Is this what happened to Labour’s tax attack dog?
October 26th, 2006
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Why couldn’t the Brownites cash in on the Tory tax plan cock-up?
On Sunday when I was planning the week ahead on the site I was convinced that the following days might see the moment when the Cameron band-wagon would drive to a halt.
For judging by the weekend press reports Gordon Brown’s team had been absolutely cock a hoot over the way they had derailed last week’s Tory tax commission announcement and had got David Cameron and George Osborne onto the back foot even before the official publication.
For as a result of somebody posting the report a day early on the Conservative web-site the Brownites were able to do what they are brilliant at - framing the argument between the parties as between “Labour’s investment” and “Tory cuts“. This is the line that’s worked well for them at previous General Elections and it appeared that the detail in the Tory Tax commission report provided 176 pages of red meat for the Chancellor’s attack dogs to get their teeth into.
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Labour’s Tory tax/spending cuts rhetoric might still have legs - but there has been no sign in the polls since then that it is resonating with the public. In fact it is has been the other way round.
We have still got YouGov to come in this week of extraordinary polls and it could come out with anything. But even the most optimistic Brownite will not be predicting a repeat of September’s level-pegging position for the party when it was the Tories and Labour on 36% with the Lib Dems down at 16%.
The whole change in the mood about Iraq and the possibility that the UK might be withdrawing with the mission not accomplished is going to dominate the domestic agenda. Gordon Brown must be hoping that he can do a Harold Macmillan - the Tory leader who took over after the Suez debacle fifty years ago and went on to victory in 1959.
Mike Smithson
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Agreed - so far so good. Though as to be fair, I am concerned that we’ve been so vague about tax cuts.
Brown has taxed us more than ever and David Cameron would have been wise simply to have accepted the Forsyth Commission’s findings in their entirety. The tax cuts they propose are long overdue, fundamentally Conservative in leaning and would strike dirctly at the soft underbelly of Brown’s own record.
I do worry that DC has missed a trick on this and that the damage may come in the medium term rather than straight away.
As a way of making a left wing agenda look attractive to the voters the Labour leadership need look no further than the Barack Obama speech. It is full of hope and optimism underpinned by an overwhelmingly desire for social justice. It made me feel proud to be on the left. If only Labour had someone like Obama. For too long we have defined ourselves by what we are not. If Gordon wants to take us to a fourth victory he has to be giving people reasons for supporting us other than Labour being the only way to keep the Tories out.
I don’t think you’d ever make the left wing agenda
attractive to the majority of people in this country.
Blair-Brown have stayed in power precisely because they’ve hood-winked enough people into thinking that they’re not really left wing.
I’m not really sure how the spread markets and fixed markets relate, but it seems to me that there is a significant discrepancy opening up between the two for the next General Election. On Spreadfair the Cons are currently predicted to have a c7-8 seat lead, whereas on the fixed “most seats” market Labour are heading towards being serious underdogs. Any thoughts Mike? Maybe the two are consistent but it seems unlikely. If they’re inconsistent then there must be an opportunity to be made from an impending ‘correction’.
The trouble with a toothsome poll like yesterday’s is it makes me long for tomorrow’s.
I don’t think such a Lab collapse can last. I will be content if our lead is 5-6%. For me, the important thing in yesterday’s numbers was the slump in Lab, not the rocket in Con.
I disagree with Eleanor on tax; I think what is happening is that the public is deciding that DC definitely will prioritise protecting the NHS over tax cuts and at the same time that Brown has wrecked the NHS by being such a poor Chancellor.
The NHS is the key issue in British politics. Politicians forget it at their peril.
“I can say it in three letters - N - H - S.” History will record this as the moment he won the election.
Mike - it’s far too early for the Cameron tax gaffe to have an impact. Gordon & his team will be attacking on this front for the next 6 months - let’s see what the impact is (especially on issue-specific polling) then.
Eleanor - Cameron is trying to be all things to all people: dog whistle about tax cuts to his own Tory troops whilst making middle-ground noises to the swing voters. Like all charlatans, he will be found out.
Commentator - you’re having a larf on the “N-H-S” thing, surely? Talk about cringemaking
And where’s the policy beef?
Just like Blair in the early days, Cameron is trying to trot out a few issue-based soundbites to cover-off areas where his party is weak (for Labour it was crime, for the Tories it is health). The difference is that a) the public have got wise to soundbite politics and b) unlike “TOC-TOTCOC”, the “N-H-S” line isn’t even a good soundbite!
My only thoughts are that there is not a lot of liquidity in either of them. The total matched on the Tories on Betfair since the market opened in May 2005 is £68,224 which is almost nothing. I would guess that the Spreadfair seats market has attracted only a fraction of that. When there isn’t much betting it’s hard to draw conclusions.
Spartacus,
The “tax gaffe” and not-good soundbite have produced 345 Con seats in Baxter (and that is using the weighted data).
I think you should try a line of attack that polling might support - like, say, the idea that Brown might get a bounce, or when Blair goes things will improve, or whatever.
re 7. where’s the evidence that the public “have got wise to sound bite politics”? You and me might have but we only have two votes between us at the General Election. I always think that the British electorate is like a battered wife who has just pulled out of a relationship after many years because of the way she has been treated. What happens? She then chooses a new partner who is just the same.
Mike, Iraq is still a bit of an Achilles Heal for the Conservatives as Ming pointed out in last week’s PMQs. Its an attack line they could use, but they open themselves up to charges of inconsistency if they do.
Is there a political party or group that does not resemble a violent partner?
(Some battered women do find a peaceful, caring and equal relationship).
From a couple of threads ago, from Stodge:
“Looking at the fieldwork, I was intrigued by the strong Tory performance in the 35-64 age group and in the Midlands where they have (apparently) a 25-point lead over Labour. If that is anything near accdurate, Labour seats will fall by the bucketload. We’ll see if this is a trend or just an outlier as it is the basis of the big Tory advantage.”
Is this supportable by the internals? In other words is the number of voters sampled in the Midlands anything like big enough to draw this conclusion? I don’t know and wld be gratful for some guidance.
There is something a little bit askew about marvelling at ICM’s unweighted figures and yet ignoring MORI’s where their sample was nearly 2000 (Sorry to be a thread behind!). If it’s all about the timing of the polls then I’m sure their very different results can be ignored. Nothing that will affect the next General Election has happened in the last two weeks.
