The right reply

TrevorsDen

Rumour has it Brown is being forced to scale back spending plans to placate the BoE.

If so it seems to me that mentioning Labour government cuts in spending at every opportunity would be a neat idea.

Martin Sharp

Every forecast the government makes on its debt is missed. They say it will go down and it has gone up in the boom time. Now we are in the bust by how much is the Chancellor going to break his new forecasts?

Simontm

Even if, as it claims, this government did not start this economic fire, it is now pouring the petrol of debt onto it instead of putting the fire out. The British public will get burnt from having to pay this back at a later date.
What this government has done is mislead this house, mislead the public and mislead itself into thinking that incontinent spending will see us through this crisis. The credit card is maxed out already and it is time this government demonstrated some proper housekeeping for a change.

David B

Look for the hidden tax rises in amongst the 'cuts'. Cuts in one place may well be offset by rises elsewhere- particularly in places where they will impact on UK competitiveness: look at proposals to change flight taxes.

In the Pre-Budget Report last October it was announced that Air Passenger Duty would be replaced with a per-flight tax, from 1st November 2009. Having been assured that details of the new tax would be released at least a year ahead of its introduction, we are still no clearer on what Aviation Duty will mean for the travelling public than when the proposal went to consultation at the beginning of the year.

A few months ago XL Leisure Group ceased trading, leaving over 70,000 passengers stranded. It is just one of 30 airlines to go out of business in the last twelve months. These are hard times for aviation and the whole UK economy. The Government would be wrong to make them harder at any stage of the economic cycle but particularly now.

Regional air routes will be seriously compromised, along with the sensitive and hugely important regional economies they serve. Many of the UK’s regions, particularly those furthest away from London, are dependent on their air links to airports in the South East, which will come under threat from Aviation Duty.

The inclusion of freight within Aviation Duty for the first time will hit its competitiveness, given its extreme sensitivity to cost. Many cargo-only flights are multiple stop, and will be forced to route via alternative airports in the EU, so avoiding the payment of Aviation Duty, reducing their contribution to the UK economy and potentially increasing emissions.

UK exporters have achieved success in the pharmaceutical and high-technology sectors in recent years. The ability to air-freight their products globally is key to their ability to remain competitive through a recession.

Aviation Duty will also apply to transfer passengers. The UK is the only country in Europe where this will happen. The result will be that more people will travel via Paris and Amsterdam than via London. When the UK needs to become more competitive internationally to be in the best position to ride out the downturn this proposal will achieve the opposite result.

Aviation Duty will marginalise regional air routes, make our airfreight uncompetitive, and harm the UK’s ability to compete within European aviation, at a time when our economy needs to be at its most competitive.

The Treasury has argued that Aviation Duty will be a green tax, in order to encourage better environmental performance from aviation. Aviation Duty will not do that. Any policy which results in the flight of a newer aircraft such as the Airbus A380 being taxed more heavily than an older, noisier, more polluting aircraft cannot possibly be green, and will do nothing to reduce aviation emissions.

The need for policy instruments in this regard is not even clear when the airline industry seeks to control its costs by using the most fuel-efficient aircraft wherever possible and the aerospace industry is striving to meet that demand. For example, the previously-mentioned Airbus A380 emits seventy five grams of carbon dioxide per passenger kilometre (ppkm). The average car that is exempt from the London congestion charge (carrying 1.56 passengers and limited to 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometre) emits 77 grams ppkm. Such performance from new aircraft should be encouraged, not penalised.

Indeed Ruth Kelly, the former Secretary of State for Transport, has said that:

“Since APD was doubled [in 2007], aviation will meet its climate change costs, taking account not just of carbon dioxide emissions, but of other aviation greenhouse effects such as NOx emissions and contrails.”

m dowding

This is a panic emergency budget, based on a buffeted, fragile, cobbled together raft rather than a lifeboat. On a raft the chance of drowning in the sea of debt is probable. A change of government is the lifeboat people need.

George Laird

Dear All

My entry of the free plonk!

Gordon Brown said this was no time for a novice, but he is falling over Barack Obama, how times change.

As a novice like Barack, I have been successfully addressing the real issues for which Labour was calling me “out of my depth”!

I was only treading water in a puddle unlike the Chancellor whose little boat was floundering in the seas of high finance with his crew of disorganised deckhands who don’t know what Captain is in charge.

It seems that two captains steering in opposite directions means the boat will make no head way. Can Captain Darling get his tugboat under his control or will he have to settle for being the harbour pilot all of his days?

Finally, the Conservatives will of course come to the rescue with our highly trained staff manning the lifeboat and when we take office as the next government, everyone will be rescued and brought safely back to shore.

