Frank Field was once famously lifted off his feet by his lapels by Gordon Brown, so enraged was Brown by Field’s criticism of him. Considering this, Field would we well advised to steer clear of the great clunking fist after writing this on his blog:
“During no move since has the Government been able to get itself ahead of the curve, and thereby perhaps influence the course of events. The latest example is over VAT.
It was a fatuous move from the very beginning. And when we had a chance in Parliament sometime before Christmas to debate it I voted against, making a plea that the billions being borrowed to finance the VAT cut should be channelled into new forms of credit for viable businesses who might otherwise go under in the credit crunch.
Weeks and weeks later the Government still hasn’t announced how it can throw extra lifelines to viable companies who are being denied a working capital from the banks. Giving the banks more assets for capitalisation is almost as pointless as the VAT cut. The Government now has a small clutch of nationalised banks. Why isn’t it using them to get credit out to viable firms?
This failure alone will result in unemployment higher that it need otherwise be.”
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