Byrne comes across as complacent
Peter Hoskin 4:25pm
With all the subtlety of a bludgeon, Liam Byrne goes on the attack against those warning about the hole in our public finances. His primary target is Iain Martin's column last week, but he also takes aim at Malcolm Offord's recent report claiming that £100 billion of public spending cuts may be needed by 2020 to get the public finances in an acceptable state. This kind of thinking, Byrne suggests, represents an "underground movement" behind David Cameron; proof that "The marketing is all progressive; but the product is all conservative."
So far as the spin cycle's concerned, Byrne's remarks are striking for two reasons. First, they show just how determined Labour are to stick with a "Tory cuts" attack. And, second, they represent a return to the charge that behind the "Cameron veneer" lies a bunch of unreconstructed, "nasty" right-wing nutjobs.
Problem is, the political tides are set against Byrne. Labour themselves pencilled in £35 billion worth of "cuts" in the PBR. And, given how dramatically the public finances have sunk since then - with borrowing set to top £2 trillion - they'll need to cut back even more in subsequent Budgets. In the meantime, articles like Byrne's come across as dangerously complacent about the scale of the problem.
Previous
Hawkeye
February 24th, 2009 4:50pm Report this commentHow does Byrne explain the ONS's viewpoint, so ably splashed over the front of last week's papers that we are already £2tn in debt thanks to this government?
To be honest, it does not bother me that Labour have decided to play it this way. It simply makes them look even more detached from reality and less electable than ever.
A good thing, IMNSHO!
Ben Wigglesworth
February 24th, 2009 5:04pm Report this commentIsn't it Liam Byrne? We wouldn't want you to get complacent after writing this article...
Philip Wright
February 24th, 2009 5:06pm Report this commentEverything I have ever read by Byrne shows just how blinkered and small-minded he is.
He may be one of the brighter ones in Brown's cabinet of mediocrity, but he still comes across as a fully paid up, bag carrying apparatchik. He certainly peddles the Brownies for all he is worth.
Kevyn Bodman
February 24th, 2009 5:07pm Report this commentInstead of planning cuts in public expenditure how about commissioning some thinking starting from the other end.
Start from nothing on a blank sheet of paper,work out the *essential minimum* needed for government expenditure and then just scrap ALL the rest.
Wishful thinking I KNOW, but £35 billion here and there is not going to be enough in cuts.
Re-writing the needs for public spending would lead to significant job losses. But I can't forget an interview I saw with Pete Townsend maybe 30 years ago, possibly with Parkinson.
Townsend was asked how he would react if everybody was reduced to equal net worth, and he replied that it wouldn't bother him much because, as a result of his talent and industriousness, he'd be rich again in 6 months.
My memory might not be 100% accurate, and the parallel is not exact,but it's from people with energy and talent that the recovery is going to come.
A few of those might be in public sector jobs now (?) and provide growth and jobs for others (?).
But to free the engine of growth the impediments have to be taken out of the way, and that means a much reduced public sector.
Pete Hoskin
February 24th, 2009 5:07pm Report this commentBen: thanks for the spot! Corrected now...
cuffleyburgers
February 24th, 2009 5:34pm Report this commentClearly it's not just Brown in a state of denial.
Whether they are in a deliberate scorched earth strategy or not the end result is the same.
Best bet for Cameron is now simply to start pushing the unsustainable spending line, make the point that the public finances are under unbearable strain, taxes will be higher for a generation already to pay for it, and that despite this tidal wave of cash, the basic public service are in a disastrous state.
If, as a result of coming clean, they lose the next election, amen.
Worse would be not to try to start this debate, get into power and then be accused of not having a mandate to do what is required.
The debate at the moment is concentrated in the freedom-loving blogs.
On the Beeb or in the grauniad the only debate is about high high off the ground bankers should be hanged. The idea of mortgaging the future of 3 generations in a mental spending spree with no parliamentary oversight receives little attention.
This is truly Alice in Wonderland stuff, and Dave/GO and Ken have to start howling from the rooftops.
Anger, passion and blood on the carpet. Come on!!