We will then shore up the financial defences, get the infrastructure rebuilt and do what Gordon Brown couldn’t do, plan for the future.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Ray

Gordon Brown has turned out to be the political equivalent of a jellyfish: thin-skinned, no heart, no nerves, no guts, no backbone, full of poison, and with a mouth and a**e that are indistinguishable from each other.

And just like a jellyfish, the British public can now see right through him.

Alisdair Smith

He can quote me. I have been a school governor since 2000 when money started to pour into schools and there is nothing left and schools in prosperous areas cannot set proper budgets. There is no money left to do anything about it. My school has been the victim of local authority incompetence (albeit a conservative authority) and money has been wasted by the councils. But there is none left and they can't afford to pay for their mistakes.

I work in the criminal justice system which has been turned into a farce by the government. It is starved of money on all fronts - the Police, the Courts, the CPS and (dare I say it) the lawyers too. Time spent at any court would show a probation service already hopelessly understaffed and underfunded and struggling to cope with the supervision of offenders. Yet they are going to be the victim of even more cuts from the government. So they cannot even run the prisons. What chance anyone being given the opportunity to live a better life in society.

I live in a town which is (at the moment) prosperous and comfortable yet the planners pay no regard to the needs of the community. They cannot provide for who already lives here yet they want to build more houses. There are no school places left - it was so bad last year they were threatening to send 5 year old twins to separate schools in different towns by taxi. The secondary school is struggling - people don't want to go to it because its standards are falling. So is the building - there is no money to keep it in repair. It's falling down around them.

Sadly one of his shadow treasury colleagues might recognise of where I speak. That is here. The cupboard is bare and the government has already spent all the money. The countries a complete and utter mess and it is their fault.

He might like to ask about change. It's this years buzz word. It was the buzz word in 1997 too. Things have changed in the meantime but all for the worse. There are as many out of work (if not more), we pay more taxes, we are in more debt, our savings and pensions have gone. All the Labour party are seeming to offer us is a new form of Xmas - one where you have to give the presents back to Santa in the New Year.

Alex R

something about being responsible for the destruction of more commercial property than the blitz

(reforms to empty property rates relief)

Alex R

Brown calls for the IMF to act as the UK's early warning system, but why was he and the treasury acting as the Britsih people's earning warning system?

How many speeches did he give in which he warned that house prices could go up or could go down?

Drew

We should be very cautious of the extra "Gershon" savings that Darling is claiming to have found.

Rather like Bradford and Bingo self-certified mortgages - some of them MIGHT be genuine, in the dusk with the light behind them, but how can anyone really be sure?

BrianSJ

Alisdair
The reason your local authority has no money is because it is Tory. Look at the figures, and you will find massive politicisation of LA grants.

Alex R

theme: the house the gordon built.

Alex R

Last one,

Brown challenged cameron in PMQ's the other week about needing to consumer debt and government debt in the round.

Hope the tories have had the sense to do the working on this.

TGF UKIP

If only Boy George himself were even half as impressive as the Speccie's attempt to prop him up. Shades of desperation now, Fraser.

Christian Gowers

Brown says he wants to help people, but helping people does not involve giving them a £600bn debt that is getting larger ever day. Helping people does not involve higher taxes, we know how to help the people, and that is with a long term tax cut funded by cutting Labour's wasted money.

All around the country the public are feeling their wallets tighten with the economic downturn, yet the Prime minister thinks that the best way to spend £15bn is on ID cards!

It is insulting to the British public that while they are struggling to keep their finances in order, trying to make ends meet without falling into debt, the Chancellor has decided to drown them in £10,000 of debt each, which is getting bigger by £1,500 this year alone.

Gordon Brown is the chief clown in the economic circus

teledu

1)This is borrowing to win an election not to help the economy.

2)This governments' economic legacy will be not just ours but our children's tax burden.

3) Labour are not just the red party but the "in-the-red party."

4) Unfunded tax cuts now are the pre-election sugar before the nasty post-election medicine of tax rises.

5) Gordon Brown is to prudence what John Sergeant is to ballroom dancing. But at least Sergeant acknowledged his shortcomings.

6) Gordon Brown is a liar.

7) The only people who believe this governments' figures are those taught maths in this governments failing schools.

8)It's taken him 11 years to dig us into this colossal hole of debt yet he now wants an even bigger spade!

9) Tha nation is drowning in debt yet he wants to carry on going deeper and deeper.

10) He's been reading the Robert Mugabe book of economics.

Alisdair Smith

Brian SJ

I know - but that's the fair society this government has given us. Anyway - if it were only here that the cupboard was so obviously bare I would understand the sheer naked politics. The truth is - look at Haringey as an example - that even in Labour areas everything is a shambles.

