Darling in cloud cuckoo land

Sally Chatterjee

Cameron and Osborne have got Labour on the run!

Steven Weare

I make efficiencies.
He makes job cuts.
You cause redundancies.

Chris lancashire

An immediate hiring freeze is an excellent way to begin the process of returning sanity to public finances. But it won't be enough - redundancies will most likely be needed as the public sector is shrunk to a sustainable size. However, now is not the time to be totally open on this, the Conservatives need to learn a few lessons about lying from Labour.

Stevie

Brown, Darling and Mandelson can 'skweeem and skweem' (said in an Ed Balls voice) about NI until they are blue in the face! But it will do them no good, to paraphrase 'Richard' Nulabour have lost the argument on the economy.

Richard

The defence shield is starting to breakdown on the Tory wheeze.
The biz leaders (Rose and co) say the tax will cost 57,000 jobs yet Gershon admitts 40,000 are part of the "savings" in the tory plan.
As pointed out in Newsnight. Most of the biz leaders are retailers where the average wage is less than 20K the cut in point of the NIC tax increase.
The 50p tax (promises the reverse asap by Cameron) mean the likes of Rose have a £100,000 stake in the battle for the government.
IFS has said that if implemented the NI employers contribution will be passed on to the employees in lower wage settlements.
The NI in the Public sector is a paper excercise its gov money in and then back out to the treasury.
The efficeincey savings from the Tories are in part already accounted in the PBR and the budget.....double accounting by the Tories.
Vacancies not filled is still a reduction in the employment opportunities for those out of work.
Each job lost has a huge cost....loss of tax, loss or spend, loss savings and then costs of benefits, housing and social costs.
the result is such that the "saving" is wiped out....the economy gains more form people working than it does from people on the dole.
IFS also clearly say the numbers do not add up on the Tory plan.
The city money men are now voicing concerns that the Tories are going back on the Fiscal stance they took early in the campaign.
The charge they say one thing in public and another in private getsd more real everyday.
Populist policy that changes when ever the audiance change.
Loots of problems for Cameron in the debates to come.

Chuck Unsworth

Are these the same 'some experts' that they've chosen to vilify before? Where are they on this? Darling is all over the shop. It's a rail crash.

The problem for NuLab is that they really don't know who is expert and who is not. They just choose their experts on the basis of their political positions.

Disastrous performance from Brown and his henchpersons. They are incapable of actually admitting that sometimes they are mistaken - and that is political nitro-glycerine. Handled clumsily it will do them huge damage - witness today's explosion.

toco

All Labour's comments regarding NI smack of desperation and are little more than back-of-the envelope stuff in reality.Mind you having got us into such a financial mess there is little else the hapless Brown can do.

RKing

The proposed NI hike by NuLab will also be paid by public sector workers.
So where will it end up ..... in the treasury funds which is where it came from!
Public sector workers now represent over 50% of the workforce I believe?

So the only people REALLY paying the increase will be the PRIVATE SECTOR!!

So once again the private sector is coughing up for all the perks and inflated public sector.
Who are Darling and co. expecting to produce his magical growth figures....... yep the private sector!

Graham Walker

As ever with Labour "The facts are what we tell you." They (Brown in particular)can't handle the fact that the Conservatives have made a smart decision & Brown & Co now want to rubbish the Conservative figures. labour seem to have lost this battle but insist on keeping the issue alive. They really are losers!

JR Hartley

It's OK winning the campaign with NI etc but most voters are too thick to understand the subtle nuances - they need it spelling out in idiot terms. This is where Labour are hanging on - they have form with their client state and lie in kid terms that these people understand. The Tories need to be a bit more blunt and not so defensive about what is needed.

Moraymint

So, does any politician seriously think that the government will NOT be making thousands of people involuntarily redundant over the next parliament?

It's this staggering assumption that so infuriates me ... that we're all so utterly stupid as to believe that the next government will be able to reduce government spending by scores of billions of pounds without firing people.

Small wonder the bond markets are on tenterhooks. If our political class doesn't understand that saving £100 billion of government over-expenditure can't be done without grief then we'll get punished as much as we deserve by those nervous bond markets.

I know, I know. No politician in his right mind is going to tell it as it is, when "it" is austerity.

Let's be clear guys; we are about to discover what's it like living in an Undeveloping Nation.

And with the oil price going just one way from here on, it'll be interesting to see how easy it is to make profits ... and pay taxes ... in the future. Oh, I know ... the government could borrow the money instead.

Nice one Gordon.

GDT

Labour. True colours shining through - they spent two decades convincing people they were no longer the party of Tax and Spend. 20yrs of work slowly unravelling.

Scott Mills

Dave and George may be winning the argument, but the BBC are still peddling the Labour line. They are trying really hard to demolish the NI wall erected around the Tory Party, but up to now it is holding. Labour (with the help of the BBC) will get some direct hit sooner or later, so Dave had better have the answers. 5 more years of GB, no way!! I'm married to an American, ideal for an escape route just in case.

Mucker

I will repeat this chilling stat:

Private Sector Public Sector
GDP 1997 60% 40%
GDP 2009 47% 53%

Greenslime

In today's Even Stannit:
The Labour manifesto of 2005, entitled, “Britain forward not back”, makes interesting reading five years on. “Our economic record has finally laid to rest the view that Labour could not be trusted with the economy,” it said. “In the past eight years we have pioneered a British way to economic stability.” Labour also pledged to create “a tax regime that supports British business” and “to raise the employment rate to 80%”.

Swiss Bob

If it's really true that the public sector recruits/replaces 400,000 people a year then the Tories could let that many go each year for five years and reduce the number by 2,000,000.