While Blair is clinging on Labour hardly look like a Party at all. Just a relic going through the motions. I have no doubt that when the new leader imposes some discipline, ejects the dead wood and gives it new purpose the Conservative Party will return to it’s core vote. The only reason it’s vacuity isn’t showing at the moment is because it’s being more than matched by Labour’s
I’m pretty sure I read somewhere that the latest poll had the Tories in third place on the NHS - so much for the soundbite, eh?
Battered wife analogy is amusing (not for the wife) but look at the reasons why Blair is regarded so negatively: it’s not the economy (doing well); some of it is Iraq but a major chunk of it is that people don’t like the spin and personality-based politics. Indeed that’s the major grip ordinary Labour canvassers face on the doorstep.
It’s precisely this Blair-like approach that Cameron is modelling himself on - whereas Gordon will be a breath of fresh air.
15. And there is something very unattractive about someone who looks like they are putting their own ambition above all else. Just like Thatcher after she said she would fight on after not winning the first ballot. He’s making a lot of Labour supporters cringe at the moment and there’s no-one who can lift a finger to get rid of him….
13 The short answer is No the subset figures can vary wildly from month to month over a few polls trends can be found ie Conservatives do best in Midlands/South Labour best in North LibDems best in Under 35’s but compare the last two ICM polls
Previous
North Con 31 Lab 40 LD 18
Mid.. Con 45 Lab 28 LD 20
South Con 45 Lab 25 LD 19
Latest
North Con 32 Lab 38 LD 20
Mid.. Con 48 Lab 23 LD 19
South Con 43 Lab 23 LD 28
A massive surge in LibDem support in the South !! Polls tend to give a more accurate overall figure despite wildly inaccurate subsets .
Come on guys lets deal with the real political news, Greg Barker dumping his wife and kids and going off with a bloke. Now thats something really worth talking about!
I have often wondered about Labour’s attack on the Tory tax issue. In 01 and 05 they really successful framed it was “Tories cutting tax must mean cutting services.” That only worked because people believed it to be true … so to what degree have people realised that:
1. Tax is too high and should be cut no matter what the consequence on public services
2. You could make savings in public services which would allow tax cuts and not impact frontline services.
Just a thought but maybe both Cameron and Brown are waiting for the public to answer these two questions for themselves before committing?
19 - Antony see the recent Yougov special poll on taxation for some of the answers to your question . Anthony Wells has an article on the results on his site . The brief answer is that only 25% agree with your point 1 and 43% agree with a statement that ” large scale tax cuts would make little difference to the rate of economice growth and would benefit those already well off at the expense of everyone else “
19. The idea that tax cuts wouldn’t impact on public services just doesn’t make sense. The cost of public services is almost 100% the salaries of public servants. It is insulting to suggest that there are vast numbers of people going to work and not fulfilling a useful function. And even if there were shouldn’t they just be replaces by policemen, nurses, doctors, soldiers, border guards etc of which apparently there are never enough?
Sounds like PMQs was fun yesterday, though not for Blair…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/10/26/nhonours26.xml
18. There is an Imam in trouble in Sydney for saying women who don’t cover their faces are asking for trouble. I couldn’t help wondering what Les Dawson would have made of that.
22. Brilliant photo!
Mike S. How you get these exclusive caption pictures is amazing !! …. The Conservative leader at the South Korean Embassy having just chosen his lunch !! ……… mind you Nick Soames picked a pair of St.Bernards off the A la Carte menu for a starter !!
22. When I saw it yesterday, I thought Oliver Letwin was merging into Hilary “I’m screaming like a baby” Armstrong.
I think this tax argument is helping DC rather than anything else.
Sometimes people on this site forget how much actual notice the general public take of what is going on in the world of politics…. all Joe Public is hearing now is that the NHS will be fine under the Tories but at the same time the tax report is reinforcing people’s views of the Tories as a low tax party…. essentially everyone’s a winner!
I suspect this is why we are seeing such a big jump in the polls. The dissalusionment with labour means people are looking elsewhere and reading the press this week you could see the Tories as all things for all men. I would say DC’s plan working to perfection.
Mark at 20 - The tax issue is very difficult, in polls we have done around 60% of voters don’t think the general levels of tax are too high in the first place, mainly because they tend to judge tax on the basis of the tax they see -income tax- which is historically still quite low.
Ask about council tax, petrol tax or any other specific tax and the answer is quite different.
Conservatives are right to play down tax cuts at the moment even though the idea that tax cuts automatically equal service cuts is absolute twaddle.
The other sound bite I don’t really get is linking tax cuts to economic stability. I can see the risks in increasing Government borrowing but why would economic stability neccessarily be threatened by tax cuts if they didn’t require more borrowing to finance them?
….A 48 sheet poster with almost any caption you like! I imagine Labours ad men are working on it now……..
Slightly OT - but only slightly - there’s a crushing article about the disaster of the euro, by Anatole Kaletsky in today’s Times.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,6-2421880,00.html
The curious thing here is that if Blair had got his way, we’d have been in the euro too. Which would have made two catastrophic decisions by the prime minister, rather than just the one, Iraq.
Given Blair’s proven idiocy on these two major points, it is arguable that Blair is the most economically and strategically cackhanded prime minister in UK history, a man who singlehandedly tried to destroy the financial and military security of the nation. And yet he is still in power, rather than living out his days in abject disgrace.
It’s bizarre. And an indictment of our democratic system.
re 24 & 25. Thanks. The sad thing is that I’m a bit like Andrea except that I spend many hours trawling the web for funny pictures of our leaders and would be leaders - while Andrea focuses on serious issues like what Labour’s NEC is up to.
I hate to admit it but the idea for today’s article started with the picture. Cameron and a dog… Attack dogs…Tax…etc etc
I know need help but in the meantime it’s good to provide a bit of amusement.
21 The cost of public services is almost 100% the salaries of public servants.
Er … no
This very day we have a written answer showing that public sector salaries are £153 billion
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/cm061025/text/61025w0015.htm#column_1946W
…and total public spending is £525 billion
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2005/press_natstatsjuly_05.cfm
So you are out by a factor of more than 3.
Mr Smithson. Will you please ban Jack for a least a month, as not for the first time my screen is full of coffee having read one of his posts !
Labour seem to have forgotten how to do “politics” and instead concentrate on “government”.
The only time Labour seem to get going politically is 12 months before an election. In between the poltical message is entirely neglected and that is really frustrating.
After this poll I reflected on the activity that Labour was engaged in during the 90s - when I got involved for the first time. Enough said.
