Brown primes his new dividing line
Peter Hoskin 11:03am
With Brown shifting his position on spending by the minute, it's worth highlighting this snippet from today's Guardian:
"Treasury ministers, in particular, believe they can look at whether there will be a need for cuts at the time of the pre-budget report in the autumn. They intend to use the report to show the scale of projected future savings, as well as how frontline services and new priorities can be protected by switching resources.Labour still believes the Tories have made a political mistake by committing themselves to public spending cuts so early."
It rather supports Fraser's prediction that, following all their talk about "envelopes" and "projections," the Government will suddenly start saying those "cuts" aren't necessary after all. But it also suggests that they'll try to establish another dividing line: one between limited Labour cuts (which will be called "savings") and Tory cuts (which will be called "cuts," and caricatured as impacting "frontline services").
It's certainly more politically adept than Brown's crude "investment vs cuts" distinction - what isn't? - but it's barely less deceptive or fiscally incontinent. The task for the Tories is to pre-empt it by both emphasising the grand scale of Brown's debt crisis and the measures that will be required to fix it, and highlighting the government waste which could be jettisoned as part of their own package of "cuts". With Brown's message getting muddier and muddier, they've got the best headstart they could have hoped for.
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Jonathan Cook
July 2nd, 2009 11:24am Report this commentThere is also merit in Gordon's ramblings about Growth - but he isn't coherent.
I'd like to see David Cameron spell out at a combined message that shows how the Tories will dig us out of the hole, with the combined tools of growth and necessary cuts.
TrevorsDen
July 2nd, 2009 11:24am Report this commentAre you seriously suggesting that the government will say there will be no need for public expenditure 'cuts' in view of the £200 billion deficit for this year alone?
BTW - if by "Treasury ministers" they mean Liam Byrne - well surely no one can take HIM seriously.
How will the people we rely on to buy our debt react to that?
THe OECD have already said that Brown is not being clear enough to say HOW he will cut the debt. What will they say if Labour claim they do not need any cuts at all?
Oh and BTW(2) - "switching resources" -- surely that is just another word for 'cuts', robbing Peter to pay Paul.
Surely this is all so wearisomely predictable? The answer - rearrange these words into a well know phrase or saying - 'a won't pint pot go quart a into '
Mark C
July 2nd, 2009 11:58am Report this commentSo Brown is going to try to fix the pre-budget report. No doubt this will be hailed by Polly Toynbee as yet another "last chance" and be used to fend off any leadership challenge at the Labour conference in September.
Publius
July 2nd, 2009 12:21pm Report this commentI expect Labour will come up with one of their vile Newspeak phrases to describe their own (inevitable) Labour cuts. "Temporary negative investment" or something like that.
Hawkeye
July 2nd, 2009 12:24pm Report this commentBrown can say what he likes about his "Bait'n'Switch" tactics for financing, but the INTERNATIONAL finance bodies are expecting cutbacks and they will make their opinions felt if it looks like Brown intends to play silly b*ggers with the nation's debt.
Do we really want S&P to down rate the UK or the OECD to advise investors and bankers to stay well clear of UK plc?
Oscar
July 2nd, 2009 12:24pm Report this commentThe whole idea of it being "a political mistake" to draw attention to the necessity for cuts reveals the mendacious heart of the Labour machine. The idea that they could actually tell the truth does not figure in their calculations - no - it's all about political positioning. In other words - how to fool the public. Has any British government ever sunk this low?
DM
July 2nd, 2009 12:26pm Report this commentThe problem with Brown is that he unashamedly lies, he contorts arguments and changes the goalposts continually by answering a different question from what he is asked. He also uses the Blair trick of trying to turn his critics into advocats for something else. eg Tories don't support his spending plans, therefore they believe in a policy of increasing unemployment. Blair did it with terrorism - If you don't support us, you support the terrorists. Never underestimate how underhand or dishonest he is. He simply does not intend to be straight. He never did and he never will. His goal is power and the annihilation of the Tories. It's impossible to engage rationally with someone like this. He is worse than a child trying to lie his way out of trouble.
T .England
July 2nd, 2009 12:44pm Report this comment@TrevorsDen
"BTW - if by "Treasury ministers" they mean Liam Byrne -well surely no one can take HIM seriously."
Well said!
That man is as honest as Brown & has the same delusions of granduer as well, he also has the same affect on people that Brown has, you know!
Repulsion, dislike & dismay, I could go on but I'm getting wound up just thinking about the creep.
Moraymint
July 2nd, 2009 1:04pm Report this commentLook, the time will come soon (it's almost certainly happening right now) when reality will crunch into Brown's spending fantasies.
Everywhere, individuals, companies and public organisations are running out of credit and/or cash. For example, where I live, Moray Council just shocked themselves by discovering unexpectedly that they were £2 million overspent, against a forecast overspend of £600,000. The Council says (jokes?) it will be saving millions of pounds in the coming 2 or 3 years ... but is clearly haemorrhaging cash today. Hardly an organisation in control of its finances. This type of situation means that organisations start to operate in atmospheres of near-chaos for much of the time.
Similar situations are arising everywhere across our economy, at every level. Gordon Brown can bang on as much as he likes about spending the money he doesn't have now, and certainly won't have tomorrow, but this cold, stark reality - of individuals and organisations running out of money - will smash Brown's fantasies to smithereens soon enough. Ask any company owner struggling with a cashflow crisis. Er, sorry, I forgot: MPs aren't supposed to have second jobs, still less have a clue about how companies operate.
What the politicians have yet to grasp, from inside their Westminster pay and expenses cocoon of thieves, is that unless and until they front up to the shocking reality that is now the UK economy, then with each passing day we shall edge closer to socio-economic armageddon. It's happening now.
The political shysters in Whitehall are living in a deluded world of their own, obsessed with personal survival. When that devil-take-the-hindmost attitude extends to us ordinary citizens out here in the increasingly financially desparate real-world, there will be hell to pay on our streets and in communities.
This is the imminent reality of a political elite now so far removed from the nation's citizens that one wonders which planet these people now inhabit.
And right up there at the top of this unholy economic, political and, indeed, moral mess is ... Mr Gordon Brown MP: the man with the moral compass who saved the world.
Even Kafka couldn't make this up.
Andy
July 2nd, 2009 1:56pm Report this commentThe more I'm lied to by Brown & Co, the more determined I am, come the election, to work to consign Labour to history for a long, long time!
dorothy wilson
July 2nd, 2009 3:11pm Report this commentAnother example of the total deceit and dishonesty of the man was when he turned DC's statment of act that employment would rise, into a statement that it was Tory policy to allow employment to rise.
Talk about a twisted mind.
hysteria
July 2nd, 2009 4:32pm Report this commentMr Mint is correct - real organisations running out of real cash will wake everyone up.
Expat
July 2nd, 2009 8:19pm Report this commentDC could take a different line 'Yes GB you are right' to every statement he choses to make. Prefaced with tugging the forelock,facetious tone of voice etc and close with 'everybody else disagrees with you but you are right. I don't understand why the Tory backroom boys don't plan the next election campaign to achieve a single figure seat majority for Liebour and let THEM clear up the sh1t they are busy shovelling at present for the Tories to inherit. Nobody knows the true debt of GB plc, even New Liebour I suspect, so who would want to be handed the poisonned chalice next year?
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