Short the UK
February 24th, 2009 5:40pm Report this commentThe most complacent word in Mr Byrne's riposte is "recession." I expect by the end of this year the word "depression" will have replaced the R.
My Labour voting brother is heading to the G20 protest march, he is seriously angry with Brown. As a Tory I am pretty shocked by my brother's visceral anger. I think he now dislikes Brown more than I do!!
I salute Iain Martin for declaring war on Gordon "bonkers" Brown and his insane policies. We need to fight him on the beaches and pull him by his breeches.
The best timeline on the depression I've read recently is by Warren Brussee:
~Economic low point 2012 to 2013.
I highly recommend this radio interview he did on the 31/1/09:
http://www.financialsense.com/fsn/main.html
This ain't no teddy bears picnic.
KB
February 24th, 2009 5:47pm Report this commentYour mention of PBR reminds me that this number (the figure formerly known as PSBR) used to be in the news all the time back in 80s. So too did talk of the money supply measures, M0,...,M4.
Why did we stop discussing these? Are we more economically illiterate than we were then, or did we just get complacent duing Gordon's golden years?
oldrightie
February 24th, 2009 6:11pm Report this commentBet he won't be in the soup kitchen queue.
TGF UKIP
February 24th, 2009 6:31pm Report this commentCuffleyburgers is exactly right particularly in his fifth paragraph starting "Worse would be ......"
It's long overdue for the Tories to seriously address the need for significant spending cuts particularly as to do so would be chiming in with where the polls have shown a majority of voters to have been over the past eighteen months.
As long as they choose to stay on the back foot the more they encourage attacks like this one from Byrne.
Speaking of whom, do any other Coffee Housers recall his stand out appearance on the Daily Politics when he was Immigration Minister. A Neil asked a series of very basic questions that required answers in the sort of detail that an immigration minister should have at his fingertips. He could answer none and his appearance ended with Neil in the guise of a rather impatient schoolmaster saying words to the effect of "and when you come on next time perhaps you'll have taken care to brief yourself on the details of your job"
"One of the brighter ones"? No wonder we're in the soft and smelly.
oldtimer
February 24th, 2009 7:35pm Report this commentWe should not exclude the possibility that Brown not only
(a) actually believes that plunging the country even deeper and deeper into debt is the right thing to do; but also
(b) if it is not and he does indeed lose the next general election, he will leave Cameron with such an almighty problem he, Cameron, will be done for after a single term.
Such devious thinking would be par for the course so far as Brown is concerned.
hadrian
February 24th, 2009 9:44pm Report this commentThe public are not stupid, Mr Byrne. They realise that times of severe austerity are returning and it might help, rather than hinder, any prospective government to be as 'up-front' and realistic about this as possible. Flinging funny money at our bloated state institutions simply won't be an option by 2020 if we go on like this- so we want definite plans for retrenchment, not utopian false dreams.
Tim Carpenter LPUK
February 25th, 2009 11:30am Report this commentKevyn,
The problem is defining the "essential miniumum".
A minarchist like myself might say "Defence, Police, Courts and Prisons". Period. But then I know that is an ideal, a star to guide us. As is the concept that the State is, at best, a necessary evil and that necessity must be re-justified regularly.
Milton Friedman had a good take on this and advised that the best way was to cut taxes and spending would HAVE to be cut (unless you are an irresponsible moron like Gordon who borrows). If you cut taxes you cut income and so cuts MUST be made. Departments cannot argue for something that no longer exists.
Cut taxes in the simplest and fairest way - an end to Income Tax. £155bln less in income and a great way to remove barriers to employment and it allows people to decide for themselves how money is spent.
Cutting the expenditure by £200bln then follows. Some things are ring-fenced on-going cash commitments. Welfare, pensions. Defence, Police, Courts. Main efficiencies come in Education (vouchers are cheaper by removing the LEA revenue vampire) and Healthcare bureaucracy is a lesson in bloat. QANGOs to be culled.
Every household in the nation is cutting back but the State recruits. 900,000 extra salaried unemployed since 2000 is a low guesstimate.
In 2000 we had inefficiency, bloat and waste, so even at those levels proper prioritisation should ensure that front line services and staff are not hit.
Back to top