31.”The sad thing is that I’m a bit like Andrea except that I spend many hours trawling the web for funny pictures of our leaders and would be leaders - while Andrea focuses on serious issues like what Labour’s NEC is up to”
which put me even in a worse light…at least you search for funny pictures, not for how many times Christine Shawcroft disagreed with Blair at the last NEC’s meeting (which once led to her wondering if he had some dental work done…)
But I admit I’ve spent times to google around trying to find a picture of NEC candidate Philomena Muggis, because some people were still doubting she was real
33 Wife. Mrs Jack Ws first post on her own laptop and she wants to ban me !!
FWIW, noticed in today’s Sun that Kelvin McKelvie has changed his tune on Cameron.
Told the Tory right to shut up and back DC.
First time he’s come out in favour of DC in his column unless I’ve missed one.
Personally, I’m not so sure the Tories proposals were actually all that odd. Yes, there was a cock-up in the way they were announced, but were the proposals more radical than the Lib Dems were proposing ? I don’t think so.
32. I cant make head nor tail of your links AS! Perhaps you could precis what the other £327 billion is spent on?
I’ve not had time to work through yesterday’s threads on the momentous ICM poll, but was there anything in it on the Cameron/Brown battleground?
If it’s a 10 (or 14) point Tory lead when it’s Cameron v Blair, it must be a Labour meltdown scenario now under Brown?
I agree with Mike at 10. As per a few of my posts recently I am concerned that actually a very large part of the population may well be making a decision on who seems the most decent sort of chap to run the country as we are lacking any substance or ideology currently from the major parties. I am very critical of DC in particular for this, but my criticism is from a moral point of view. From a tactics point of view it certainly seems to be working, which is sad.
This morning on the Today programme when Gordon Brown was interviewed and Green Taxes arose the interviewer made reference to the Lib Dems and David Cameron. Note it was not the Tories or Ming that were refered to. It is if the two parties are now the Lib Ddem party and the David Cameron party. Also DC got more mentions re Green Taxes than the LDs where I think it is fair to say there is currently less substance. Only snippets but I think the DC personality (and lack of substance) tactic is working.
Priceless picture and headline Mike.
Looks like the dogs a pup.
Seriously though you know when you are going to get that “time for a change” sentiment when no one is interested in what the government says about the opposition.
The policy lite platform is THE clasic way that real Tories defeat Labour governments. Heath, Maggie & even Churchill did it. The essence of old school Toryism.
The earlier attempts from the Brown camp to derail Blair such as the Watson resignations were farcical. But Dacre, a key supporter of Gordon Brown publishing General Dannatt in the Daily Mail criticing Blair’s Iraq Policy, wounded Blair. The Police investigation into Party Funding is also being coordinated nicely to ensure that Blair is cornered from that side as well.
Even with Brown already the most unpopular Labour Front Bencher with a minus 30 approval rating, he has the power of the formidable bureaucracy he has built over ten years, sitting right behind him, ensuring he gets media and union backing.
Andy Hayman spoke yesterday of the electoral fraud now endemic in Britain. If Brown wants a General Election rigged, he will get it easily enough. We no longer live in a democracy.
41. This is just so rich coming from a lefty (I, er, presume?).
Tony Blair might be a sack of old knickers now, but for ten years Labour made Tony Blair their Unique Selling Point: the nice shiny guy you wouldn’t mind your daughter marrying, the acceptable face of socialism, the friendly tea-drinking chirpy chappie with the amusingly large-mouthed Scouse wife.
And now you’re blaming the Tories for using Cameron in the same way??
Re Labour Deputy Leadership
The Indy reports that Hilary Benn is canvassing the PLP for support. His PPS Ashok Kumar is contacting MPs to test their potential support.
Rumours are that Ian McCartney will back him
Always according to the Indy, Unison general secretary is expected to back Johnson for Deputy
28. Marcus - fully funded tax cuts would not endanger economic stability. Neither would unfunded ones (i.e. cuts that loosened the government’s fiscal stance) necessarily do so - in an economic downturn they could well be a stabilising factor. The problem is that the Conservatives still need to exorcise the folk memory of the economic boom-bust late 1980s and early 1990s. There is a common view that the overheating of the economy in the late 1980s was caused by tax cuts and that this led to the need for sharp rate rises and a recession. This view is incorrect - the overheating was caused by excessively loose monetary policy - but the myth is a strong one.
47 Needless to say the Tory’s policy didn’t help the economy at the end of 80’s and 90’s. With economic growth still quite high, I am not sure that anyone can argue that the economy is in crisis and desperately needs tax cuts that favour the rich.
Thanks Fred, I have been mystified as to how this legend seems to have appeared that somehow tax cuts can lead to ‘boom and bust’ for some time.
IIRC there was only one ‘boom-bust’ under the Thatcher/Major government caused by Lawsons ill-fated attempt to shadow the Deutschmark.
The best examples of ‘boom & bust’ were caused by successive (mostly Labour) Governments ‘dashing for growth’ in between assorted oil crises the 1970’s by cutting interest rates at the wrong time.
45 SeanT Again one of my frustrations when anyone post to this site is that an assumption is immediately made about ones politics rather than taking a comment at face value.
That so frustrates me!!!!!!!!!!!
No I’m not from the left - thank you, as you should know from previous discussions with you. And if you had read my post carefully you would have seen I have attacked all the main parties (as I have in previous posts) on this.
I agree with you on Labour, but that doesn’t make it right does it (other than the fact that it might work!) and I haven’t seen anything recently from the LDs (except Richmond yesterday), although that may be down to the media. However I think what is happening with DC and the Tories currently is particularly poor. I don’t expect full blown policies, but give us something, anything. I give an example of this yesterday and posted a few days ago on the same subject.
I’m a Lib Dem. I believe in free markets and am a libertarian. I have never voted Labour in my life in any election and have been voting for over 30 years.
Please take posts on face value.
49. Marcus - yes the DM shadowing policy was the main cause of the problem back then, as you say. Everything negative that followed up to 1992 was a consequence of that policy error.
On your other point, I’m afraid Tory governments can’t be excused from the ‘dash for growth’ approach that was so prevalent in the post-war period - Heath’s administration was arguably the very worst offender.
51 I am sympahetic to anyone trying to “manage” an economy during the 70’s. I guess the West Germans managed to ride the rollercoster the best - how did they do it?
Yup, I am (just) old enough to remember the infamous Barber Boom which bankrupted my dad in 1973.
50. KJH - sorry! I did say ‘I presume’ as I was aware I was presuming in calling you a ‘lefty’. It’s difficult to keep track of all the political affiliations on here, especially as some of us keep changing!
I agree with you that there is something lamentable in the American-style ’superficialising’ of our politics. But - as you hint - all parties do it. One of Chatshow Charlie’s biggest selling points was his affablle, regular-guy persona, wasn’t it?
