The start of scorched-earth policy?

Short the UK

As the UK economy slides into a stagflationary recession watch the Brown One suspend the Bank of England's inflation remit. Thus forcing the BoE to cut interest rates.

There could be a titanic battle between the Brown One and the King.

This is the big Brown bust!

Is little George ready?

Vince the Cable Guy will be!

Paul B

Pleased that its an increase in PA rather that a murky fudge with tax credits. But why rather than borrowing the money, cannot 2.7billions worth of saving, start with Balls & Evettes expense account-or call me naive-You are naive.

FF what a let down, spineless nonentity.

David Lindsay

Of course, the Tories have no plans to restore the 10p tax rate. I just thought that I'd mention that, since nobody who is paid to mention it ever does so.

Oh, and the Labour majority at Crewe & Nantwich is only seven thousand, you know. This is not a safe seat. It just had the same MP for a long time. Not the same thing at all.

TGF UKIP

Could be a great opportunity for Dave to do some dirty dancing on Gordon's grave at PMQs tomorrow. But of course Paul B is right and the £2.7 bn should come from reduced spending but as Big Government Dave has absolutely stupidly tied the Tories to Labour's spending plans that does rather cramp their room for manoeuvre.

Andrew W

Just as when Labour came to power the public finances were even better than they could possibly have imagined, so when the Conservatives get to power the public finances will be in an even worse state than they could possibly imagine. Tony Blair, with his huge majority and the monumental emotional tide behind him, wasted a golden opportunity to reform public services and welfare in 1997, but even he would not have been able to halve government and local government pensions. George Osborne will be left with no choice but to slash the number of public employees and also to slash their pensions. Every cloud has a silver lining.

Robert Williams

David Lindsay - I really think that this is a case where the Tories can legitimately use the Irish "We wouldn't have started from here". Brown stole some of the Lib Dem tax plans in 2007. In part to do it on the cheap, he left out the cost of raising tax allowances to compensate the 10p martyrs & ducked the tax income benefit from increasing the tax rate for very high incomes.

Yet another costly Brown screw up.
1. 75p pension increase resulting in £Bns to buy off irate pensioners
2. Fuel duty increase in a budget where rising oil prices were causing rumblings which culminated in the nation coming to a halt & future fuel duty rises being more constrained than would otherwise have been the case.

jaymason

wait until after the by-election amnd work out how much per vote they have got

salieri

Why the surprise? For years Brown has been borrowing vast sums to buy votes from those he has made his dependants.

The metaphore of a scorched-earth policy seems inapposite: that is a conscious policy with a strategic (if deplorable) objective. By contrast, Brown acts more like a child on a mini-golf course, one hole at a time in mind, petulantly prodding and swatting in order somehow to get the ball in, and then move on. In this instance yet again it's mere short-term populism.

Sorry about the undemotic drift into Latin but it's sometimes unavoidable and (thanks, Tiberius) concise: panem et circenses.

TrevorH

Firstly the government mighr have been thinking of cancelliung the 2p rise on petrol. What chances of that now, with £2.7 billion extra borrowing?

And with all this extra borrowing, what effect will this have on the BoE and interst rate decisions?

yep, as predicted middle England sufferes.

Diana

Frankly, I don't think that Brown could do anything that would turn round the anti-Labour feeling in this country. This move today won't make a bit of difference. People can see through Labour.

Labour were caught with their trousers down on the 10p tax scrap - Brown DELIBERATELY targeted the poor thinking he'd get away with it - and people won't forgive him for that. It was no mistake. Look at Labour's economic record - it's grab grab grab and spend spend spend and now there is nothing more to grab, and nothing left to spend. That's why it's all on the tab.

Hysteria

where are we?

where are we going?

why are we in this handbasket?

TGF UKIP

The £2.7bn on the Crewe by-election may make it the most expensive, but for elections overall surely the Guiness Book of Records winner must be the hundreds of billions of taxpayers money expended by Alan Johnson on public sector pensions in his forlorn quest for the Labour Party Deputy Leadership. Something never even mentioned by the ever decorous Cameron Tories.

Oscar

The C&N by-election has turned into a referendum on Brown's premiership. If he loses he is done for. He's chucking money at it to save his skin. A stark message as to where this immoral man's priorities lie. He would always sacrifice the national interest to save his own skin.

Tiberius

Keep the Latin coming, salieri - Google has coped with all the quotations so far. It is, after all, a canis canem edit world. ;)

Nick Kaplan

David; Crewe & Nantwich is Labour’s 57th most marginal seat, since Labour only need to lose 33 seats to lose their majority a Tory victory here would be a significant blow for Labour. You are right that the Tories have no plans to reintroduce the 10p tax rate, but this is perfectly understandable given that the next couple of years worth of spending arrangements will be based on it not being there. Therefore the Tories cannot now make uncosted economic promises given that they will not know the economic situation in two years time (i.e. at the next election) such a promise would be political madness.

Water

"This may be the start of a scorched-earth policy" start! Hasn't it been in play already, albeit silently. A financial iatrogenic.

Nick Drew

Yes, scorched earth has been in play for quite a while! - as we analysed here back in November last year