And still say that they never sacked a single public sector worker.

TheE17Tory

Why does Cameron always pander to these Labour comments and therefore give them credibility?he should dismiss them as the bullshit they always are?

Rivere

Just as the Financial Services in have in the UK been cut by 35,000 there is no reason to doubt that public sector curbs would also need to touch such high figures. To be honest I can't really understand why Labour would want to win this election, it is a good election for them to loose since if they inherit this mess for another term they would be caught in there own financial web completely.

PayDirt

There seems to a two-fold definition of Public Sector jobs: frontline and others. What I would like to know is which Public Sector jobs actually add to the “economy”. People like Richard labour under the impression that Pubic Sector employees pay tax: that is they contribute in tax more than their jobs cost in tax collected. Can this be simplified, or is it too complicated? Cameron was talking this morning about net £6million, I think it would help to understand better what this “net” is. Is this the net of how much the Public Sector costs in payroll (paid for by collecting tax from the Private Sector) compared to how much is collected back from Pubic Sector jobs as paid as income tax? OK, so it is more beneficial to pay someone rather than pay benefits, so it’s not a simple calculation. However I think we need a clearer explanation of what is going on here.

Silent Hunter

Oh give it a rest Richard.

You won't last the pace if you continue to scurry around the various blogs peddling Labour Lies at this early stage in the race. LOL

Michael Booth

"The NI in the Public sector is a paper excercise its gov money in and then back out to the treasury"

No Richard, no no no - it is OUR money, taxpayers' money...please do not surrender this vital principle just because you vote Labour.

Michael Booth

Soon we will be getting aid handouts from Zimbabwe...
turned out nice again...

Right On

From todays coverage the MSM seem to have decided that Labour are now winning the NI arguement because there will be "jobs lost".

A pretty bizarre arguement on the grounds that jobs have to go in the public sector. Really makes no sense as these are based on rough calculations and with the (equally dubious) calculation that 57,000 jobs would be created by not increasing NI, you would still end up with net more jobs.

yarnesfromhorsham

So what if we reading this article know the "truth" between the Tory view and New Labour - its not the economy stupid its the Chavs and the Benefits that will win the GE.

wider still and wider

The NI row is a wonderful thing because Labour are in a deep hole over it but the best bit is "they are still digging".

paulg

I think it might be a good time to reassure those people in the public sector who actually have a real job that under the conservatives they will be saved.

Labours infatuation with PC non jobs and ‘global warming advisors’ are being paid shed loads of money and they don’t really do anything.

Milli-tant and her friends have had a right good screw of things but we can no longer afford them as a nation.

The front line people, as well as accountants, lawyers, who work in the public sector, will be clapping their hands if Cameron says…. Milli and co will be getting the heave- ho.

Lets be honest, Milli will never vote conservative, but the rest might. If the conservatives cleave them in two now labours vote will solidify around 12% and they can fight the BNP for fourth place.

Divide and conquer is the old maxim of the British empire, we need to use it now.

Cuffleyburgers

As a taxpayer I would be delighted to know that 40000 diversity outreach coordinators were to go.

Unfortunately NHS paperclip administrators are more likely to hang on to their jobs than midwives or matrons, and until root and branch reform of the funding model ofte nhs is carried out that will continue to be the case.

Simon Stephenson

PayDirt : 12.37pm

I'm sure you'll find that the £6 billion public-sector payroll saving would be gross, not nett of tax lost. This would be because the anticipated conclusion of the exercise would be that the people lost to the public-sector would be re-employed in the private sector, and that the overall effect on tax-gathering would be, at worst, neutral.

People who wish to portray the worst scenario work on the basis that all labour shed by the public-sector will fester on benefits for the rest of their lives. This is obviously absurd, but they don't care about this, since their objective is to suggest that public employment is universally good, and so to misrepresent the consequences of anything that threatens it.

sandy

I posted some time ago that it was incredible to me that the Tories were not proposing an immediate hiring freeze in the public-sector on their first day in office.

Glad to see the penny has dropped.

In terms of money saved versus as few as possible voters discomfited, nothing gives better value.

Just ensure you commit to making an exception for front-line staff:nurses,policemen,firemen etc.and then let the apparent yearly natural turnover of around 400,000 do the business.

Labour know this, which explains their almost hysterical reaction to Cameron's first tentative steps in this direction.They know if he wins,it's bye bye to up to a shedload of client state votes.

Dorothy Wilson

Not sure I heard properly but I thought there was a - very short - comment on the World at One that Stephen Timms had admitted Labour's policies would cause job losses in the public sector.

Ian C

Richard

Someone must be payingto A) write gibberish and B) be in the first 3 comments every time. Hope you're being declared as an election expense.

Holly ......

A previous thing I have commented on..
Total annual salary £17,740.00.ENTIRELY paid for by private sector tax payers.
Gross pay for month £1,478.33.
Deductions for month £331.01
Remembering that my pay,gross or net,is ENTIRELY FUNDED by the private sector UK tax payers...can any of you tell me how much of the my deductions...I personally paid?
I calculate NIL.
As my pay is entirely funded by the private sector tax payer.
Do the government charge the private sector tax payer £17,740.00 each year or do they charge £1,147.32?
Why don't the Tories pay the £1,147.32P/MTH and charge the private sector tax payer the £13,767.84PA? Saving the private sector
taxpayer £3972.16 PA,on what was just my pay alone.
Multiply that by all the public sector and although we still would not be paying tax,
as is the situation now,the private sector worker would have more money in their
pockets.