Maybe it is inevitable in a televisual age, especially when the ideological distance between the parties is so narrow.
And maybe we are harkening back to a golden age of serious debate that never existed. Was there ever a time when politicians could be warty-faced gargoyles with alopecia as long as they talked sense? People have always wanted charm and charisma in their leaders - and many of the best leaders have been great largely because of their charm and charisma. Churchill, Elizabeth I, Julius Ceasar….?
52. Having an independent central bank which had a clear and relatively accurate view of what caused inflation (i.e. monetary factors) was a huge help.
If you read the parliamentary debates and discussions within the UK government about inflation from the early 1970s it is embarassing - the government didn’t have a clue what was going on (especially Barber) and the BoE weren’t much better.
I rather agree with Mike’s Battered Wife Analogy (henceforth BWA). It doesn’t describe the majority of people but it does seem to fit those - largely apolitical - swing voters who make the difference between one election and another. It is also worthwhile pausing to consider what it says about politicians. I served briefly on a north London council nearly thirty years ago, and what distinguished the councillors of my generation who went on to serve in Parliament from those who didn’t wasn’t talent but determination and single-mindedness.
Yet I have a feeling that if Fred, Roger, Sean T and I were to form an interview panel to hire someone to do a job, any job, outside politics, possibly the only thing we would all agree on would be that we wouldn’t give the job to whoever wanted it most, irrespective of other considerations. Yet that seems to be what our candidate selection system does (AFAIK all parties are alike on that) and until we do something about it the BWA takes us only so far.
Mike S You sum up the Brown campaign nicely. Never quite get it right do they. Even when they think they have it made they are, as you say, ” absolutely cock a hoot”.
SeanT Having vented my feeling on the fact that people can’t seem to be able to discuss issues on this site without others putting it all down to political bias I would like to move past that and discuss the issue raised.
I have been posting on this for a few days after reading a particular post from ‘I hate DC’. It was a post that struck a note with me because ‘I hate DC’ made the point hat he didn’t actually hate DC, but what he stood for or rather didn’t stand for and the impact that was having on democracy, which was frightening.
I feel that none of the main parties appear to stand for anything currently (or if they do they are afraid to say so). I might have hated Thatherism, but I could respect it. I hate socialism, but I respect it. I respect nothing currently in either the Labour party or DC as I don’t know what they stand for. What is their ideology? Note I said DC and not Conservatives as I suspect there are things that I could respect in the Tory party. The tax review was interesting for instance.
The old Plato/Douglas Adam rule is so true…
Anyone one capable of getting themselves elected should be automatically excuded from the job.
I love that Plato had it so right so long ago.
SeanT - Thanks. I made the last post before I read your last post. Slow at typing!
I have to agree re CK and somehow I don’t have a problem with that (Opps bias I guess!!!)
Not sure I am harking back to a non existant past. As I said I do think it used to be clear what parties stood for. Unlike us who post here most voted I guess on a gut feeling, but that gut feelling was based on something other than the smile and charm. It all appears to be smile and charm now even to us trying to follow ideology or policy.
58. The problem, surely, is the failure of socialism and communism - economically - since the 1970 and 80s. Everyone is now a capitalist, it’s just a question of how you manage it - Christian Democrat or Social Democrat. It doesn’t make for exciting economic arguments - even the brainiacs on here struggle to get that het up about PFIs or PPPs etc etc.
But there are still big issues out there. Iraq is the screamingly obvious one, it’s just a shame the Tories don’t show more guts and come out and condemn the war - then we’d have a nice juicy scrap. I think Cameron is edging that way.
And the whole mullticulturalism debate is a fairly big divide. The top of the Labour party now has doubts about PC and multiculturalism, but I suspect the bulk of its followers still fiercely espouse the creed (it’s the only faith they have left). Similarly the top of the Tory party might pay lipservice to the tenets of multiculturalism etc, but I suspect a lot of Tory footsoldiers think it is pants.
In the future I think we might see the parties divide socially and culturally rather than economically, as in the past. We’ll have culture wars, as in America. Should be lively, at least.
58 - Here we go again - what is the point in DC confirming what he stands for 3 yrs before a general election, if he commits to certai policies now he’s backing himself into a corner which could come back to catch him out, thats why he’s just giving a feel for what he wil stand for before taking a more ridged perspective closer to the time.
Whic is infuriating Labour as they can’t attack him.
IA said “to hire someone to do a job, any job, outside politics, possibly the only thing we would all agree on would be that we wouldn’t give the job to whoever wanted it most, irrespective of other considerations”
You obviously work in the public sector, or you never hire people. In business the job nearly always goes to the person who wants it the most; and quite rightly, the person for whom any job is a burning ambition fulfilled will almost always make be the best appointee.
I speak as someone who has been a headhunter for the last twelve years.
By Labour jumping on the ‘promise’ of tax cuts (that Cameron has rejected, rejected and rejected again), they are both re-enforcing the Tories as a party that don’t want to fleece middle England like Labour, will cut taxes at some point - and more importantly saying to the electorate that Labour is a high tax, high spend party and that it will continue.
The “cuts in services to pay for tax cuts” is a line that also re-enforces the thought that Labour’s spending is out of control and they have only one way to ‘improve’ the NHS and other public organisations - Throw more money at it. All this while the perception is that NHS staff are being made redundant and hospitals closed.
To top it all, we’ll soon have a PM that is the main reason for the high tax / high spend agenda !
IMO - It’s just not going to work and will backfire. We are talking about 9 years of Labour. What worked effectively againt the Tories in the past two elections will not work again in the next.
It’ll be a miricle if Labour can pull off another GE victory, whenever it is. That’s common sense talking, not my party biais.
Matt.
jamesHu@27:
I think I mused after the tax report & subsequent day’s events that the “tax gaffe” might not have been the gaffe it seemed to be. I’m now beginning to wonder just how inadvertent the website posting of the report actually was.
Cameron, Osborne, et at would surely have had a pretty good idea as to what would be contained in the report for a while now. The commission was set up by Osborne (at the behest of Howard) and could have been canned by Cameron/Osborne at any time during the last year (though that would inevitably have caused a bit of a stir at the time).
So, a report by a quasi-independent panel comes out recommending a whole range of tax cuts. People who feel that cuts are long overdue and necessary for the long-term health of the economy take reassurance - it vindicates their position, and hints of the possiblity of reduction in tax burden over time.
