If there's one thing I cannot fault the Tories for it's their hatred of the state they are elected to serve. They loath its spending. It's therefore curious to note the FT saying:
George Osborne's attempt to slash £11.5bn off public spending in election year has run into cabinet trouble, after ministers identified only £2.5bn in cuts to their budgets. Some ministers failed to provide Mr Osborne with the list of 10 per cent in proposed departmental cuts he ordered before last month's deadline. One said the chancellor was "asking too much".
Quite so. It is asking too much.
You see, that spending is necessary. And in that case cuts will cause harm.
Labour please note. Trident and PFI need to go. That's true. But after that? I suspect there's not much saving to be had.
Thanks for reading this post.
You can share this post on social media of your choice by clicking these icons:
There are links to this blog's glossary in the above post that explain technical terms used in it. Follow them for more explanations.
You can subscribe to this blog's daily email here.
And if you would like to support this blog you can, here:
Buy me a coffee!
Oh but the Tories are willing to throw £40 billion away on a vanity project called HS2! Apparently even the Right are against this.
http://www.thisistamworth.co.uk/right-wing-HS2/story-19004117-detail/story.html#axzz2TX7eMCeJ
Just think what you could do with £40 billion invested in the UK’s infrastructure now!
I agree
That £40bn wouldn’t be spent at once. The plan is for HS2 to open sometime around 2032, so on average the cost is what? £2.7bn per annum assuming linear project programme and 2017 start date?
Which is not that much of an injection in the scheme of things. The UK needs many more projects like this.
I strongly suspect more diversified spending would be of much more benefit
Just think what 30-40bl could do in regional development? Even if we kept it to transport projects, there are numerous things that could be done to improve regional rail and transport networks, as well as city based transport projects. This country desperately needs a shot in the arm outside London. Projects that will make regional cities more attractive to investors and businesses should be a priority. HS2 though is totally the wrong project.
Galbraith refers to Osborne’s continuous comparison Government debt with household economy as an example of the ‘fallacy of composition’ where something that is true only in part gets extended to the whole system. It’s an image people can easily relate to so they swallow it. Labour has hardly challenged this with any efficacy.
So now they have become so OCD about cuts that they are looking for them where they don’t exist! urgent therapy needed.
Interesting.
So what the Cabinet are effectively saying is that Government is as lean as it possible could be. If you take the analogy of an athlete, I wonder how much body fat that leaves the State with?
The problem I see, and that George clearly seems blinkered to, is that different parts of the State need different levels of body fat in order to be fit for purpose. Fit does not mean lean. One size most certainly does not fit all. Some parts need to be extremely nimble, fleet of foot, have quick reactions (e.g. our defence and security forces) whereas others need to have reserves of body fat for the endurance tests that they face (e.g. the NHS and HMRC).
Take HMRC. Having the fitness of an Olympic sprinter whilst trying to tackle an endurance event means that either your body is going to break, and you will have long periods of being inactive, or you are just going to jog around the track and be continually lapped by the opposition.
All of this is of course a result of the argument about how big the state should be. The question goes, “Do you believe in small Government or big Government?”. Well I believe in neither. I believe in Government that is the right-size for the season the nation faces. That is not driven by a head long drive for efficiency or a demand for competition in service provision. It is a reflection of the point you make in your opening sentence. Governments are elected to serve in the times we live in.
You are right to reject mantra
It is a shame more don’t
A pretty good analogy I think!
Just seems to me, that those in charge’s current vision of fit is that of a size zero model!!