Almost unnoticed George Osborne abandoned the balanced budget by 2020 plan yesterday.
Theresa May made it clear she had no hope of delivering it.
As it happens I have always made clear he could never have achieved it anyway.
But that is not the point: the point is that because of a policy launched by the Conservative party and vigorously pursued by factions of it the supposed balanced budget bedrock of Tory belief has been jettisoned.
Remember, this issue was considered so important that it was legislated last year and as a result only the Office for Budget Responsibility could supposedly suggest occasion when it need not be met. That went in a moment.
Admittedly George Osborne said that he was still committed to the ideal.
I suspect the Treasury is too.
But is Theresa May? Osborne will not be her Chancellor. And will anyone now take this goal on? I do wonder.
Might we just be seeing a new economics? I could hope. Although I am not optimistic. We may just be seeing the groundwork for even more austerity laid. This issue will need very careful monitoring.
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Face it: The people who voted to depart the EU are going to regret it, and very soon.
Health services, that were already facing extreme difficulties, are going to, at best, mark time.
The plan to reduce A&E units from 144 to, at most, 90 are moving ahead. The closed A&E units may be continued as Urgent Care Centres (NOT emergency trauma unit…just band-aid units). People will die.
Taking a person suffering a stroke another 50 miles will be a waste of time..
The old, who voted for brexit, will soon find their “triple-lock” is unlocked, ditto their not being included in the “bedroom tax” (and housing benefit limits).
Turkeys have voted for Christmas.
I agree
And it is nearly four years to a scheduled election
If the Tories do not call one this autumn they have to try to stick it out
Yes they did.
But this is what Thatcher and a Cameron premiership bequeathed to us – people who cannot see beyond the end of their own noses.
But in mitigation, it is that those who voted BREXIT who were coldly manipulated and exploited by members of the Tory party in particular – an exploitation that finds its root in Lynton Crosby’s methodology of how to win votes.
Namely, to wind people up by amplifying those little irritations we have with each other and making them seem larger.
And to highlight them day after day after day (see the Express , the Daily Mail or the Sun).
That is how the BREXIT was won.
Rationality never stood a chance.
Only those abroad seem to see this more clearly than us.
Speaking of the view from abroad, the NY Times had this yesterday, a thoughtful piece by Tom Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/opinion/you-break-it-you-own-it.html?rref=collection%2Fcolumn%2Fthomas-l-friedman&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=1&pgtype=collection&_r=1
And this from comedian Jimmy Dore:
Elites Ignore Real Cause Of Brexit & Trump: Economic Anger Of Working Class
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czE7dkSSFB0&feature=youtu.be
Quote: “the driving force (behind support for Brexit, and Trump) is economic insecurity that makes people vulnerable to racist demagogues”
But this is sustainability and transformation plan for the 21st century. Simon Stevens is delivering a fitter, leaner, fit for purpose service.
Just get used to long journeys with your loved one for emergency care, take a packed lunch, it might be a long wait when you get there.
And the merged GP services, larger, shared overheads, therefore cheaper.
140 full A/E hospitals in 2013, now, as you say between 70 – 90 will be left.
44 regions or footprints looking after the welfare of the nation.
Stock up with plasters and learn some bandaging techniques.
Can I make the point in case some miss if that I am very sure this comment is laden with irony
is this the Steven’s that was head of a private health insurance company in the US?
Yes
Well let’s see John M, and explain to me how being in Europe would have stopped these measure being introduced? There chief architect’s David Cameron and George Osborne both who have had their credibility shot no longer have workable influence.
If anything the right has had its wings clipped, the vote leave narrative was one derived from the struggles of the working classes.
The economic left really need to get their act together, a political, economical, social bomb has just exploded with brexit, the debris of uncertainty but also huge opportunity that this bomb has created is still up in the air, if the progressive left come together and create a stronger economic, social and political narrative,then like the force of gravity where more massive objects cause other smaller objects to gravitate towards them, then so too could the progressive’S pull in this debris of uncertainty and opportunity and defeat the neo-liberalism we’ve endured for decade’s.
Jeremy Corbyn I think and hope is being quite smart, if the report on Iraq which is due out next week discredits many of the Blaire fan club, then this could conceivably create the much needed platform for a new labour leader who is more in the mould of corbyn economically, but does not have baggage that would prove detrimental to labour’s success in a general election.
James S
lets be brutally honest here, the White working class didn’t vote against the EU, they voted against immigration. If you can see anything positive in that then please elucidate because I can’t. I can only see a quick hop back to all the worst things about the 70s with none of the positives. I daresay Jim Davidson will be planning a nationwide tour even as we blog.
@JohnM
What we need to face is that Brexit will be used as an all purpose excuse. The nonsense of the budget surplus is just a start.
There is no need for unemployment to rise. There is no need for the NHS or Education to be neglected. There is no need for work on flood protection or any other infrastructure project to be scaled back PROVIDING that the resources are available in the economy to provide the goods and services we need.
If they aren’t the government will simply create higher than desired levels of inflation when it tries to call upon those resources by spending on those projects.
We’re nowhere near that potential problem at the present time. If and when we do get close to it we can then start to consider the best way of scaling back a little.
TINA….. to ongoing fiscal rectitude under whomsoever Leader or party.
Be guided by the Merkel/Schauble budget balancing 2018 objective…….. with all ClubMed and other slipstreamers who cannot achieve it eating the teutonic dust.
Might Andrea Leadsom be appointed as Theresa May’s Chancellor? She has, I gather, connections with the tax havens.
I fear she will be
Balanced and surplus budgets will be back they are an essential part of the kit along with labour movement policies and corrupt global trading arrangements the wealthy use to extract further wealth from their fellow man. Reviving Gold Standard monetary systems with their accompanying Austerianism provide justification for asset stripping of public wealth, trickle-down tax breaks and subsidies for the already extremely wealthy.
I doubt we will see an end to the balanced budget stuff, it has become a knee jerk parroting formula by now and will remain.
What is clear is that the ghastly creep Osborne chose a crisis period to announce this so he would have plenty of cover arguments. His ‘advisers’ that is would have told him as he himself is incapable of individual thought and is a mere metonym.
The Tories are, happily, in a vice of their own although the one on Labour is being wound tighter and tighter. May looks the likely winner as Gove is surely unthinkable.
What worries me, Richard, is that the Brexit vote might be used as a cover for more austerity there are even ‘theories’ out there that Washington and the ECB might monetarily punish the UK for ‘non-compliance’ in voting out.
I don’t think there can be any doubt,austerity will continue, ‘balanced budget’ will just be copy and replaced by ‘brexit’.
This allows osborne (or his successor) extra room to indulge his favoured activity ,siphoning the commonwealth to his class.
I remember the late George Best once talkg about his dog dying. He loved the animal & was genuine devastated but this had the redeeming feature that he could forsake one of his, many, hopeless attempts at abstinence & go on a bender with a perfect excuse.
I suspect this is one of the few things the 2 Georges have in common. Geo Osborne knew he could never balance the budget any more than Geo Best could stay off the sauce & the Brexit has given him the perfect excuse to bury the pledge.
George Osborne has announced that he wants to reduce Corporation tax to 15%. I assume he can’t do it without an emergency budget. As someone said on the radio, he has the skin of a rhinoceros. Why has he not been sacked/resigned?