However, Labour linking tax cuts to public service damage has been a successful strategy for them for the last decade, so Cameron/Osborne can are then stand up and say “no - we will NOT implement recommendations if they put the public services at risk”, thus neutralising Labour’s hitherto successful attack.
How successful this will be in the long run remains to be seen, but I don’t think that Labour have their silver bullet for the Cameron just yet.
Marcus -
“I speak as someone who has been a headhunter for the last twelve years.”
do you draw the line at cannibalism though ?
Those that think that the Tax Commission proposals are only for the rich might read the saintly Boris this morning. Really, read it, and worry.
61 SeanT - Interesting post. I agree I think.
62. Here we go again!!!!!!!!!!! I’m not a bloody socialist or Labour supporter. Read my posts.
I don’t expect DC to detail out his policies 3 years ahead of the election. Read my posts.
I was attacking all parties. Read my posts.
I just want something, anything from DC. Yesterday was typical. He admirably got worked up about age descrimination, the benefits of the baby boomers, big companies employing older people. He showing lots of passion. He was asked to make one commitment - to end compulsory retirement at 60 in the Civil Service, which was exactly the sort of thing he was talking about. And he wouldn’t do it. I think he could make that one 3 years in advance of a GE, don’t you.
Commit to something. Not everything, just something so I can form an opinion on what you stand for.
[63] Thanks, Marcus. It’s not a secret I worked in the public sector before I retired, and, yes, I did hire people (and my picks were about the only aspect of my work my bosses never moaned about
). It’s good to know that the private sector headhunter’s job is simply to find out which candidate is the keenest - well done, if I’d known it was money for jam I’d've gone in for your profession instead… may I humbly suggest that you only know about those private sector appointment procedures where they decide to hire a headhunter? My private sector friends (I’m thinking of advertising and IT off the top of my head) tell me that jobs are typically filled through the grapevine, after all it’s a lot cheaper that way!
Perhaps you’d like to find a Council a Chief Executive one day (although if you don’t fancy it I for one wouldn’t blame you in the least)
People will tell pollsters almost anything but if anyone thinks that the Great British Public are really going to vote for the pig in a poke that is Cameron’s Tory Party UNLESS Brown screws are badly mistaken.
I can only recall one government losing an election when things in the country had been going OK/well and that was when Heath beat Wilson. Every other time that I can think of followed a serious mess.
Yes, I think Labour ludicrously over egged this tax commission thing. From what I saw of Ed Balls, he wasn’t even subtle enough to hint darkly that the proposals were part of some secret Tory agenda. He just kept fizzing that the Tories were going to implement these tax reductions and this would result in 21 billion of public-service cuts etc. The thought seems to be that the British public are too thick to distinguish well-meaning advice from a party manifesto.
64. Labour just look tired and depressed, as well. The energy has gone. Most of all they are morally exhausted by Iraq - the shame of it all has enervated them. Lefties like to feel morally superior to everyone, especially Tories - moral vanity is what makes lefties go into politics. But because of Iraq they can’t feel good about themselves. So they need time in Opposition to lick their wounds and burnish their consciences, and get all righteously angry again.
Consequently, they will lose next time. And Brown will go down as an oddly tragic figure, despite his achievements.
kjh If you are a LibDem as you say why do you “just want something, anything from DC”?
So you can attack it? So you can join him? What is the urgency?
“UNLESS Brown screws are badly mistaken”
I should have added “up” after screws-but maybe not!
Innocent A I have worked with the public sector in executive recruitment and since then I have been less surprised at the mess we often get from government departments, national and local.
Anyone with real drive is looked at as dangerous, anyone talking the talk is invaluable (forget delivery) and anyone who delivers consistently is never remarked upon.
Many public services would collapse without the underpaid, under-recognised hard work of the worker bees in the lower and middle ranks.
This ‘Talkers get to the top’ syndrome has been vastly enhanced under Nulab who, after all, work that way themselves.
73 Blue2win. I am trying to make a non political point here.
My problem is the lack of ideology in politics generally at present from all parties best demonstrated I think recently by a post from ‘I hate DC’ a few days ago. I think what we hear from DC typifies this. And I think it is scary that I really don’t know what DC or the Labour party stand for (and for the general public that is probably true for the LDs as well)
If DC came out with stuff I disagreeed with I would attack it, yes. If I agreed with it I wouldn’t. If the Tories turned into the Lib Dems (genuinely) I would join them I guess (seems unlikely).
What is the urgency? Well I don’t expect details until the election, but I think it is the responibility of parties to at least let people know what their ideology is at all times.
mike - i must say your ‘wife beater’ analogy is quite unpleasant, certainly not based on fact and a little bit patronising.
just my two cents.
69. Having recruited at senior level in both the public and the private sector I think I can help you put some perspective here. I love your description of an interview panel. That is always the preferred route of all Public sector organisations. Always share responsibility as much as possible so that no-one can ever point the finger at an individual. Where’s my long service and good conduct award?
72 The stakes could not be higher.
Despite the last set of polls, Labour still hold the key cards and did not look tired, depressed or shamed at the conference in my opinion. If Brown can get a strategy working and motivate the Party and wider Labour movement - which is something Blair has not been good at - they should still do it.
The Tories have a mountain to climb. If Labour can challenge the appeal of less than 50 Tory candidates, they will win again. Not a huge task. Half a dozen winning policies, ditch some dogs and a introduce a couple of tax cuts for the poor and we’ll be home and dry. No need to try risky Cameron. It’s still Labour’s to lose
The darkest moment is before the dawn.
IA at 69. I promise I didn’t know you worked in the public sector and didn’t intend to offend you; please accept my apology if I did.
The difficult bit in headhunting (the bit we get paid for) apart from finding the best people, is persuading target candidates that my clients job *is* the opportunity that fulfills their burning ambition.
I wouldn’t touch public sector recruitment for one good reason. In the private sector appointments are made by decision makers, single people who have to stand or fall on the quality of the decisions they make. From what I have seen of the public sector, especially local authorities, appointments are made by massive committees so that no one is to blame when it all goes pear shaped.
What that often leads to is the least controversial candidate picking up the job - not always the best answer.
Another problem in the public sector IMO is that no-one ever seems to get sacked for poor performance.
68 - Read my posts! calm down dear its just a web blog
Bit hypocritical of a Lib dem to get annoyed about what cameron stands for! I can guarentee that a large % of the public know the Lib Dems solely for opposing the Iraq War, could lead to a few difficulties in removing that one trick pony label in 3 yrs time.
You personify a stone throwing man in a house built of glass my fellow.
Do we know when the YouGov poll is out, because I can’t see there is much more useful debate to be had until it does
That won’t of course stop the occaisional sniper fire!
