A lack of clarity

Like Darling’s Mais lecture, Osborne’s speech to the LSE was rather long with no discernable points of action. No matter how much you say the word “responsible” (ten times, in his case), it just doesn’t add up to a policy. First the good news – Osborne uses Japan as an example of Keynesian spending. That’s the right analogy. Next he says he will “help people directly by getting money into their pockets through the tax system” – ie, tax cuts. Great. They can be easily funded by scrapping government waste, or abolishing failing government programmes.

But Osborne goes on to complicate the issue and his signoff is this:

“There is now a clear choice in British politics. Irresponsible borrowing now and higher taxes later under Labour. Or the responsible Conservative plan, enabling the Bank of England to deliver a sustained cut in interest rates and lay the ground for lower taxes later.”