Prodicus

Make sure you refer (again and again and again) to 'worried families' and not to 'the public' or 'the (anonymous) taxpayer'. Use the bugger's own lexicon against him.

Tom M

Arguing about whether or not the government needs to take action at this time is like arguing about whether to deploy the lifeboats on the Titanic.
The real question is which idiot drove into the iceberg in the first place?

LD

Ray, never underestimate the stupidity of the British electorate. Brown is feeding them mistruths and they're buying it. Gear yourself up for another 5 years of Brown and a Tory party that will implode into another term of infighting and leader changes while HE sits there looking even more smug. Wonder if he's done a deal with Mandy to allow him to be the next PM?

ChrisD

Gordon Brown was handed a golden handshake by the last Conservative government, and he blew it on the biggest credit fuelled party since the war.

Now we are all going to suffer a very nasty and prolonged hangover.

This cannot be blamed on America, Brown was there right beside Greenspan mixing the lethal cocktail of too low interest rates and all too easy credit.

Brown didn't run a fiscally prudent Treasury, he ran a political campaign centre, and not a very successful one, if he couldn't even find the courage to fight a leadership campaign.

And as for the economy, like the Treasury and Financial markets, it will still be trying to recover its reputation after Browns poor economic stewardship many years after he leaves office.

Verity

Some good points that could draw blood, but he won't use them.

Tom M

If Osborne is finally in the market for a coherent analysis of the current financial crisis he could do a lot worse than start here:

http://www.mises.org/story/3219

Tiberius

He could give Hague's line about stealing your car and returning the hub caps a re-run.

Despite it having bugger all effect, it's the sort of thing that keeps the headbangers happy, though.

Paul L

LD. I was about to defend the electorate, until I remembered Glenrothes.

The Dandiprat

The photo's are excellent.

Gottlogeer....Gottlogeer

Robin Guenier

Re the so-called “Gershon” savings, I agree with Drew. The review (“Releasing resources to the front line”) published by the Treasury in July 2004 specified various targets “agreed with each department” – one was that the DoH would realise annual efficiency gains “of around £6.5 billion by 2007-08”. It stated that “up to half of efficiencies” (i.e. £3 billion or more) would come about by making better use of staff time, for example “through the implementation of a modern ICT infrastructure for the NHS. Electronic patient records, appointment booking and prescription transfer will mean less wasted time spent checking patient information, fewer letters to type and send, and no lost prescriptions.” This referred to the notorious NHS National Programme for IT, which, far from realising efficiency gains, is costing vastly more than expected in 2004 and is seems unlikely to be completed for many years, if at all.

teledu

He preaches prudence but practices profligacy.

From boom to gloom.

Nyquist Plot

By your reckless spending and reckless borrowing your have brought us to the point where this great country of ours will be tested as never before in its ability to pay its way.

You and your government have brought back the ' Cathy come home ' families. Every street in every city will have someone cold, unemployed desperate How can any Government be proud of such a record

RODEST

For the man in the street and hard hit families this is a giveaway election bribe and a takeaway prosperity budget report.

This government are hoping that the electorate are short sighted and will fall for their trickery of a windfall for christmas. Their treachery will mean misery for taxpayers for many years to come unless there is sustainable policies put in place.

This budget giveaway is actually a hidden charge, the price the electorate will be paying to vote Labour back into office for another debt ridden five years.

It is hard for the public to identify the author of this report, is it this Chancellor or the previous one?

Hysteria

You prommised "no more boom and bust" - well your bom has turned to the dust of broken promises and squandered national wealth.

The hard working family knows it will have to tighten it's belt - when will this government realise it's policies are broken and are leading us down the path to ruin so it too must reign in spending.

sigh - something like that anyway - to the effect you have to put money in to the pockets of the consumer - and the best way to do this is to reduce taxation and let the individual decide where he should spend it.

Grandiose capital projects will not do this - and ID cards certainly won't either.

David

Isn't Tony Blair rumoured to have told Brown that 'I'll never believe anything you say again', or words to that effect? Would be a nice way of calling Brown and Darling a bunch of liars without falling foul of the HoC convention. Or use Churchill's 'terminological inexactitude'.

TrevorsDen

"Use the bugger's own lexicon against him."
------ I agree with every sentiment expressed here.