The Barber ‘boom’ came about due to a belief in the Tory Party that the Maudling ‘boom’ had been at the point of being a sucess when the Conservatives lost the election in 1964. The Conservative Government believed that high driven growth would produce low unemployment, which would buy off the unions wage demands. Ironically low unemployment produced skills shortages which drove up wage demands. Such a belief eventually produces a reaction in the shape of high interest rates to choke of demand. Anthony Barber was probably the worse post war chancellor ever.
81. There’s a difference between standing for nothing and the public not being aware enough of what you stand for.
I’m not suggesting either apply to the Tories or the LDs; there is a distinction between the two accusations though.
Re the ICM poll - I don’t think it’s anything to do with tax or Cameron, I think it’s the Iraq effect. For most of the summer and autumn Iraq didn’t really make the news because the news orgs didn’t have reporters there, but it is on the news everyday now, because of the comments of Gen D and events in the USA. Bile towards Labour always rises when Iraq is in the picture. Labour won’t win the next election unless we can get out of iraq - but that task is postponed by Blair staying on. See the way he was till saying “stay the course” even as events were changing in the USA. He’s emotionally attached to the project.
49. “I have been mystified as to how this legend seems to have appeared that somehow tax cuts can lead to ‘boom and bust’ for some time.. ..IIRC there was only one ‘boom-bust’ under the Thatcher/Major government caused by Lawsons ill-fated attempt to shadow the Deutschmark.”
The Lawson tax cuts released a huge amount of money into the economy, which went straight into prices, causing inflation. If there had been an independent central bank at the time, interest rates would have been raised immediately. But Lawson controlled interest rates, and presumably his reasoning was “what’s the point of cutting taxes, if you are going to take the money back straightaway with an interest rate rise”. And yes he was shadowing the DM. So he delayed raising interest rates, and the rest is history.
But even if he hadn’t been shadowing the DM, there would have been trouble, as there would have been a sharp rate rise. you pay interest out of after tax income. There’s absolutely no point getting a £10 tax break and paying £20 in interest from your after tax income.
As an aside the pound has been shadowing the euro since 2003, in a tighter range than would have been required under ERM!
77 Perhaps the “wife beater” analogy is unpleasant, but is it justified? I certainly have become more and more aware that governments, councils, and parties, are not always disposed to act in ways that make our lives any easier.
[75][80] No offence taken, none at all. I have to go out, but before I do I’ll share a tale & make a more general point which I suspect all three of us can agree on.
Some years ago an ex-boss of mine, then in academia (but by no means an “academic” type), was approached by the Leader of a District Council in a salubrious corner of the Home Counties with a view to his applying for a Chief Officer post. He didn’t get it - the Leader rang him up afterwards to say that if Members had hired him the existing Management Team, including the Chief Executive and Treasurer, said they would all have resigned on the spot…
The problem in the “not for profit” sector generally is simply that there is no financial measure of success or failure in the way that there is for example, for a Sales Director. So - for example - Performance Related Pay becomes Compliance Related Pay - if anyone can post a link showing that PRP has improved our public and voluntary sector I’d really like to read it. On recruitment more specifically, I take Marcus’s point absolutely - the reason why my picks were right (if they were) is because I put effort into persuading individuals that I thought they were right for the job even though they themselves were often less convinced - which strikes me as much of a muchness with what he’s saying.
86. That is exactly the re-writing of history I’d expect from you Snowflake.
Interest rates were held artificially low by all central banks to ward of concerns about a crash frollowing the 1987 stockmarket slump.
The unsustainable boom was caused by botht eh Uk and US being awash with cheap money as a result.
Your statement “The Lawson tax cuts released a huge amount of money into the economy” is utter rubbish, in fact all Lawson did was cut the 60% top rate to 40% which affected (in those days) a few thousand high rate taxpayers. And as a result tax reciepts went UP.
The only tax change which did have a bad effect was Lawsons advance notice of the abolishion of joint MIRAS which fuelled and already overheated housing market as couples rushed to buy ahead of abolition.
One of my frustrations at the time with Mrs T was that, in spite of all the fuss, the tax take by the Government stubbornly refused to come down. It was only under Ken Clarke, years later, that the tax take fell convincingly \nd permanently below 40% of GDP.
81/68 Lib dems are operating under the assumption that Brown will win and go for an early election. manifesto drafting is already underway>/a>.
Better to have a manifest soon and to rewrite it before the election if delayed than to swan around saying nothing in my view.
OTOH I think it going to be hard for any of the parties to make a distinctive stand on many key issues (look at the Indpendent front page today on global warming - 75% of it will be in the manifesto of each of the main parties). Issues like Iraq may be more important than Pudsey assumes.
I wish you could preview posts here…
I honestly think only a small % of the electorate are bothered enough about Iraq to actually change the party which they vote for, admittedly there may be some abstinence from some labour voters, but the election will be fought on tax, nhs, education & immigration.
Interesting that the so called 60% grouped Lib/LAb vote that certain people were harping on about a while ago has disappeared also! MAybe also illustrating how little iraq actually counts!
ICM - 29 + 22 - 51
CR - 32 + 14 - 46
Mori - 37 + 16 - 53
90. Ming said he thinks there’ll be a GE in October 2007…I still find it quite unlikely
81 Pudsey, the reason I wasn’t calm was I have repeatedly tried to make the point that I’m trying to have a discussion where the reply doesn’t just come back with a Tory knocking a LD, a LD knocking a Tory, Lab knocking…. etc etc.
As soon as I made the original post (many posts ago) about this I was accussed of being a Labour supporter, hence my post - just ignore the content and slag off the poster because he is in a different tribe. In fairness to SeanT we got off this and had a sensible discussion and his post at 61 was really thought provoking.
But subsequent posts from others like yourself just go back to the same theme - Just ignore the discussion on the topic and slag me off for being a Lib Dem. What is the point.
Ignore the fact that I’m a Lib Dem and discuss the topic. I would like to know what you think about the topic. I would like to know what you think about SeanT’s post at 61.
It is sad that there are lots of knocking posts, yet nobody has commented on the only post that actually bothered to discuss the topic (SeanT/61).
RE -Aparatchicks and ” why does the smooth talking shit rise to the top ? ”
I think this is a general problem about people and group behavior.
So far comments seemed to have focussed on the percieved ineficiency of how the public sector chooses its managers,
( Hayeckians out there may leap on the ‘falacy of managerialism :))but I would a argue that the Private sector is equally inefficient, one only has to think of various Company directors etc who gain bonus’s regardless of how their companies perform.
