending decisions is restored.
****Breaking News ****
MPs to have to submit receipts for expenses over £ 25 - welcome to the real world, suckers,
****Ends****
MORE LIBDUM SLEAZE! WILL IT EVER END?
http://www.theherald.co.uk/politics/news/display.var.2105584.0.LibDem_leader_not_claiming_allowance.php
Cuts in public sector pensions?????
Fuck me, Patrick, are you trying to start a Saga revolution ? Do you want people in motor homes besieging Sainsburys, blockading the Channel ports? Setting fire to the Lake District ?
There are people who have notionally worked twenty-five years and "negotiated" an "enhanced" early retirement package of a yearly pension which, not even counting a huge lump sum, exceeds the yearly salary of most and who immediately go back to work for the very same organisation which pensioned them off, unless, of course, they can better serve the nation on a QUANGO. And some of these poor cunts don't even get an OBE.
You sound like a fucking anarchist to me, mate.
None of the main parties will be able to offer a reduction in the overall tax burden as they all bow down to the great god PFI. Public services always cost more when supplied by the private sector, thus the more services are privatised, the more tax is needed to pay for them. The Tories cannot argue against PFI as privatisation is their baby, new labour gave up its soul long ago, but what is the Lib Dems' excuse? They have seen how poorly PFI affects the public finances, but still Crackers Clegg's war cry is "Reform reform reform!". Why?
Clearly beat you to it this am Guido. Put the wine down and work man, it's your duty:
Oath of Allegiance
Good idea provided the political class in the whole of the UK take an allegiance to
Not act on self interest
Not spend public money for their own advancement
Not cynically state that their aim is to eradicate poverty and then charge the cost of their mortgages to the taxpayers
Not say how green we should all be then jet of on some freebie to the Carribean in the interests of basically themselves
Not make moral statements about the people of this country then go off shag their secretary behind their wife's/husband's backs
And as for former Attorney Generals not support war that is clearly illegal in international law
And not stand in the way of the legal process on behalf of a bunch of self-interested Arab businessmen
Only then I might consider it a good idea
Osbourne unbelievably makes Darling/Brown look good....that's how bad he is.
He has all the gravitas of a stick insect.
Guido has found his cojones.
When we leave the EU at least there'll be some money back in the pot to alleviate the economic pain.
Watch 'Remote Control' here:
http://www.ukip.tv/?page_id=138
@ Silas 9.44 am...
You are correct mate- all these 'initiatives' DO have an air of the Titanic deckchair scenario about them. I've noticed this more and more in recent years, especially with the present lot in power. More p***-poor policies and spin. Why? Because their hands are tied by the EUSSR- that's why we get NO decent reforms in any area of policy- be it tax, social security, whatever.
Bastards- the lot of them!!!
Btw Mr Fawkes, it's good to see that despite your conservative bias you are not above criticising the Cameroons. Please keep it up!
*heads off for a smoke due to feelings of anger and frustration*
Cameron's lot are a bit shit imho.
Clueless, posh, southern boys and girls who don't connect with the electorate because they think deep down we are, well, a little bit common and we should be grateful that they've taken an interest in our risible little lives.
Still think Hague is the next tory PM.
There is no need for any policy announcements. Any announcements will be either stolen or ridiculed. As is almost always the case, the government must first lose the confidence of the country. This time approaches. Cameron and the Boy Osborne should just shut the fuck up and let it happen. They can point and laugh but otherwise keep quiet about their own plans. A few anodyne "we'll not be as hugely incompetent as this lot" remarks would be welcome.
Announcing that they are going to stick to spending plans is merely a one line ruse to avoid being labelled the party of "Tory cuts". The conversation shoudl be about competence and corruption not cuts and Conservatives.
BTW it is inconceivable that the next government will be able to stick to the current spending plans. Unless, that is, they want to stick to the reckless borrowing plans too. We are going to be pretty skint for a decade. Get used to it.
OT - Does anyone have any ideas as to how we might promote a "sense of Scottishness" (The Govt seems to be avoiding the subject)?
To Anonymous at 9:51 AM -
"MPs to have to submit receipts for expenses over £ 25 - welcome to the real world, suckers."
No - in the real world you have to produce a receipt for EVERY expense, regardless of the amount. Why should it be any different for the 'honourable' pigs in Parliament?
