Labour's brand new strategy to deal with the Tories: investment vs cuts

Common Place

Laughable that they even consider planning for the autumn.

john miller

Being able to lip read an entire sentence from a still photo, I can tell you most of what he's saying here.

"I confess that I really am this much of a..."

Unfortunately, I just can't make out the last word.

But seriously folks, it shows how stupid these people are.

Try telling someone whose done even a six week bookkeeping course: "Switching spending from capital to resource accounts is an investment."

Funnily enough, it's just the opposite.

If you take the money you've saved for your house deposit and spend it on renting a Thameside flat for a week, how is that an investment?

And if you have switched funds out of capital, how is that not a cut in building skoolsnospitals?

It would appear that Brown is once again erecting a glass house with some of the panes already broken.

Martyn Rowe

How many relaunches have they had?

There's nothing quite like being in denial... during my partying days I was always going to sort myself out next week..

I still haven't?!

Thomas Cussans

One of the really intriguing aspects of McNutter's political positioning is that it reveals how completely he is the prisoner of his own past.

It is a fundamental human trait that, having invested a vast amount of emotional capital in an idea, it is exceptionally difficult to adapt yourself to new circumstances, particularly if this means admitting you were wrong, which as we all know is not exactly McLoony's strong point.

In Brown's case, the fundamentals, underpinning everything he did, were: 1) that he was an economic genius who had devised brilliant means of recasting the economic universe; 2) that the vast revenues thus generated would allow him not merely to flood the public services with unprecedented quantities of cash but create a permanent client state that would ensure Labour rule in perpetuity.

It was given that the Tories were the nasty party and that Labour, masters of the media, would always be able to paint them as such. It was no less a given that Brown, his Mekon-like brain throbbing, was an intellectual and political giant, dwarfing all around him.

The reality, of course, has proved rather different. His economic genius has been revealed as a con, ineptly thought through, as ineptly delivered, reducing the country to the brink of collapse or worse. His own political genius meanwhile has been shown to consist of little more than of lies, bullying and panic.

But these are truths he cannot allow himself to admit. Hence, laughably, another 'relaunch', hence yet more reliance on Labour 'investment', aka waste, and Tory 'cuts'.

Anyone remember his 'plastic bag' initiative in his endless, pointless relaunches of early 2008?

It doesn't take a very large crystal ball to predict that he will get as far in his autumn relaunch – in the improbable event that he is still in office, of course.

Victor, NW Kent

Another set of blatant lies being prepared - "our reductions in spending are not cuts, they are strategic reallocations" and similar crap.

If government cannot trim its expenditure then we cannot afford this style of government.

Mike, Brighton

Isn't the biggest issue that when you examine the small print of the last (laughable) budget as Fraser and the IFS did. It plans in the hidden small print cuts in spending. All this Labour scheming is to reclassify how those cut are accounted for (from capital accounts to resource accounts) and hide them. It won't work.

Brown is on the wrong side of his own (false) dividing line.

Peter Wilson

Ministers will be expected to spend the summer preparing for an autumn relaunch intended to narrow the Tory lead.

Hmmm yes that 'autumn relaunch strategy' worked so well last year didn't it. If I remember correctly the only thing that saved Brown's leadership was the banking crisis.

It seems Brown has never heard of the saying; “Insanity is doing the same thing, over and over again, but expecting different results.”

Dan Brusca

It's a Star Trek relaunch. It may look shiny and new, but it's still fundamentally the same old characters flying around in the same old starship.

One difference though - Star Trek is more believable.

seb

Shurely shum mishtake. Labour's 'Building Britain's Future' was to have read 'Wrecking Britain's Future'.

The Bellman

These custards have been 'building Britain's future' since 1997. To borrow from Eric Morcambe: What do you think of it so far?