Football teams for example regularly spend vast amounts on changing managers only to sack them a couple of months later.
Also ,different organisations may benefit from different leaders at different times. In some cases a passionate ,driven and persuasive personality is whats required,in other cases a capacity to live with uncertainty and tolerate depressive feelings is more effective.
92 Of those issues, the NHS is the most interesting. But it will be hard to strike a distinctive note on this.
67 - If she has two daughters, a full-time job and an annual salary of just £13,000 per year, then she is entitled to a lot of child tax credit.
The only problem is that Labour took a system that was working perfectly well [several different benefits/tax breaks], tried to simplify it, but only managed the most monumental organisational 4lw-up.
Labour and Brown do need to realise that they have to engineer a net decrease in the number of forms people have to deal with. When was the last time I had to apply for child benefit? Or my personal tax allowance?
What would be really good to see would be a proposal to increase the personal allowance to ~£10k [~full-time on minimum wage], double or triple child benefit and subsidise nursery childcare more directly by extending the early-years education grant. You could then abolish the present Tax Credits fiasco, without any poor people losing out.
Rich people would get more, but that’s OK, because you could simply take it back off them, to keep the whole change revenue neutral, by removing the National Insurance ceiling, or some other similar change. Probably, childless rich people would get hit, but then they’ve goit most to spare…
That’s a problem I have with the Tories. They would never do anything that would take money off their rich chums. They’d rather propose changes that would see the poor lose out.
It was the Tories who started this by shifting taxation away from Income tax to VAT and council tax. Labour have merely copied them, because they are too gutless to do anything that might scare “middle” England.
I did find the recommendation to increase the personal allwance in the Tory proposals interesting, but the proposal to scrap stamp duty on share transactions is one example of simply throwing money to the rich, rather than helping to cut the tax burden on the poor. Same old Tories.
That Labour can’t make this argument stick against them just exposes that they’ve been up to the same game themself, given the cuts in Corporation tax in recent years, whilst National Insurance went up.
Jonathon at 48 and 79,
On tax cuts for the poor, how about something like:
- The personal allowance increased to £7,185
- The 10 per cent rate abolished.
2.5 million poor people would thereby stop paying income tax altogether.
- The basic rate of income tax reduced to 20 per cent.
- A transferable personal allowance for couples with one or more children under the age of five.
… or are these too focused on the rich?
89. Sorry marcus - but basic rate taxes were cut too in the budgets from 85-88. That’s what I meant when I said “the Lawson tax cuts” - you seem to be naively assuming that it was just the 1988 budget that was the problem. A torrent of cash was released into the economy in about three years - no economy can cope with that much cash released, of course it all went into prices.
As for the 87 crash - true there were emergency interest rate cuts - but that is precisely the wrong time to push tax cuts too! Something Lawson didn’t understand.
You contend that “tax receipts rose” - initially yes they did, prices increase, salaries increase, the tax received from said salaries increases, and well as VAT receipts etc. But as interest rates rose, the economy stalled, and tax receipts fell sharply and continued to fall - indeed John Major had to raise taxes to help restore the books, and even then he was running a budget deficit of 6% of GDP.
Your remarks illustrate that Tories still have no clue as to why they crashed and burned in the early 90’s and have no idea of how Labour has run a steady economy in the last 9 1/2 years. Which means you don’t understand what exactly you need to do to keep the economy steady. He who fails to understand history is doomed to repeat it, which is why it would be downright dangerous to put you back into power.
98 It’s not me who thinks this…
Robert Chote, director of the IFS, told BBC Radio:
“This package, if it were to be implemented in its entirety, is likely to benefit people on relatively high incomes rather than people on relatively low incomes.
“That would certainly be true of the income tax cuts, which help people in the middle or towards the top, and the same with cuts in inheritance tax and capital gains tax.”
And let’s not forget Tory governments always put up VAT, even if they don’t tell you in advance. VAT on fuel realy hurt the poor who spend a much higher proportion of their income on heating.
98 - Andy – I was under the impression that tax cuts would lead to every school, hospital and orphanage in the country being closed.
Or maybe it’s different when it’s Labour tax-cuts?
100, Jonathon,
- How? And if taking the bottom 2.5 million out of tax, increasing personal allowances to over 7k and cutting basic rate tax is not a way to cut taxes on the poor, then what on Earth is?
101, Max,
I believe that it’s something to do with the pure intent of the Labour leaders contrasted with the obvious vindictive desire of the Tories to crush the poor underfoot while cackling maniacally.
It’s probably something to do with quantum mechanics.
67 - The Tory tax commission didn’t say anything about council tax, as far as I know. The Tories introduced council tax and seem to have no interest in altering it at the moment. Although it has risen significantly under Labour, the fundamental problem is that it is an unfair tax. That’s why we should have Local Income Tax
Cutting tax on the poorest is something that matters alot to me, but it is interestingly difficult. Raising the low income tax threshold is good, but that only helps those who are actually in work (part of both Lib Dem and Tory plans - although the Tories added a load of things like cutting inheritance tax and share stamp duty which are quite blatantly tax cuts for the rich). Then you’ve got to replace council tax, but then where else do you go - VAT?
99. Snowflake Again you are mistaken.
Lawson did indeed cut income taxes but the idea that there was then a sudden torrent of cash ‘released’ into the economy is just untrue and reveals your lack of understanding for basic economics.
Either individuals spend money or the state does.
Economic growth is generally faster in lower tax economies because Government spending does not usually show any return (profit), whereas private spending does, increasing profits generate more wealth for individuals and for business investment over the long term.
So Lawsons tax cuts did cause faster growth eventually, which it is true was not properly balanced by the central banks but for the reason I gave earlier, ie that they were worried about an asset price crash and decided (probably correctly) that brewing an inflation problem was the lesser of two evils compared to a 1929 style economic collapse.
Either way economic stability is not dependent on high taxes which is what you seem to be suggesting.
94 So no reply then from anyone. We just want to slag each other off I guess.
Re 105, Sorry kjh, your original query seems lost unless it is that politicians are all hudling toegther around what is now the middle ground in which case I agree with you. It has been that way in the past though.
86. and 89. Just for the record, fiscal policy was tightened from 1984-1989 by 5% of GDP on a simple basis and 2% of GDP on a cyclically adjusted basis. In the 1987-1989 period the tightening was 2.6% of GDP and 1% of GDP on these two bases. Fiscal policy was not expansionary despite the Lawson tax cuts. You could argue it should have been even more contractionary given what was happening on the monetary side. But that really only proves the point that monetary policy was far too loose and was the real cause of the eventual economic overheating.