They'll just get round it by making multiple payments just below the limit, to make up the total for a single item. Just like Nu Labours donors are doing now.
The Beeboids website seems confused and is reporting it as £25 and £50 - which is correct? Either way, it's not good enough.
Browns oafs think that an Oath of Allegiance will reconnect teenagers with society.
Is this the best vision for Britain that Gorgon can concoct? I can imgine that this will not be seen as a cool thing to do.
Gordon will now create The Young Pioneers, and will be setting up a podium at the Banqueting Hall in Whitehall so he can watch the massed ranks of teenagers marching and sing patriotic hymns of praise to the leader's great vision and leadership.
As for Osborne it is still possible that Call Me Dave might decide that an intellectual and politcal heavyweight should be Chancellor. On the other hand loyalty to one's friends...
Dr Wolf said...
I sometimes think the Tories don't want to win the next GE. What are they scared of?
The books, dear boy, the books!
It would take the Tories ten years to get the books straight.But would be kicked out after four/five!
Better let the Labour party aided by the Lib Dims make a complete basket case of the country, then the Tories can come in with no chance whatsoever of the Labour shower or the Lib Dims ever being elected again.
As for the present Tories? Boys trying to be men.
£24.99
Is the magic number
CUNTS
Is the magic word
Camus 10:14. A bit wrong their mate. Firstly a lot of what is called and supplied as 'public services' are nothing of the sort. They are services that could well be supplied privately but have been usurped by the state and supplied inneficiently. And the state does loads of things it has no business doing - 'five a day' enablers or whatever it's called. Next PFI is just off balance sheet financing a sort of state Enron. Proper privatisation works. Telecoms for example. Plus charities can do stuff for a lot less overhead than Gov't can.
What's more it's only deceitful and distorting Mcfuckingbean who bangs on about 'profiting' from the public. (a) what's wrong with this? And (b) there are lots of different ways that state stuff can be privatised, trust for example could run hospitals - oh yes they are already doing that aren't they.
The issue is very simple. The 'State' is bloated. It needs to be cut down. Why not try governing on NOT spending money. "Vote for us. We will reduce the tax burden to 25% of GDP or less AND do the same for you or better". Why not? Businesses do that everyday.
What happened about Peter Hain that all went a bit quiet ??
With all the dissatisfaction being expressed here about all the major parties, how about this lot for a breath of fresh air:-
http://lpuk.org/
Seems quite a lot of what they are proposing is not inconsistent with the "pigs in trough" bashingh going on. Looks right up Guido's street - no comments I've seen yet though.
Mongoose - that's my thinking. It looks a bit as if the non doms IHT and such like are designed to be nicked by Brown Darling and make them look even more then the prats they really are.
It all might just be good politicking
Dear Stanislav the Polish gentleman,
Indeed I do favour a spot of constructive 'disruption' in the cosy status quo that NuLabour have engineered.
We seem to have a country where the hard working majority pay a shitload of tax to cosset the living standards of a useless governing / administrative minority who then proceeed to ignore everything that the said golden goose expresses to be its wish.
This is not cricket. The English people will famously put up with much. When the day comes that their tolerance is breached it is often to be observed that the breach is not pretty. I suspect and hope that we are rapidly arriving at a 'Fuck you' moment in our political life. It feels like 1979 all over again.
If only that nice Mr Cameron and his chaps would see it and grow a pair then they have an absolutely open goal.
"The Beeboids website seems confused and is reporting it as £25 and £50 - which is correct? Either way, it's not good enough."
The BBC website makes it clear that it is £25 for individual items and £50 per month for office petty cash.
This is dreadful news.. We in Westminster have been largely indifferent to the tax rate for 10 years because it does not impact.
Over half my salary comes from expenses, which is a bit like PFI.. its all off the books..
Now with this receipts for expenses nonsense we will have to look at other methods of clawing out a pittance for our labours.
Next the bloody public will be pinching my house price inflation increase money, paid for from that super 2nd home payment.
It really is too much.. I will write to the Office For The Wealthy
And Tax-free or OFTWAT and get this
reversed. Whats the point of being an MP if you have to be like ordinary everyday sort of people. You'll be telling me I have to use public health care and public transport and send my children to state schools next .. it really is the limit..
Shotgun,Osborne and Hammond are telling the truth. Labour have messed up.It's not going to be easy to repair the damage, they're absolutely right not to make promises they can't keep.