Nicholas Hallam

The idea that the government is "investing" in Britain, by borrowing money from the markets and hosing at the public sector, has been rumbled. The electorate is not quite as stupid as Brown assumes, and now it is angry as well. Brown has lost the trust of the voters, and is steadily losing their respect as well.

AuldCurmudgeon

"Brown really is playing lose-lose politics at the moment. And guess what? He'll lose."

I don't think there's room for any complacency. There's everything to play for and he might just lose instead.

Forlornehope

Building for the future by switching funds from capital to current expenditure? Someone has not completed management 101. This strategy is the exact opposite of the rhetoric.

Publius

"Investment"? What a laugh. More like one last fling on the roulette table.

Slim Jim

Adding to an already high debt burden, or reducing debt to manageable levels? It's a no-brainer, but one that needs to be put simply, not hiding behind fancy language.

Vulture

You only have to take a cursory look at the Labour Home website to see in what sort of denial parallel universe these jokers are dwelling in. They seriously suppose they have a chance of recovery with Bruin at their head. How gently can we put it? They are dead. Gone. Had it. Toast. Past. deceased. Finished. washed up. History. Ex. Buried. Cremated. Over.
Oh, do wake up and smell the coffee. That other odour with it? It is the toast. The burnt toast.

Geoff Wyatt

Amazing doublespeak in adjacent sentences:
"Departments are being encouraged to ... switch spending from capital to resource accounts"... followed by "we will continue targeted investment against the Tories’ blanket cuts..."
So current spending will increase AND 'investment' preserved in the switch!

Ian Westbrook

"'Our theme will be ‘building Britain’s future’ — that we will continue targeted investment against the Tories’ blanket cuts,'"

what, the way Labour has built our present future over the past 10 years? allowing bankers to fly the economy into the side of a mountain unregulated, while MPs have been too busy working out how to game the expenses system to spend any time actually running the country?

another 5 years of Labour? this country would be TOTALLY destroyed, past saving, after another 5 years of Labour...

Disorganised1

I think you all underestimate how many people in this country go to the polls thinking "anyone but a Tory." This has been pushed through universities, broadcasting, and popular culture.
Comedians still get a cheer for knocking Thatcher, or making jokes about conservative voters and values.
Labour may have no ideas, but their one card trick is good enough for many indoctrinated voters.

Rupert Bear

All we want is the truth and no more spinning because as a public we deserve better!

No more lies and gaming of statistics to make them 'look' better

Just an openness that says - we tried it - it didn't work - let's try something else

I'll vote for a party that tells the truth

Wight Tory

It could be worse, if he had gone to the country in 2007, we'd still have another 3 years of this...

That at least is one thing the Flunk Cist DID get right.

Wily Trout

'Investment' = spending taxpayers' money and borrowing more. Keep saying it.

The Preston Park Panther

Wily, shouldn't that be:

'Investment' = wasting taxpayers' money and stealing more

john miller

Disorganised1 has a good point.

Brown, with his last flourish as Chancellor, kicked in the teeth the people who gave the Labour Party their mandate.

Just so that he could be the only Labour Chancellor to reduce the basic rate of income tax.

He sacrificed his sheep on the altar of his vanity, but still they worship his party.

Cameron must realise he will never get votes from people who, no matter how many times they have been kicked, will still vote Labour.

Go for the marginals.

Nicholas

Oh, for goodness sake. Not another re-launch and "fightback" from this odious man who is dead but won't lie down.

We want a General Election, Brown you stupid muppet, and we want it now. You are finished, your party is finished and your minority socialist client base is finished. You can't dig up a dead, buried and forgotten turd let alone polish it. Now just go!

TGF UKIP

"And guess what? He'll lose." Like most of the comments above, Pete, far too complacent and premature.

Don't forget Brown has an opposition which ain't right keen on actually opposing, an opposition which poll after poll demonstrates arouses very little enthusiasm and most of all, for an economic election, Brown really does have an ace in the hole: the Tory Opposition's principal economic spokesman.