But just how much 'new' will Darling give?
----- As this -
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5193309.ece
points out ...
"Darling has to find £11 billion just to stand still. "
There is the 10p fiasco, the temp freeze on fuel duty, the stamp duty concessions. "All three measures will cost £3.9 billion. "
Darling also is intending to "reverse existing plans for higher taxes and curbs on public spending worth £7.5 billion. "
"an effective “stimulus” could cost between £15-30 billion. "

The whole core of criticising Darling (then proxy of Brown) is --
"borrowing in 2008-09 set to top £60 billion" - 'ALREADY'
"borrowing is set to spiral as the economy’s woes cut into tax revenues"
As the article says the key words are
"affordability" and "confidence "

"In 2008-09 the £43 billion in borrowing that Mr Darling pencilled into his March plans was already £13 billion more than Mr Brown had forecast a year before." --- "A YEAR BEFORE".

And lets not forget the govt plans - "to squeeze growth of public spending to only about 2 per cent a year,"

The other issue is the resulting "battered fiscal rule book" - what credibility can anything Darling actually says be given?

Going way back to 1962 (just before Wilsons govt) Jack Trevor Storey wrote a film called 'Live Now Pay Later' --- nothing has changed in 45 years.

Its just that this time its someone called Gordon Brown who is the "tally boy" who is leading us into destitution.

Finally having just heard Melanie Philips on Question Time - just what is she doing being hosted on your website. what a stupid ignorant woman. A pathetic insult to common sense. The word 'cow' comes to mind.

luke

We know the PM thinks we should all be in his debt because of the financial crisis.

He keeps smiling about it.

But what this PBR means is we will all be in his debt in a totally different way

Carol-Ann

'CONSERVATIVES WILL NOT MAKE MAKE PROMISES UNACHIEVABLE IN REALITY'

OR

'WHAT THE BRITISH PEOPLE NEED IS HONESTY AND AN END TO PROMISES UNACHIEVABLE IN REALITY'

carol42

Reminds me of these ads that say buy now, nothing to pay for two years. Interest free credit but if you don't get your timing exactly right, and they don't make that easy, you get charged interest on the lot.

Steve

Anybody else seen this?

http://machiavellitheprince.blogspot.com/2008/11/boom-bust.html

Sort of sums it up I reckon.

Don

This economic contagion may have started in America, but what is certain is that this Government like a bad parent failed to inoculate the country against it by its reckless decisions.

geoff

The British people understand the word tax, they understand the word waste and they understand the word debt – three things which you have made the central features of their economic lives over the past eleven years. They understand the word recession and they understand the word inflation, both of which you told them (dishonestly) you had abolished. And they understand that a plan to get out of debt by borrowing more is nonsense unless the means of paying for it have been clearly and honestly identified.

http://cassiuswrites.blogspot.com/2008/11/if-you-want-to-invoke-patriotism-mr.html

cuffleyburgers

How about this George:

"The government under Mr Brown have made incompetence their stock in trade, the only economy they have made has been with the truth. THey have castigated businesses for off-balance-sheet finance whilst splurging 100bn themselves in the same way.

They refuse to indulge in the basic disciplines of good management which every business and every household in the country understands preferring instead to mortgage the futures of our children and our childrens children to the outcome of a desperate gamble.

Like a one armed bandit junkie in a seedy casino in Vegas - his fingers bleeding from working the machine, the bottle's empty, his wallet too but he won't stop praying for the big win - one more throw of the dice...

This one's on the house!

Jack R

George could link three policy elements:

1.)increase spending (responsibly) on future UK Defence policy commitments (excluding pooling into 'European' defence);

2.)direct some of that spending on BRITISH-sourced Defence equipment, taking the example of the revival of Cammell Laird as something to follow;

3.)campaign to shift UK government spending priorities away from 'financial services' and more towards public involvement in e.g. defence, infrastructure projects, private-public housing, which would both change the UK's vulnerable economic base, and involve something like an increase in 'British jobs for British people'.

Foot soldier

My entry for free plonl... needs more work...
It is GB himself who has undermined the case for these measures, by referring to the fact that lots of other countries around the world are implementing packages of measures such as these, and have been since in the case of USA, last February. And the result is….. most of these economies are now in a worse position than ever as the global nature of this situation continues to stun the public. That said many of these ‘other countries’ started with considerably sounder public finances than the UK (EG Germany)
Conservatives are suggesting something different from the rest of the world… but the capacity to think independently has been the bedrock of many successful conservative administrations for some centuries. WW2 springs to mind, monetarism – (which T Blair recognised in his famous Clause 4 momment ) was embraced, but ultimately abused, by New Labour, might be another. And so, spending more money and creating more debt to cure a problem that is caused by spending too much money and creating too much debt is manifestly not the answer
The Govmnt’s approach to this situation has, from the start, been one of fire fighting, and here we have another attempt, along with expensive bank bailouts, to quell the flames. C policy of addressing the causes may lead to short term pain, but this constant drip of bribes and tinkering will lead to disaster at worse, and prolonged heavy taxation at best.
Unless of course you are GB and do not want the public to fully realise or be faced with the enormity of your own incompetence, because – even worse – you might then have to face it yourself. So this dire situation can only be objectively and systematically tackled by a new and fresh administration – for the sake of the country – call your snap winter election.

