Today saw the Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne deliver his conference speech to the party faithful in Manchester, including setting out a number of spending cuts:
>> Public sector pay freeze in 2011 – except frontline military or people on less than £18,000
>> Keep 50p top tax rate for now
>> End Child Trust Funds for all but the poorest families
>> No tax credits for families earning over £50,000.
His Lib Dem opposite number Vince Cable is distinctly underwhelmed:
“This set of deficit reduction proposals is Lib Dem Lite. The sum total amounts to nothing more than a drop in the ocean and will not deal with the structural deficit.
“What is more, Osborne has in effect guaranteed that these policies will merely pave the way for a return to traditional Tory politics – hitting the public sector now to pay for tax cuts for millionaires later.
“Only the Liberal Democrats have made a commitment to bringing public spending under control whilst making taxes fairer across the board.”
Sage Vince has hit on the serious flaw in Boy George’s pronouncements – how can the Tories talk the language of cuts and restraint while continuing to promise an inheritance tax break for the wealthiest multimillionaires? As Lib Dem blogger Nick Thornsby put it:
… every time I hear phrases like ‘terrible deficit’, ‘debt crisis’ or ‘fiscal responsibility’, the question pops into my head: Well why on earth are you still promising to spend over £3 billion on an inheritance tax cut for 3000 people. If that’s what Osborne calls fiscal responsibility at a time like this, then God help us all.
And as Vince and the Lib Dems would point out, for all the Tories’ talk of tough choices, they are not averse to making unfunded spending commitments – to the tune of some £53 billion! – comprising:
* £4.4bn on cutting inheritance tax – UNFUNDED
* £9.5bn on giving hospital patients their own rooms – UNFUNDED
* £34bn on a high speed rail link – UNFUNDED
* £2.4bn on a shake-up of sentencing policy – UNFUNDED
* £1.2bn restoring 3 infantry battalions – UNFUNDED
* £1.8bn creating 223,000 school places – UNFUNDED
Not surprising, perhaps, given Mr Osborne boasts of spending only 40% of his time focusing on the economy.
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8 Comments
I do wish we would read more of the proposals BEFORE writing these speeches. Both Vince and the FPC have seperately proposed either a real-terms cut or a real-terms freeze on public sector pay; saying it paves the way to return to “Tory politics” leaves the door open for Labour voters to see the self-same proposal in our manifesto and make a connection.
Usually its voters that are confused by Lib Dem policies but after Bourmoth its Lib Dems as well.
-Savage cuts yes or no?
-Mansion tax yes or no?
-Means tested child benefits yes or no?
-Student fees yes or no?
I ask in the likely event that the neglected state of British State pensioners will now become part of the Electoral Campaign how much better off will our seniors be under the next Liberal Democrat Government?
I know that Charles Kennedy when Leader in 2005 made a 10 Point statement relating to the proposals for `Citizens Pensions’ that would generally add in that year, an extra £25 per week, for each State pensioner.
It is clear that the abolition of income tax for all low income 4 million families in UK presents as a better package for the worst off then anything on the table from the Tories.
A Tory Government would spell out disaster for the worst off,for lower and middle income earners, all women especially those of independent means and for all pensioners being paid less for working longer and for public services employees.
Even after the state pension is linked to earnings Britain will still pay its pensioners,who are growing in number and in terms of relevance as voters growing in importance but are still at risk of remaining the lowest state Pensions in the EU and the modern developed world.
It is now revealed that up to one third of elderly in dependent care homes are being drugged to sleep each night without proper record of the dosages of sedatives.For them whether they receive an increase in pension or not commensurate to Age, theirs is a sorrier and institutionalised tale of compassionate Britain.
‘I ask in the likely event that the neglected state of British State pensioners will now become part of the Electoral Campaign how much better off will our seniors be under the next Liberal Democrat Government?’
How long have you got to wait?
After 90 years in opposition I guess youv’e got a lot of patience ,but don’t hold your breath.
You refer to Sage Vince. I am not sure that he is ‘The Greatest Economic Mind since Keynes’. Remember Jan 2009, subject matter Quantitive Easing. Cable describes as the ‘Robert Mugabe school of economics’ but, just 9 months later, he says ‘The Authorities threw the kitchen sink at the problems and were Right to do so….creating money, quantitive easing….’
In 2003, Cable dismissed an IMF warning that UK borrowing and asset prices were too high. He said he would not be panicked by the IMF into tightening belts. Now he says that he was arguing for interest rate policies to deal with housing inflation and that we needed to change the way the Bank of England operated. Seems a bit of a U Turn.
Here we go again a year ago. Cable says ‘It is not possible to run massive budget deficits because the Government’s public finances will not allow it’. Just 4 months later in February this year he says ‘We (presumably those LDs who he has actually consulted with) believe the Government stimulus is right and necessary’.
And more ‘change your mind’ fiscal policy. Cable says in September 2008 that ‘The Government must not compromise the independence of the Bank of England by telling it to slash interest rates’. Just one month later, Cable urges the Chancellor ‘to write to the Governor of the Bank demanding a large cut in interest rates’.
Now the goof with Mansion Tax.
So this article says that Vince Cable sees a lot of similarities between what George Osborne policies and what he would like to do? No bad thing for parties to work together.
“The sum total amounts to nothing more than a drop in the ocean and will not deal with the structural deficit.
… Only the Liberal Democrats have made a commitment to bringing public spending under control whilst making taxes fairer across the board.”
Surely there’s some mistake here? The link leads to a document from a year ago, full of stuff about “massive” programmes of public spending, cutting taxes, taking over the banks and so on.
Not a single word about the deficit. And as far as I can see the only reference to controlling public spending is one to identifying wasteful public spending and reallocating it “to education and helping families”.
I suppose someone has just linked to the wrong page, but they couldn’t have picked a better illustration of this hollow political posturing if they’d tried.
Herbert – it’s clearly been edited as it does include our latest tax proposals which were floated in July 09 and a speech from Nick Clegg in March 09. But you’re probably right in that it should link to our economic policy plans passed at conference.
Conference also made it clear that the final manifesto proposals presented at Spring Conference will include some (but not all) of Vince’s personal targets – scrapping RDAs, industrial policy, NHS tariffs, Eurofighter Tranche 3, and super-carriers, and looking to sell off and liberalise gov’t assets in the Highways Agency and intangible assets (radio spectrum and landing rights among others).
Our wait and see policy on our policies is a gamble – we’ll have the most up-to-date and real-world proposals by the GE campaign, but in the interim we’ll be susceptible to attacks like your own.