I’ll reply KJH and SeanT.
FWIW I think Sean is wrong on this. For years from the 1930’s up to Thatcher there was a similar economic consensus -it was just tilted the other way. You couldn’t put a fag paper between Churchill in ‘51 and Attlee in ‘45 on the need for a ‘controlled’ industrial base and state management of every aspect of our economy.
On the social divide and multiculturalism too there has been a remarkable consensus from about the mid-1960’s onwards towards increasing liberalism.
I think the worry about the superficiality of politics is vastly overdone - when a crisis occures (such as Iraq) politics can be as serious now as it ever was.
The reason we have been arguing about personality over policy is down to two things - a) The big political news for years has been ‘who is leading or going to lead x party’ and b) the BIG issue, the economy, has been stable.
Thanks Benedict. Sort of, although a bit more than that I think because I think it is unclear what that middle ground is that they are hudling around eg Labour on faith schools, what is their view now? DC what are his views? What are the parties motivation for power now?
I’m not vain enough to think that because I want to discuss this other must also, just found it sad that many were motivated to respond by simply attacking my political views that were unrealated to the topic, which I have to say is pretty typical of posts from many on the site when someone makes a post.
108 Thanks Marcus. I hope you didn’t feel duty bound to post out of pity for me
I strongly agree with Tony Blair on this matter “The first rule of politics - there are no rules. You make your own luck”
In my opinion the “Centre ground” is a myth. Politics comes down to the influence of a few key people and is not defined by the middle of two absolute extremes.
IF X, Y and Z are the most influential members of society then THEY define the centre of mass. Blair has been very influential, hence the centre of politcs is more of less what he thinks. People are judged more or less relative to him.
Hence, regulated Markets are the centre ground.
To shift politics all you need are influential individuals with different view to their predessors.
The key corollary of this, is that it is hard to be influential the more you diverge from commonly held wisdom especially during times of stability. If the economy is choppy, mavericks have a way in. The sheer fact the economy is benign forces Cameron to accept the common wisdom that got us to this point, despite whatever prejudices he might hold about laissez-faire economics.
IMO Blair had the charisma to have driven things more to the left if he wanted to.
kjh You bemoan the lack of clear statements of political ideology from parties.
I suggest you kick off and give us the current ideology of the LibDems.
Mind you, put your tin hat on first.
All parties are coalitions and ideology is often in the eye of the beholder. You can never please all of the party all of the time nor can you convince them all you mean what you say even when you say what you mean. Political activists tint their party ideology to suit their own beliefs. They are not dishonest but we all filter the world through our own prism.
Otherwise parties would have a membership of two. Me and my dog. And you and yours. Sounds like UKIP and Veritas.
As for the Tories their is a document that might help called Built to Last.
Russell @ 104
“like cutting inheritance tax and share stamp duty which are quite blatantly tax cuts for the rich”
wrt share stamp duty, Howard Flight probably puts it better than I ever could:
“Many people think this is a tax on the rich. It is not. Wealthy individuals and institutions have access to sophisticated derivatives that enable them to avoid the tax.
The ordinary person and his pension fund do not. It is these people that the tax hits disproportionately.”
Why exactly should the pension funds of millions of people in the UK _not_ be given a boost, just because a wealthy few individuals _might_ gain some marginal benefit? That’s just political principle at the expense of pragmatism for the general benefit of all.
I wasn’t attacking you individually at 62 - KJH, its the fact that some lib dems but predominatly labour posters constantly come on craving for policy stamping statements from cameron, when he is clearly presenting a feel for the direction he is taking the party in, rather then a definitive clause iv type moment which I feel the tories don’t actually need.
It is interesting where all those posters who took the mori poll as gold standard where it showed a labour lead and were lambasting DC, are now hiding away hoping for a reprieve from you gov tomorrow so they can, they can try and inject some life into the strategic nightmatmare that is PM golden brown!
kjh How about this for you ideology collection. David Cameron said that the mission of the Conservative party was:
A revolution in personal responsibility – giving every individual the
skills, the resources, and the confidence to take control of their life.
A revolution in professional responsibility – giving all those who work in our public services the freedom to fulfil their vocation.
A revolution in civic responsibility – giving our neighbourhoods and communities the power to shape their destinies, fight crime and improve the quality of life.
A revolution in corporate responsibility – giving business the encouragement and the incentive to help enhance our environment and improve well-being.
That is the mission of the modern Conservative Party: a responsibility revolution to create an opportunity society – a society in which everybody is a somebody, a doer not a done-for. Ours is a message of change, optimism and hope.
104. I think it is you who doesn’t understand economics if you think that tax cuts don’t release money into the economy - and Lawson’s cuts were huge. Besides, the boom-bust cycle set in train meant that Lawson’s cuts were eventually cancelled out by Major’s rises. So you ended up at status quo plus increased national debt accrued in the bust years. What was the point of the exercise?
You also imply that if the state doesn’t cut taxes, it will spend them - but it could simply hold the money in a surplus the way Labour did in the boom years of the late 90’s and early 2000’s. All Lawson had to do during the boom in the late 80’s was to hold the money in a budget surplus - but he was egged onto releasing it by greedy tories.
What’s more Lawson didn’t fund his cuts properly - he tried to pay for tax cuts (an annual loss of revenue) with asset sales which are one-off. To sustain them, you need to have an asset sale every year - impossible.
As for the argument that if a service is provided by government it is “valueless” but if a service is provided by the private sector it has value is nonsense. A doctor performing heart surgery is doing something of the value regardless of whether he is public or private. It’s typical cod economics from Tories to suggest otherwise.
I’m also highly amused that you are taking this line, especially as the other day you were arguing that it was wrong for Labour to hold NHS trusts to budget and that a Tory govt would simply give overspending departments more money, plus of course more occupational therapists etc. I think you’ve forgotton to reimplant your David Cameron chip into your head this morning.
25-Quite O/T, but why is it easier and more acceptable to laugh at some countries than others?
Dogs at Korean embassy=dinner.
Yet if DC had been with a young black kid at the DR Congo embassy you would not dare suggest he was choosing dinner. [Cannibalism during the receint civil wars there is wella ttested as part of warrior rituals]
Borat and Kazakhstan is well known. How about, I am Ahmed from Arabia, please buy my video or my brother will be forced to become a suicde bomber. Funny? How about I am Mbuzu from Africa, please buy my video or we will be forced to eat my grandmother for dinner. Even funnier?
115 This mission is totally undistictive. All political parties could agree wit