The new firm of Osbourne Osborne* & Laws got off to a good start yesterday. True, trimming £6bn from this year’s budget is a trivial task compared to the decisions that lie ahead but as a statement of good sense and prooof of good intentions it was, as I say, a good start**.
The plain truth is that the government will lose around £500m every day this year. That’s not sustainable and when put in such terms the public can understand, one trusts, that something will have to give.
Let us now praise a Labour minister: Liam Byrne. Not for the fiscal profligacy that has left the public finances in much worse shape than they had to be – a recession and banking calamity made some losses inevitable – but for the political cover he’s given the new coalition.
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