Clarification or u-turn?

Irene

Labour seem to be in confusion themselves about when to cut - Mandy has already cut £300 million from his own department this year.

toco

When the grande dame of Labour's spin machine resorts to name calling one realises just how desperate this discredited and dishonest Government has become.It is like a rabbit in the headlights unable to focus on the next step so reverts to the gutter politics which is so embedded in its fabric.It wasn't the Tories who made such a shambles of our Country in so many different ways it was Tony Blair,Gordon Brown and the rest of their self serving and incompetent crew.

denis cooper

If there are no significant cuts in public expenditure, and/or tax rises, implemented shortly after the election, how will the government fund its budget deficit?

At present the government is spending four pounds for every three pounds of revenue, and borrowing the fourth.

It's only been able to borrow so much because the Bank of England has been rigging the gilts market by creating new money and buying up previously issued gilts as fast as the Treasury has been selling new gilts.

I've wondered for months why Osborne hasn't loudly condemned this blatant market abuse, and I've increasingly suspected that he's been keeping quiet about it in case he wanted to do the same thing once he became Chancellor.

With signs that the previous risk of deflation is being replaced by the risk of inflation, he'd have a hard job persuading Mervyn King and the Monetary Policy Committee that the Bank should carry on creating new money and buying up gilts, but what will be the alternative if he really intends to carry on spending four pounds for every three pounds of revenue?

Then yesterday there was Cameron saying that if the Tories got a small Commons majority in May then he might hold a second general election "in a matter of months", which would mean this autumn or next spring at the latest.

That threat really only makes sense on the basis that he would defer spending cuts until after the second election: if he started making significant and painful inroads into the budget deficit before the second election then he'd be more likely to lose it.

But that would mean funding a barely diminished budget deficit by massive borrowing for at least another six months, and how could that be achieved without a continuation of so-called "quantitative easing"?

Ed P

NuLab criticising the Conservatives for financial understanding and caution - it's the death of irony!
You would be severely mis-informed about this if your only information came from the BBC - you would think the prospect of a Conservative government might make them less partial.

anne allan

ED P - most people working at the Beeb absorbed leftyism with their mothers' milk. They are unable to think any other way. Like medieaval peasants faced with an elephant, the only way they can react to a different way of thinking is with fear and loathing.

Paddy

I couldn't believe Mandelson on Sky news. Thin little pursed lips quivering with anger.

News Alert - tell the Tories they can't play with my ball.

Pathetic.

Irene

Peston and Mandy seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet?

TrevorsDen

Correct - no U-Turn, is no shift.

I, myself, me, personally, with my own two eyes and ears - that's me, not hearsay or newspaper reporting - actually saw and heard Osborne last week being interviewed about the economy and he clearly said (because I, myself, me, heard him), audibly said, the tories would noty make massive cuts, all the cuts, from day pone. Butn that they would make a start now and would initiate a believable plan.

So nothing about this is new. The inteviewer was clearly jumping to a conclusion and Osborne went out of his way to clarify nthe position.

I believe that in a Newsnight debate Hammond said pretty much the same thing.

So none of this is new. And the reaction of Labour is not new and the reaction of the media to mandelson is not new.
The Tory policy is as it always has been. But the way the media have covered this makes it clear that their only interest is to paint Tories as evil cutters and its absolutely clear the BBC want to continue to suck on the teat of Labour largesse.

The real issue is this ... over 13 years Labour have totally mismanaged the nations finances and its economy. We are stuffed thanks to them, and to quote Nick Clegg we face 'savage cuts' no matter who wins the election.
I suspect if the Tories take office they will find a huge hole in Labours projections and all bets will be off. If Labour win and do nothing then our credit rating will be downgraded PDQ.

Victor Southern

Why should Cameron "be smarting" over the utterances of a twice discredited popinjay like Barton Mandelson?

Anne Wotana Kaye 1

What rubbish we have to listen to, all put out by garbage called government. The grand promise to provide personal care, in their own homes to all pensioners needing it, will have to be shelved due to lack of funds. The amount needed was underestimated by fifty percent! I warned about this when the plan was announced with fanfare. Not only is money a problem, but where the heck are the care assistants and nurses coming from? Obviously more workers will have to be imported, because can anybody rationally see a) the government training and employing UK citizens and b) after so many years of a degrading life on benefits, how many UK citizens will agree to training? One thing though is sure, money will be found to house Hook Hand Hamsa's family in comfort wilst making sure his prison suite has the latest TV, computer, etc. Also, all the illegals who fill our hospitals with TB. AIDS and other aweful diseases, will get the very best treatment. AIDS and associated diseases cost £40,000 a year for drugs alone, but £30,000 per annum is considered too expensive for a UK cancer sufferer. We have the lowest rates of successful cancr treatment in the developed world, infant mortality is rising, no money, no funds, but the NHS is haemorrhaging as it pours out funds on those arriving uninvited and a positive liabilty secxurity wise and in every other way. Lord Mandelson may have only spent a short time in the Young Communist League, but he learned his lessons there well, and together with the so-called 'ex' Marxist comrades in Nu Labour, such as The Man of Straw, he will continue to suck this country dry. No way must Nu Labour be returned.

Verity

I haven't even read the previous comments as I normally do before posting an opinion, because I can't stand Dave's febrile little fingers in that photo.

Verity

AWK - "One thing though is sure, money will be found to house Hook Hand Hamsa's family in comfort wilst making sure his prison suite has the latest TV, computer, etc."

Your "etc" to include rejigging his loo so he doesn't have to crap or pee in the direction of mecca. OK, granted, it's just one rejig in the same direction as muslim men pee squatting down, girlie style. I've seen them! Muzzi girly-boys! But is irrelevant to the concerns of British taxpayer. So, no.

No one should qualify as a putative PM of Britain who does not have in his party's manifesto a removal of all privileges for the banged-uperatti.

Bare cells with a bed on which to sleep. OK, a blanket. Water to drink. A loo facing whatever. End of story. A library from which to borrow books for those who can read.

Maybe TV in a common room for after they'd done a hard day's labour, which they are not required to do in Britain (unlike Texas), so no common room TV either.

In fact, nothing but a bed and three meals a day, really. And exercise round the yard, especially in cold weather. Boring. But there you are.

2trueblue

When Mandy and Byrne are wheeled out on the same day you know that Liebore are out to subvert the english language. The BBC are working overtime for Liebore, Peston is just another mouthpiece, with his new style of ponderous pseudo-intellectual gravity and near stutter. Sky seem to be leaning left a bit so the Tories have a battle on their hands, just to get real reporting would be nice for the population who pay for it. What is wrong with our media?