Mandelson struggles to pull the media strings
Peter Hoskin 12:57pm
There's an air of desperation about Peter Mandelson's article in the Wall Street Journal today. The notion that the UK's uniquely well-placed to deal with the downturn seems to have been jettisoned - Mandy gives the excuse that "the U.K. has taken an early hit from a credit crunch that began with a serious failure in financial markets - perhaps even more than most because of its large financial-services sector." - but the essential message is still the same: creditors, please don't worry, the UK will remain solvent. This paragraph contains it in a nutshell:
"Just as importantly, when the government announced its borrowing plans last year, it made clear commitments to specified tax increases and a slowed rate of public-spending growth from 2011 onwards. This is a commitment that markets, in setting the cost of long-term British debt, have rightly taken very seriously. The pound has weakened, but there has been no sustained flight from sterling."It's a glaring demonstration of just how confused Labour's message has become. On the one hand, they're boasting of their fiscal responsibility and the fact the they're going to introduce a "slowed rate of public-spending growth" from 2011. And, on the other, they're lambasting the Tories for the "slowed rate of public-spending growth" [aka, in Labour's lingo: cuts] that they'd introduce from 2010. As it happens, both parties will have to commit to much more severe fiscal tightening. But in the meantime, for a seasoned spinmaster such as Mandelson, it must be hell.
Previous
seb
February 27th, 2009 1:41pm Report this commentA 'slowed rate of public spending growth'? In the circumstances, only a severely retarded member of the human race would expect any growth in public spending in the UK. A recognition of the need for a contraction in public spending would impress savvy readers of the Wall Street Journal. This drivel from Mandelson would only convey the impression that Mandelson is insane.
Alex R
February 27th, 2009 2:05pm Report this commentthis isn't true. the Bank of International Settlements showed that deleveraging was occuring most quickly in sterling.
Wily Trout
February 27th, 2009 2:08pm Report this comment'Oh what a tangled web we weave...'
Austin Barry
February 27th, 2009 2:19pm Report this commentSeb @1.41
I doubt that Mandy is insane, just a little paranoid perhaps. As William Burroughs, the gaunt aficionado of Moroccan Ganymedes and heroin once wrote: Sometimes paranoia is just having all the facts.
richardj
February 27th, 2009 2:26pm Report this commentAbout as convincing as "no more boom and bust".
JONNY
February 27th, 2009 2:51pm Report this commentMandy must try even harder,
I note in the new YouGov Poll, he lags Ken Clarhe as Business Sec by a hefty 31 points.
oldrightie
February 27th, 2009 3:02pm Report this commentThis drivel from Mandelson would only convey the impression that Mandelson is insane.
----------------
If the delusion infecting this Government is insanity then ergo he is.
Moraymint
February 27th, 2009 3:32pm Report this commentLet me get this right. Since Labour conned its way into power, Gordon Brown has jacked up public spending over 10 years, at a rate greater than inflation over that period, to the extent that he's now spending (wasting?) about £200-odd billion per year MORE than would have been the case had he mirrored the inflation rate.
Meantime, the muppets in Westminster (and I include the Tories in that category) still talk about increasing public spending.
God give me strength.
Mitch
February 27th, 2009 4:01pm Report this commentJust ignore him and he will eventually resign in disgrace,its what he does best.
George Laird
February 27th, 2009 4:26pm Report this commentDear All
Mr. Mandelson is running about the place like a one man panic squad.
He is very much a headless chicken who doesn't know his head has been cut off but is still squawking about.
Michael Portillo made a telling comment last night on This Week that Labour were trapped into doing unpopular things.
They know it is the fall of Rome and are imploding.
Everything they do is wrong, everything they say is wrong.
General election now, summer 2009.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
Grunston
February 27th, 2009 4:55pm Report this commentPrince of Darkness commands the Zombie legions.
Trouble is zombies are slow of delivery, confused, and act in jerky unpredictable ways.
A bit like the Labour government.
cuffleyburgers
February 27th, 2009 5:56pm Report this commentCoffeehousers might be interested to see the response posted today by Number 10 in response to the petition requiring that the "PM resign due to gross incompetence in running the UK economy":
The success of the Government’s macroeconomic framework, introduced in 1997, means that the UK is facing the international financial crisis and the recession it has caused around the world from a solid foundation. Credible medium term objectives and mechanisms for short-term flexibility mean that the Bank of England and the Government can deliver the necessary support to the economy without compromising their commitments to low inflation and sound public finances.
The Government’s priorities to get Britain through the recession fairly are to prevent the collapse of the banking system, so that people’s savings are secure and the banks can do their job; to get the financial system lending responsibly again so as to support businesses, jobs and growth; to support the economy and jobs through direct government action, including tax cuts and important investment projects; and to help people through these tough times, from homeowners with difficulties paying their mortgages, or people seeking employment or training, to small businesses with cashflow problems and larger businesses needing working capital.
