Apparently George Osborne is planning a budget 'soon'.
What for? To deal with the massive debt, poor growth, out of control deflation and massive trade deficit he's inherited from his predecessor in the last parliament?
Or to pursue the policy of turning the UK into a tax haven?
It has to be one of the two given he's already had a go this year.
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I would expect the latter, with a side order of tax cuts for the wealthiest, dressed up as being applicable to everyone, in all depressing probability.
Well it certainly won’t be the former, Richard, as that would involve owning up to/exposing the fact that the claims the Tories made about the success of our economy, and their role in “transforming” it – and thus their economic competence – were bollocks – as Larry Eliot, Paul Mason, and others exposed pretty clearly.
And as you cryptically note, they can no longer blame the economic failings of this country on the previous Labour government (though I won’t be surprised if they carry on trying). But as we know from the last five years, and the election campaign, the Tories have absolutely no hesitation about lying about anything as long as it makes them look good. And as they can rely on the vast majority of the media to provide the necessary positive spin (and with the BBC charter coming up for renewal, we can expect that organisation to become even more craven than it is) we’re highly likely to the emergence of a parallel world in the UK: The Tory world, where all their claims, policies and actions paint a picture of how marvelously well the UK is doing, socially, economically, culturally, educationally, environmentally, and so on. And the real world, where suffering, poverty and ill health increases, access to justice diminishes, education is left to the whim of markets, the environment is trashed, local transport infrastructure declines (e.g. anyone noticed the amount of work on the M1, but my local roads are becoming as bad as those in Bulgaria), and so on and on.
As well as relying on the media to construct and maintain a narrative that everything in the Tory English garden is rosy, I wonder what other mechanisms they’ll put in place to further bury the possibility of an alternative – real – narrative gaining ground (apart, of course, from the attack on the unions that we know is already underway)? I suspect nearly all research into policy impacts will disappear (it nearly has anyway), and perhaps the OBR will be seen as surplus to requirements. Whatever happens, we can expect all of it to be shocking to those of us who actually believe in a fairer, equitable, sustainable society, with policy based on evidence not ideology.
Jim Naughtie was selling that world hard on Radio 4 this morning
Shocking interview with Harriet Harman
house prices are tripping the light fantastic again, quelle surprise. More dodgy GDP figures to follow, I imagine. Business as usual with bells on – the Tory fan whirs ever faster.
See: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/may/09/election-property-market-housing-crisis-predators-labour
No.
But we’ll get it anyway and the lies about the country’s finances will go on and on.