The great Tory tax and spend battle: seconds out...

cuffleyburgers

Sorry Fraser but for me Finkelstein has it on points.

Arguing about 40 billion here or there is pointless.

The real debate is should the state be in charge of spending all your money or should you be? Is it up to Gordon Brown how much you should earn or up to your employer and the shareholders?

What are the sensible boundaries of state interference? Is it really Gordon Brown that runs the country or is it that the country runs itself and just needs a little nudge from time to time from a streamlined centre in order to ensure the rule of law, the defence of the realm and the protection of the weakest or the unfortunate?

And in order to carry out this limited remit does the government really have to mortgage the future of our children, our children's children and their blessed offspring to boot?

And how can it be that in the private sector, when a wobbly patch hits, the first thing to go are those departments that don't pull their weight, non-core activities and a general reduction of headcount, weak managers are released; and why is that in the public sector, the opposite logic applies? And why is that workers in the private sector spend more subsidizing the pensions of public sector "workers" than they do on their own pensions?

And why is it that now after 11 years of New Labour "investing" in education, employers have to spend m,ore than ever toping up new entrants' basic skills to an acceptable level?

The point that must be made forcefully and repeatedly is that we have had 11 years of labour trying to run things according to their failed student-union-marxist "principles" and the results are there for us to see - utter failure, expense, waste, fraud & misery.

It is time to get back to letting people run their own lives and knowing that when they need it thay can count on the effective assistance of a limited state rather than being force-fed the unwanted inefficiencies of the overcentralised labour behemoth.

To paraphrase the ghastly Blair, Britain is at its best when it is not directed by the halfwits in whitehall.

The "hardworking family" does not need the government to run every aspect of its life.

To repeat, some people do need help, and it is right that they should get it. But that is very different from saying that everybody needs loads of help in all sorts of ways all the time whether they like it or not, and inefficiently and expensively and incompetently delivered.

That is the compelling case that must be made.

Simon Stephenson

I agree with cuffleyburgers.

There are a number of distinct areas of discussion that intellectually dishonest people like Brown will try to interweave, because they fear they will lose ground if each of them are dealt with separately.

It's difficult to have discussions with people like Brown, because they've made all the intellectual progress they're ever going to make. To them, discussion is all about defending their fixed positions, so there is never the possibility of consensus.

It's a problem with assuming that argumentative, bigoted student politicians are the best source of advocacy in our adversarial political system.

Therefore, the battleground must be carefully chosen, on the assumption that Brown will attempt to derail it the moment he thinks he may have to concede ground. You HAVE to believe that this is what will happen, and deal with it in advance.

1. Assume £650bn p.a. spending.

(a) can any be cut out, permanently, without ANY loss of service.

(b) can any be replaced with a less expensive way of providing an equivalent service?

(c) are there any services being provided that are not possible to do any less expensively, but which are exorbitantly expensive for the value of the service gained, and which could perhaps be discontinued in favour of a more productive use of resource?

In each case, fully costed details should be provided, showing the effect on the annual public spend of the different approach.

2. Assuming that permanent savings are possible, to what use should these be put:-

(a) reducing revenue (tax) to compensate.

(b) reducing borrowing

(c) expanding public spending in other areas.

3. What should be the determinants of the trend level of public spending as a proportion of GDP? What are the variables in the balance between public provision and private choice? Are there any areas of discussion that are currently being taken as truths which are actually presumptions? And vice versa.

Frank Vernor

Danny boy,
I have to say that your argument about tax cuts not winning any previous elections (and so therefore can't be a vote winner) is about as limp as a sock in a cup.

Let's face it, the Tories could have said anything they liked and it wouldn't have got them into power. It didn't matter what the policy was or who was in charge (as Hague found out), the public were going to give Labour a real crack of the whip and only party political suicide by Labour was going to change opinion. After illegal wars and disguised socialism, the country was finally starting to realise what giving Labour a "real crack of the whip" entailed and Cameron had the right face at the right time to take advantage. If you really believe Cameron would have made a difference in the last 3 elections, you are sorely mistaken and really don't have a grip on the way the British populace think.

