Balles gets it: cuts don’t work

Posted on

From Ed Balls' speech this morning:

George Osborne's logic is that if Greece, Ireland and Portugal had adopted the same approach that he is taking, they would not be facing such severe and deepening crises.

The problem for him - and for them - is that they did.

In fact, the Portuguese Chancellor went one better by introducing two VAT rises in the past year.

And what they, Ireland and Greece have all discovered - just like Argentina, Brazil and Turkey before them - is that it doesn't matter how much they cut spending or how much they raise taxes; if they can't create jobs and growth, their debt and deficit problems get even worse and market confidence falls further still.

My concern is that we are starting to see the same thing happen here in Britain.

He's right.

Now he has to say what his growth plan is.

But he's bang on to say that whatever else Osborne will deliver it's not growth. And that as a result the deficit will increase in due course. Like night follow day.


Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:

You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.

And if you would like to support this blog you can, here: