There are three things to say about Osborne's long term economic plan.
The first is he did have one. It was based on imposing austerity. It failed. We had a recession. Incomes fell. He employment rose. The outlook was dire. And after his disastrous budget in March 2012 Osborne abandoned it.
The second is that since then the plan has been anything he can find to boost house prices in the South East (Help to Buy, inheritance tax plans, etc) or that might secure re-election (unfunded NHS spending plans).
The third is this from the Guardian's report on his appearance on Marr this morning:
George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, has just appeared on the Marr show. Andrew Marr pressed him on yesterday's Tory pledge to find an extra £8bn for the NHS.
“It's part of our balanced plan”, said Osborne, when asked where the money was coming from. “That's not really an answer,” responded Marr.
“We have always said we supported the NHS's own plan for its sustainable future, so we offer the best health care in the world and the best medicines ... and because we have that balanced economic plan and because we are prepared to take difficult decisions in other parts of government we can go on increasing the money to the NHS.”
Marr interjected: “if you're not going to tell me where the money's coming from, I'll tell you where the money's coming from. It's going to come from even deeper cuts in the unprotected departmental spending budget of around 14% in total, so you're going to hit the police, you're going to hit the armed forces and you're going to hit local government to pay for this.”
Or to out it another way, the plan is to lie.
Don't get me wrong: I am not seeking to suggest all the rest of politics is necessarily edifying. But this is deeply unedifying.
And I don't think the Eds in there are puns.
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Again with Osbourne who – like Dave – is an absolute master of Orwellian doublespeak – you have to really look at what the phrase “We have always said we supported the NHS’ own plan for its sustainable future” means.
What it means is more privatisation – sustainability through charging – no doubt via expensive health insurance.
Also, we know that the Tories are the party of money and the monied (high finance). And we also know that what our finance system here in the UK does is not actually make new money – rather it just moves existing money around. So of course the Tories will not find any real new money; they will rob Peter to pay Paul – just like they have always done.
I think what Osborne is hinting at is more of this wheeze:
“The UK owes more than £222bn to banks and businesses as a result of Private Finance Initiatives (PFIs) — “buy now, pay later” agreements between the government and private companies on major projects. The startling figure — described by experts as a “financial disaster” — has been calculated as part of an Independent on Sunday analysis of Treasury data on more than 720 PFIs. The analysis has been verified by the National Audit Office (NAO).”
Which pays short term dividends to some:
“firms given 25-year contracts to build and maintain schools doubled their money by selling their shares in the schemes less than five years into the deals. Four — Balfour Beatty, Carillion, Interserve, and Kier — made combined profits of over £300m.”
That’s the “balanced plan” -balanced in favour of the asset rich and not the public.
I’d be interested to know where this £8 billion for the NHS is going to come from. Of course, this money is unlikely ever to materialise.
It is desperate electioneering and nothing more.
Richard,
You may have a moral argument but factually you are wrong, there was no recession during the last Parliament. Are you prepared to correct this and no, I’m no a pendant.
For a long time it was believed that there was
And it was subsequently restated not to have been the case
But the economy behaved as if there was during the time it was sure it happened
Stats are not all that matters