Darling tells us Labour cuts will be tougher and deeper than Thatchers

The_White_Horse

everything they say is a lie

Mr.Brown_4

amcluesent wrote: »

Grim, grey, grinding years of austerity lie ahead after the socialists spent everyone else's money.

Not had one of these for a while. I find it comforting. It's the ryhthm of the words, and not worrying too much about the content.

purch

I do like Alistair Darling. He has an integrity and honesty that many on the Labour benches lack

Just like all the former Trotskyists :eek:

Alan Milburn, Steven Byers, Alastair Darling..............Integrity and Honesty are the first words that pop into my head :rotfl:

Kronkston_2

amcluesent wrote: »

If Clown/Balls are running the show, the cuts will be organised by the IMF. If Dave gets it, it'll be Tory Boy.

Either way, a decade of Clown's borrow'n'bungle has to be accounted for. Grim, grey, grinding years of austerity lie ahead after the socialists spent everyone else's money.

Ahem!!!! Point of order Mr amcluesent, it was not the the socialists who spent everyones money though was it??? It was without a doubt the capitalists, the bankers, they are the ones who ran up the huge debts, so for you too blame the socialists is pure deluded insanity. Have you not seen the the finiancial news over the last few years, these are not the debts of socialism rather the debts of capitalism. Had we been a socialist society we would not be in this mess!!! So ha bloody har you are wrong, there is no room for speculative capitalism in a socialist society, so if we were socialists we would not have this debt. Prepared to admit your are wrong?

Fred_Bassett

Darling won't last long in the unfortunate event that Labour win again. I find it surprisingly possible to warm to him and get the strong impression that we would have had a lot more honesty from him were it not for the oaf at no. 10 breathing down his neck.

Masomnia

Kronkston wrote: »

Ahem!!!! Point of order Mr amcluesent, it was not the the socialists who spent everyones money though was it??? It was without a doubt the capitalists, the bankers, they are the ones who ran up the huge debts, so for you too blame the socialists is pure deluded insanity. Have you not seen the the finiancial news over the last few years, these are not the debts of socialism rather the debts of capitalism. Had we been a socialist society we would not be in this mess!!! So ha bloody har you are wrong, there is no room for speculative capitalism in a socialist society, so if we were socialists we would not have this debt. Prepared to admit your are wrong?

Isn't the structural public debt something like £90 billion? I.e. the debt that would be there without stimulus measures, recession or no recession. It's not a good start really.

Spartacus_Mills

Toenails Blog on the BBC site.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/

The Chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.
I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

The independent think tank, the Institute of Fiscal Studies, has noted that that total public spending increased by an average of 1.1% a year in real terms over the Thatcher era. This is almost three times the increase of 0.4% a year that Alistair Darling has pencilled in for the next Parliament.
The IFS went on to observe that:

"f we subtract spending on welfare and debt interest then we estimate that the rest of public spending would be cut in real terms by an average of 1.4% a year compared to an average increase of 0.7% in the Thatcher era. We have not seen five years with an average annual real cut as big as this since the mid-1970s."

As the Conservatives wish to make bigger spending cuts than Labour, they have already accepted that they would have to be tougher than Margaret Thatcher.

Update 1753: This is not the first time the chancellor has caused a stir by accepting reality. It has not always been comfortable for him. After he observed that the world faced the worst economic crisis for 60 years, he says the "forces of hell" were unleashed on him.
The problem Labour has, of course, is that while what Alastair Darling says is true, it is also totally at odds with the message the party is giving to the electorate.
Voters are being asked to focus on so-called efficiency savings in dull things like IT, procurement and reducing staff sickness rates. Few actual cuts have been spelled out beyond the budget squeeze in universities which the chancellor sought to lessen in his Budget. The reality, of course, will be job cuts, real pay cuts and freezes and service reductions in the public sector.
Meantime, tax rises on the rich are being put up in lights while the fact that every basic-rate taxpayer will soon be paying more is downplayed.
The chancellor - who is by instinct straight - has learned the lesson from the prime minister's denial of cuts last year and can point to plenty of occasions when he has warned of how tough things will be and has set out figures and policies.
Nevertheless, all the polling suggests that few voters recognise the facts, believing something which no politician argues: that the deficit can be dealt with by efficiency savings alone.

A very interesting read and this will, undoubtedly, be seized on by the Tories. I guess it goes to show how little difference there is between the main parties on the economic need for cuts the issue is how they achieve them with Labour being more distributionist in its approach.

I do see a whole heap of trouble with the Public Sector coming up especially when they go after their pensions, as they need to.

ManAtHome

Somebody has to lie to the banksters/bondsters while the others are busy lying to the electorate...

Have we had anything approaching integrity since Robin Cook resigned..?

Kohoutek

Basically our problems are due to (a) big government and (b) big banks. Are we breaking up the unsustainable and dangerously large financial system or fundamentally re-evaluating how large government should be?

Of course not, the vested interests have won, instead they've diverted hundreds of billions of current and future tax revenues to maintain the failed system and are leading the country towards the next crisis.

Mr.Brown_4

Kohoutek wrote: »

Of course not, the vested interests have won, instead they've diverted hundreds of billions of current and future tax revenues to maintain the failed system and are leading the country towards the next crisis.

Oh well, it could be worse. At least Spring is almost here.