Monday, 26th January 2009

The Tories' waste-cutting message matures

Peter Hoskin 2:12pm

Good work from the Tories today, who are finally taking the fight to Labour over Government waste. Out of fear of the "Tory cuts" attack, they've tended to shy away from highlighting just how much taxpayers' cash this Government flushes down the fiscal plughole. But no longer. The report released by George Osborne and Francis Maude today is a clear and unabashed attack on Brown's spending record - there's even a "Roll-call of waste" - and it contains some sensible sounding methods for controlling spending under a Tory administration, including greater accountability for wasteful civil servants. Whether the proposals will translate to government remains to be seen, but the message is encouraging - and refreshing - enough.

Events and the Government's reponse to them are certainly helping the Tories here. The politics of belt-tightening becomes easier during a recession, and the continuing ineffectiveness of Brown & Darling's £billion "rescue packages" makes them seem like one big bonfire of taxpayers' cash. Of course, the recession is cruel and harmful, but it's also an opportunity to erode that deblitating consensus which has equated "spending" with "investment", and which has contributed to the current mess. On today's signs, that's an opportunity the Tories may well take.

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Hawkeye

January 26th, 2009 4:52pm Report this comment

All that is needed is common sense - something the lefties neither possess nor understand. Some of the figures in the report are staggering - £3bn watsed in 9 NHS reorganisations, the NHS IT system that does not work and £1.8 BILLION on external consultants.

Combine that lot with the scrapping of the ID card database and it is as plain as the nose on your face where £20bn of savings could come from.

Next jettison the diversity officers and five-a-day administrators and things will be looking up.

John Page

January 26th, 2009 4:52pm Report this comment

You refer to 'that debilitating consensus which has equated "spending" with "investment"'.

It is just Labour spin. They never say "public spending", but always "investment in public services". The Tories have no answer to such communication discipline and it's wholly their own fault. They need to develop their own phrases AND USE THEM, not sloppy variations of them.

I noticed Grayling referred to "Brown's recession", but the phrase isn't biting yet.

Has anyone else noticed any Tory attempts at repetition?

geoff

January 26th, 2009 5:06pm Report this comment

Kind of hopeless really. Osborne still cant name any actual waste he would cut. Get Clarke on the job!

JONNY

January 26th, 2009 5:09pm Report this comment

Very illuminating Clarke's rebuttal on The Marr programme of Cameron's IMF scare.
Or rather how it's being played as a downer in the Guardian and by Vince Cable.

In point of fact it highlights the new maturity and experience that Ken contributes. Which now makes the Tories' so much more relevant and believable.
Ken isn't in the leaast bit downplaying the size of the disaster. He doesn't have to. He says it's appalling enough enough without bringing in the IMF.
But resolvable when the Tories come to power.

Verity

January 26th, 2009 5:17pm Report this comment

Mi-Too Cameron spent a year promising to match their spending.

THX1138

January 26th, 2009 5:40pm Report this comment

I read Osborne prattling on about something to do with making cutting waste part of a civil servants contract of employment, I must admit I kinda gave up it was so boring.

On the other page the real shadow Chancellor Ken Clarke was talking about the economy so I read that instead.

I'll tell some waste the Tories could cut right now, George Osborne and I doubt anyone would notice.