IanB

The PM said he'd abolished boom and bust. Isn't it time he turned his attention to abolishing borrow and binge?

oldtimer

Will the Chancellor answer these questions?

1 He, and the PM, constantly say this financial crisis is made in the USA. Yet everyone knows that Northern Rock, HBOS and Bradford and Bingley are all made in the UK. Does he take us all for fools?

2 These banks advanced loans on unsound terms - up to 125% of the asset value - and funded their businesses on unsound terms - with too much reliance on the wholesale markets and with not enough from the dependable savers - hard working families and pensioners with savings. Where were the government and the regulators when this housing bubble went boom and bust?

3 The G-20 statement says, in its analysis of the crisis, that "...Policy-makers, regulators and supervisors, in some advanced countries, did not adequately appreciate and address the risks building up in financial markets, keep pace with financial innovation, or take into account the systemic ramifications of domestic regulatory actions." Do the Chancellor and PM accept their share of responsibility for this debacle?

3 Now the banks have another problem - deciding on which part of their anatomy they must now sit. Is it to resort to sound lending practices and to rebuild their reserves as required by the FSA? This surely must be the foundation of a sound banking system. Or is it to "carry on lending" 2007 style as set out in the injunctions handed down by government as a condition of receiving taxpayers money? There is a contradiction here that needs to be resolved. Just how are the banks supposed to arrange their anatomy today?

4 The G-20 statement on actions to be taken says "...Use fiscal measures to stimulate domestic demand to rapid effect, as appropriate, while maintaining a policy framework conducive to fiscal sustainability." If tax cuts now must be paid for by taxes later, how is this conducive to fiscal sustainability? Does the government take us all for fools in not spotting the difference between measures that will actually help hard working families and businesses and tax cuts that are no more than here today, gone tomorrow electoral bribes?

5 All recent government borrowing forecasts have been missed by billions of pounds - not less than £10 billion even in the good years. This latest forecast sets new records for inaccuracy. Why should we believe you are any more accurate this time than you and your predecessor have been in the past?

IanP

Every year since Labour took power they promised to borrow less and pay back more, every year they borrowed more and paid back less.

Everyone knows that they have been on a reckless spending binge, but instead of trying to make amends they are now trying to make a virtue out of their recklessness.

The price of their failure will leave an enormous burden on citizens of this country. It is difficult to understand whether their actions amount to ineptness or cruelty.

Lord Elvis of Paisley

They've given us boom to bust. Now they're giving us bust to bust.

skooch

Suggestion Part One.
Re: Funding of Tax Cuts

The total borrowing of this country is ? squillion.

To borrow more money will have frightening consequences for future taxation, because that borrowing can only be paid for by higher taxes in the longer term. How much less money then, than now, to pay for our heating bills, food, mortgages?

How will we cope?

The total borrowing of this country is ? squillion.
To print more money will have frightening consequences for future inflation and interest rates. The mortgage rate is ? now. What if it goes up to ? %, a (doubling/tripling) of mortgage repayments? What then?

How will we cope?

Let’s not wait to be frightened then, let’s get frightened now: these two options are the ones this government proposes for short term tax cuts.

skooch

Suggestion Part Two
Re: Funding of Tax Cuts

The total borrowing of this country is ? squillion.

We can’t cope without good core public services – health, education, police and armed forces. We can cope without frivolous waste and excess – (insert waste and excess of choice)

A ?% reduction in government spending will allow a fully funded tax cut of ?

This is a third option, a sustainable option, but not one this government favours.

We, as individuals, families, businesses, have to make savings when times are hard.

There is no option for us.

When times are hard, shouldn’t you, the government, do the same?

Darell Miller

As they will no doubt claim to be best placed to manage through the crisis we should respond with:

This goverment has managed to destroy our banks. This goverment has managed to lose people their jobs. This government has managed to devalue the pound. This goverment has managed to lose people their homes. And thsi governemnt will amange to destroy our econonmy with this Budget.

C Powell

Well he could start his speech with this quote from George Orwell: -

"Political language ..... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

He can then go on to say that the Chancellor has proved the truth of this maxim with his speech and go on to eviscerate describe Brown/Darling's lies and the "pure wind" which will no doubt blow through the whole thing.