TGF UKIP

The key to all this lies in the final sentence of your introduction, Fraser. "The issue that is gripping and troubling the Conservative party as it adjusts to the transformed economic context."

It is quite ridiculous that the Tories are in the shit they're in on this issue and make no mistake, ignore the complacency which surrounds some Coffee Housers, they're in it. The baying of the Labour backbenches at PMQs indicates the extent to which the momentum has moved. Gordon has stolen Tory tax cutting clothes and they love tit.

It is by listening to the likes of Clevinger Finkelstein for the past three years that the Tories are in the mess they are now. They have whistled no populist tunes, had no clear message and have declined to argue for any convictions that were identifiably conservative.

Cutting taxes and spending and clearing up labour economic messes are what conservatives do and at intervals in the political cycle they are richly rewarded for it at the ballot box.

Indeed, for the past year and more, the polls have been indicating over and over again with increasing majorities that people believe that the government is spending, wasting and taxing too much. In short Fraser, they were ready to be serenaded with your tune, the conservative tune.

Instead Dave continued to listen to Clevinger and the Shaven Headed One and pursue a line that was wholly unrecognisable as normal British Tory.

No wonder voters were and are confused. All the Tories they know at work and in the pub are no nonsense, tough on crime and immmigration, profoundly sceptical on global warming etc, highly resistant to political correctness and being told how they should live their lives, and believe governments and councils spend and waste too much and take too much of their money in tax.

Instead, though, when they switch on their TV they are given a picture of extremely earnest political correctness, a concern for all including criminals, a threatening obsession with all matters green and especially green taxes, an unwillingness to even mention let alone discuss immigration and an embrace of Labour's spending and taxing regime.

The ultimate irony is of course when polled voters say that they still don't think the Tories have changed, very sensibly perceiving that their mates are much more representative of who Tories really are than the posh young bloke on the telly with the windmill on his topper. And Oh yes, the Tories also don't poll well on trustworthiness - how surprising.

So far as does any Tory MP advocate tax cuts based on borrowing? Well, I can name one straight away who does, or at least did - DD. In the hustings back in 05 he indicated he would indeed borrow to cut taxes to get the economy motoring again and what's complicated. If you can, and providing the cost of the borrowing isn't excessive, you borrow and cut taxes to rev the economy into a higher gear which will produce more taxes to pay the borrowing with room to spare - as you could ask the Great RR were he still with us.

On this whole issue I commend to Coffee Housers Janet Daley's article in Monday's D. Telegraph. Unfortunately for Janet, she is burdened, unlike Clevinger, with two massive handicaps - clarity of thought and common sense.

Andrew Ian Dodge

Punk tax-cutter...nah more of a heavy metal tax cutter.

Hereford

And how can it be that in the private sector, when a wobbly patch hits, the first thing to go are those departments that don't pull their weight, non-core activities and a general reduction of headcount, weak managers are released; and why is that in the public sector, the opposite logic applies? And why is that workers in the private sector spend more subsidizing the pensions of public sector "workers" than they do on their own pensions?

Because the individual cost of severance in the Public Sector is hugely higher than in the Private. This means that the cash flow impact of downsizing public sector jobs is more than any Government or authority could bear. If you have to spend a billion this year in severance in order to save five billion over the next three it sounds like a good investment. But it is, only if you have a billion to spend, which is spare over and above your normal committments.

cuffleyburgers

@ Hereford

That would be a good argument for why government should adopt proper balance sheet accounting?

Hereford

@Cuffleyburgers: Agreed! But they won't, ever. If you get into the Public Sector, the protections afforded to staff there are terrifying.

That's why when they talk about cutting the size of the sector, it actually ends up getting bigger. Making cuts is just too hard. It's almost impossible to sack anyone, if you get them to volunteer to exit the costs are horrendous (average £110k in Central Gov't and up to £500k in some cases). The best you can hope for is a very slow contraction through natural wastage. But Governments are addicted to new initiatives and each new initiative has to be staffed. Then, once you've got them in, you can't get rid of them. Hence the inexhorable bloating of Government headcount costs.