Osborne tries to kickstart a mature economic debate

John Law

You can only have a serious economic debate with serious people. Labour are not capable of such a thing. The trailing of the budget tells us this (the country can go hang, while we talk to our constituency.

Osborne has to have the courage to talk to the intelligent majority of voters and ignore whatever comes out of the labour attack (scorched earth) machine.

There are plenty of votes in common sense.

toco

Well done George Osborne in setting out the basis for a proper debate designed to help rather than hinder.It will be interesting to see whether Alistair Darling and Vince Cable behave with equal statesmanship in an attempt to help the debate or whether they take the easy option and find reasons to be negative.One lives in hope but I suspect Alistair Darling will have the biggest problem in being positive as he has to deal with the dysfunctional and embittered Brown.

mongoose

If you want to read this FT article without subscribing to the pink'un, just copy a distinctive phrase from the italicised section and paste into Google within quotation marks.

Holly ......

European commission to recommend Britain do more to cut the budget deficit.

denis cooper

But I don't see anything in the FT article that directly corresponds to this part of David Blackburn's report earlier:

"Osborne is wary that the public sector could come to Labour’s rescue, and pledges that jibs will be protected and productive areas will receive investment. Notably, Osborne will protect science and technology budgets; the government gives no such assurances."

Simon Stephenson

John Law : 5.12pm

"You can only have a serious economic debate with serious people. Labour are not capable of such a thing."

I agree that it's impossible to have a serious economic debate with Labour or their sympathisers, but I don't think it's because they are not serious people. Quite the contrary. They are very serious people, but they veer away from rational discussion because they know that at this level they will be unable to maintain the myth about their goals and intentions.

They are big state socialists to whom the very idea of individual freedom of choice or thought is an obstacle on their path to utopia. They didn't change with the collapse of the Soviet bloc and their re-branding as "New" Labour. They just went underground, and adopted the Monnetesque strategy of working towards a goal while all the time pretending you are doing something much less unpopular.

If ther's one thing that's absolutely certain, it is that the true Labour view of the economic future of the UK contains nothing that in any way sustains or encourages the independence of the individual. Look forward to pocket-money day, because if Labour have their way this will be the only financial independence you'll be allowed to have.

TGF UKIP

Pete Hoskin and the FT might be impressed but how many C2 voters read Pete Hoskin or the FT?

Gordon impresses the many while Dave and Boy George impress the few.

Gawain

You just have to observe Brown reacting to the BA strike to understand why a serious economic debate with Labour is impossible. The moment the media started to link the strike with Unite's funding of Labour and highlighting Whelan's involvement in Labour campaigning, Brown has reacted to feed the media with neo Thatcherite soundbites deploring the strike. New Labour's great trick was to adopt Tory language and to adapt their policies in a way that allowed them to behave in an old fashioned Labour way. Brown as Chancellor spoke the language of 'prudence', 'fiscal responsibility' and 'fairness' whilst he acted to tax private pensions out of existence, increase taxes on the middle classes and raise public spending on Labour voters to a level that has all but bankrupted the country. When words and ideas become nothing more than tools in a Marxist Leninist dialectic there can be no debate. There will be no serious economic debate until the full implications of the state of the national finances are clear to the majority of people and this shabby, dissembling and incompetent government has been voted out of office.

JONNY

If I read the new ICM correctly
Gordon does not 'impress the many'.

Tiberius

And an 11 point lead with Opinium, Jonny. But remember Kipling!

TGF: You may not have meant to, but you actually confirm the Tories' problem, whoever their leader is.

C2 (if he is going to be exposed to anyone) is going to get the Nick Robinson rushing-headless-around-the-farmyard treatment, squawking about Tory cuts if Osborne comes out to level with the public. It's hard to say but thank goodness for The Sun.

There is still an argument for keeping the powder dry and fighting this election on Brown's record more than anything else. If Osborne is starting to tool up, it's courageous and honest.

It'll be interesting to see if the currency and bond markets react to this developing narrative.

TGF UKIP

Tiberius, still clinging forlornly on I see.

Your big big problem, though, in "keeping the powder dry and fighting on Brown's record more than anything else" is that your boy and his Clique have demonstrated themselves to be absolutely hopeless at eaxactly that over the past four years which is precisely why they are now in the deep deep doo doo they plainly are.

You keep on believing, though. Always a touchingly English trait, I think, clinging on desperately to long lost causes.

Kennybhoy

TGF UKIP wrote;

"You keep on believing, though. Always a touchingly English trait, I think, clinging on desperately to long lost causes."

A strange comment from an allegedly patriotic person representing an allegedly patriotic political party....?

The cause is very far from lost, though. But even if it were, why should that any any way alter the allegiance of any honourable, patriotic soul?

Kennybhoy

Oops! Almost forgot!

Vote UKIP for at LEAST five more years of Gordon Brown and NuLab!

2trueblue

TGF UKIP Can you please define and explain the way out of the mess? So far we have had the Brown version that got us into it and the Cable version that frankly offers little.
It is very difficult to learn anything if you keep hanging on to your prejudices and fail to look to see if there might be an answer within. This government have not delivered anything in any area that has contributed positively to our country. Why waste time continually looking down the barrel of a gun just because of your prejudice rather than actually looking for solutions.
There are few around in the political arena and Liebore lovies to engage with in the hope of a mature discussion on the economy fix. It will not be a quick fix and that is what the real problem is. Everybody wants it all to be over and done with and the truth is we are a long way off that yet, but it has to start somewhere and getting it started will be the trick. Not something we have seen yet.

Brown only knows one way, spending our grandkids future, ironic that he should think its OK to have spent their inheritance and then give out the lollipops to sweeten the pill.

Ian Walker

Out of interest, I wandered over to UKIP's website to try and find out what their economic policies are. Turns out that apart from a flat rate tax (threshold £9000, rate 33%) they don't seem to have one.

Ian C

2trueblue

Well said. TGF, Verity et al it is time to piss or get off the pot. You're being stupid, very, very stupid.

Ron

Anyway you slice it the bell is tolling for the UK to get the deficit under control and start planning on how to reduce the debt. The Tories appear to be the only party willing to make the tough decisions needed to control spending. Labour created this economic mess by over spending in good times and the LibDems are all over the map on what they would do.

David Cheshire

This sounds ominously like the sucking up to the financiers that plagued the British economy from at least 1931 right through the sixties and seventies. They spook, we jump. Surely the bailing out has earned us the right to shut them up? Not much to debate here surely?