Action has also been taken to boost our economy by putting money in people’s pockets and bringing investment plans forward. This includes:
• income tax cuts of £145 for every basic rate taxpayer;
• £60 extra for every pensioner in January 2009;
• a VAT cut worth on average over £200 to every family this year; and
• an extra £3 billion investment in projects that will protect and create jobs.
Further details of the measures the Government has put in place to provide real help now so that homeowners, families and businesses can get through the downturn fairly are available online at http://www.realhelpnow.gov.uk/
In addition to discretionary fiscal policy to support the economy through these difficult times the 2008 Pre-Budget Report announced a sustained fiscal consolidation from 2010-11 when the economy is expected to be recovering and able to support a reduction in borrowing:
• restricting the income tax personal allowance for those with incomes over £100,000 from April 2010, and introducing a new additional higher rate of income tax of 45 per cent for those with incomes above £150,000 from April 2011;
• increasing the employee, employer and self-employed rates of national insurance contributions by 0.5 per cent from April 2011;
• to offset the effects of the temporary reduction in VAT, increasing alcohol and tobacco duties, maintaining these increases after December 2009 to support fiscal consolidation; and following a fall in pump prices of over 20 pence per litre from their summer peaks, a two pence per litre increase in fuel duty from 1 December 2008; and
• an additional £5 billion value for money target for 2010-11 and setting assumptions for spending growth from 2011-12 onwards.
We will continue to do everything we can in the current difficult times to give real help now to families and businesses, and help our economy to come through this recession as quickly as possible, and we will take the tough decisions in the medium-term to maintain low inflation and sound public finances. This will ensure the UK is well-placed to prosper in the new global economy which will follow the current global recession.
Anybody who managed to wade through that without falling asleep, wil concur They are living in la la land.
Delusional. In denial.
Clinically barking.
Herbert Thornton
February 27th, 2009 6:22pm Report this comment"the U.K. has taken an early hit from a credit crunch that began with a serious failure in financial markets - perhaps even more than most because of its large financial-services sector."? Now that's a really penetrating glimpse into the obvious.
The real problem has been the very existence of these ramshackle, smoke and mirrors con games called the 'Financial Services Sector' - both in Britain and in the U.S. In Britain's case the Financial Services Sector has been even more instrumental in dismantling real industry that manufactured goods and not worthless 'services' and encouraging its replacement by factories in the third world than is the case with the U.S.
The Financial Services Sector, lauded as being brilliantly able, ingenious and far-seeing, has proven itself to be skillful only at concocting increasingly unsound financial arrangements while enriching its own people on a breath-taking scale of greed.
Meantime, people like Brown have been so overawed by it all that they have mistaken it for sound, prudent dealing, - and have tried to behave in similar ways.
Now the whole parasitic, ramshackle structure is in disarray and is seen for what it is.
God help Britain, because the Tories won't. I think it's time to think seriously about giving Nick Griffin a chance.
Marc O'Polo
February 27th, 2009 9:19pm Report this commentcuffleyburgers. What was that again? (I lost the will to live halfway through!)
hadrian
February 27th, 2009 10:28pm Report this commentNick Griffin? Really, Herb, you too must be barking! If you must, go to UKIP, but for God's sake stay clear of National Socialists!
john miller
February 28th, 2009 12:02am Report this commentAs a shorthand precis of the New Labour project this WSJ piece can hardly be bettered.
Lie at all times
The truth is what you think it is at any given time
Tell the people you are addressing the lie they like most
Say that what you are doing is the right thing whereas the Tories - who are saying the same thing - are evil
Worked for 14 years. Who knows, it may work again?
Herbert Thornton
February 28th, 2009 2:16am Report this commentHadrian - I see that you're in the same mode as over at Melanie's blog.
Just as you advise me to go to UKIP (who, incidentally I would be entirely happy to see as the official opposition when the BNP come to power) I suggest that you reserve the 'National Socialist' description for the National Front, where that and your various other mistaken allegations about the BNP would be considerably more accurate.
John
February 28th, 2009 9:20pm Report this comment"This drivel from Mandelson would only convey the impression that Mandelson is insane."
No comment ...
But really, the only thing we need to say about this example of the living dead is this:
HEATHROW.
Herbert Thornton
March 3rd, 2009 5:40am Report this commentI have just read an extraordinary report in the Telegraph that makes me wonder whether my earlier posting (February 27th, 2009 6:22pm)was an understatement -
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4929712/Gordon-Brown-advisor-says-City-all-important---and-rest-of-the-country-can-be-turned-over-to-tourism.html
If the report is accurate, then it seems to me that Blair, Brown and the entire government must have no more grasp of reality than superstitious, ignorant, medieval peasants who could be persuaded that there really was such a creature as a goose that laid eggs of solid gold. And I see no sign that David Cameron and the Tories are much different. God help Britain.
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