Malcolm
So is £24.99 going to be the price of most things in and around Westminster?.
They should provide receipts for every expense claimed as you can bet your life that they will fiddle this new rulling too.
Taxi meter reaches £24.99, stop Taxi, pay bill, reset meter, carry on with journey.
£100 meal broken up into £24.99p, starters, main meal, pudding and wine.
The list of receipt dodges is endless and we know from previous form that they will do it.
MAKE them provide receipts for EVERYTHING and make them JUSTIFY each one I say.
brown sold the country's gold at the bottom of the market and now he has bought a bank with dodgy assets for a top price just as house prices are starting to fall.
fucking hell! you stupid cunt gordon.
note to brown: shred everything.
Cameron and Osbourne are taking us to exactly the same place as we were prior to the last election. We'll say we're going to match Labour's spending plans and then talk about tax cuts and then get stuffed by the cuts to services argument. We need to lay our stall out and say that the level of spending by Labour is out of control and we're going to stop it as an absolute priority.
"... he said would see a Tory government "become more accountable, more transparent and more accessible - and so bridge the growing gap between government and governed."
If he becomes any more transparent then thankfully we won't be able to see the bloody homunculus any more. Incidentally, how exactly would a Tory government become any more 'accessible' than Gordon Broon's government by stealth system?
Nice one Guido. If you let the Tories get away with being sh1te now, they will be just as bad as Labour once they're in.
So, MPs can still put claims in for £24.99 without a receipt? What's the betting that plenty of MPs do just that? Disgraceful! When I put expenses claims in, I need a receipt for everything! Is that so very difficult?
I despair of the Tory Party nowadays. For heavens sake can we not return to some decent sellable Conservatism instead of suffering these "ideas" junkies who spout off without first engaging their brain. I think that Brown just about has it right when he repeats for the three hundredth time "no substance" in describing the current Conservatives. Why not rename the party to "Lemming Enterprises" - it would make more sense!
“Democracy depends, not only on the justice of its basic institutions, but also on the qualities and attitudes of its citizens: e.g. their sense of identity, and how they view potentially competing forms of national, regional, ethnic or religious identities; their ability to tolerate and work together with others who are different from themselves; their desire to participate in the political process in order to promote the public good and hold political authorities accountable; their willingness to show self-restraint and exercise personal responsibility in their economic demands, and in personal choices which affect their health and the environment” --Kymlicka
Its an easy formula, keep teachers, police and nurses and sack the rest!
Belgium has been without a government for over 150 and the place is still running fine!
Matt
jasper arrests according to London BBC news
When will people realise that the local Westminster EU stooges are simply not allowed to do anything but tinker here and there a little when it comes to spending and taxing!
Do I need to tell you that Westminster now has less real political power than a parish fucking council?
The supreme Brusels EU government calls the shots now and as the noose(constitution)tightens the local blue/red stooges will only have to carry out their orders from the new Franco/German thousand year reich.
Here you have hundreds of useless and powerless parasite MPs who decide NOTHING and create NOTHING and who stand for NOTHING and will stop at NOTHING to hold onto their positions of power!
Blue or Red? It does not matter!
Socialist or Tory? It doesnt matter!
All we have left is a ruling elite who sold our nation to a Napolionic cabal in Brussels.
Our local satraps(MPs) got their 'thirty pieces of silver' and now they can only be got rid of by open revolution! My advice to the MP traitors is spend your dirty money while you can.
A key associate of former mayoral aide Lee Jasper was arrested today by police probing the City Hall grants scandal.
Greg Nowell, who ran a scheme linked to Mr Jasper, was seized by Met detectives investigating money laundering.
It is the first arrest since a fraud investigation was launched into a string of projects linked to Mr Jasper after concerns over how public money was being spent.
He quit last week as the Mayor's race adviser after sexually charged emails were published in which he said he wanted to “honey-glaze” a married mother of three, a woman whose projects received £100,000 from City Hall on Mr Jasper's recommendation.
Mr Nowell, 61, was being questioned at Belgravia police station after the arrest at his Harrow home. Documents were seized at two other homes, in Tottenham and Croydon. Mr Nowell ran the Green Badge Taxi School, a project in Clapham which was set up purporting to offer courses in the “knowledge” for would-be taxi drivers from ethnic minorities.
Mr Livingstone welcomed today's development, saying: “We've gone back and asked the police to look into this and they've made arrests.
“If people steal from the LDA we would want them to go to prison. But to put into the context of the thousands of grants being given out, the police at the LDA's request are looking into some six or eight of these.”
Mr Nowell ran the Green Badge Taxi School with Clive Grey, both of whom were associates of Mr Jasper.
A director of the scheme, Joe Ahmed-Dobson, was an LDA official responsible for administering the grant to Green Badge when it received it in
A Met police spokesman said today: “Today police executed three search warrants at residential addresses in Harrow, Tottenham and Croydon in connection with the investigation into fraud allegations referred to the Met about six organisations that received public funding.”
The other five companies being investigated are Brixton Base, Diversity International, Ethnic Mutual, The European Federation of Black Women Business Owners and the Deshbangla Foundation.
Lola, yes, there is an element of elephant-trapping going on.
The idea being, I think, that if the Luvvies are painted as just an incompetent and corrupt version of a centre-right party, why, the electorate might muse, do we not vote for a competent, non-corrupt version. Contrary to popularly-trolled opinion, there is no need to prove or show your own competence and lack of corruption. Agreed, it might help if the buggers weren't quite so daft sometimes but it is enough when the government has failed the test completely. We are not there yet but the time nears. They always screw up the finances and this time will be no exception. One picture tells the story...
http://tinyurl.com/2m6p5r
See over at Wat Tyler's for a commentary.
BTW by "the electorate" I mean that small sliver of the electorate with sufficient wit to vote according to conscience and performance rather than through some mad tribal instinct and/or emotional attachment to the colours of rosettes.
BTW pity the poor darling Darling tomorrow. He has been shafted good and proper.
Come let us be realistic here. I am pretty sure that Cameron and Osborne know all the arguments in favour of not following Labour’s tax and spending targets - they know those targets are barmy and very bad for the country now.
But they also know that a totally hostile and corrupt BBC News is in absolute control of how these matters are presented to the 90% of people who only hear the BBC on these things. Accordingly they know that if they say anything else they will be accused by lying Labour (and LibDem) spokesmen and the Labour employee Evan Davis of shocking financial irresponsibility.
Democracy under these conditions is a travesty.
The bloody BBC are stopping the official Opposition saying what they want and should say.
Reform BBC News or close them down - and give us our bloody country back.
Anonymous (5:29) has a point - but the reality is even worse. The very reason why Call Me Dave got the job was because the Tory bluehairs believed a genuine Conservative would meet with such ferocity from the BBC that he would stand no chance at a general election.
Thus the BBC's broadcasting hegemony not only sets the general political tone in this country, it also has a very direct influence on who gets to run it.
OI CAMERON !!
We are fucking suffering out here taxed into the ground and spied on 24/7
What the fuck is the point of being the opposition if you don't fucking oppose anything eh?
Saying you will follow nulabs tax and spend plans is like adding your own name to a suicide note and taking the pills the corpse missed.
If you wont oppose resign and join snottys party.
What the Conservatives need to get across constantly is that the UK's finances uses ENRON STYLE ACCOUNTING. The true dire state of the economy is being hidden by New Labour. They must push home the fact of the ENRON accounting every time the economy is mentioned.
New Labour were certainly keen enough to bullshit about Black Wednesday and the _few_hours_ that interest rates were 15% (to back the ERM which funnily enough New Labour supported).
Now the Conservatives have to keep going on and on about the £110bn of Northern Crook, and the ENRON accounting. Stop being pussies and start attacking New Labour. They are not attacking New Labour's economic credibility at all.
9:16 AM
like we did to our mate on his stag night?
9:44 AM silas
Yep, how about a good honest down to earth tax for change, one which truly reflects the value we place on our government. Perhaps we could all submit 22% of our faeces to parliament each year?.
9:51 AM
Now all we have to do is cut their pay and expenses to 25 quid and all corruption will be completely eliminated.
Anonymous said...
****Breaking News ****
MPs to have to submit receipts for expenses over £ 25 - welcome to the real world, suckers,
****Ends****
9:51 AM, March 11, 2008
you think that is the real world????
when so darling will be rolling this out to the public as well eh, £25 quid whenever you like, no questions asked!
how about pentioners, will they get this too? perhaps they then won`t have to freez to death in their thousands every year!
yeah thats the real fucking world!
cunts.
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