Budget 2013

N1AK

ColdIron wrote: »

Osborne simply isn't up to the job, all we have seen from him in three years is continuity Brown. Brown nearly tripled the debt but it took him thirteen years to do it, Osborne will nearly double it to 1.5 trillion in five

Your point is grossly over-simplified and appears as if you don't understand how government budgets work. The fact that you effectively contradict yourself in a post that short doesn't impress either.

You point out that Osborne has virtually copied Brown but then imply he is responsible for debt increasing more rapidly. It's an obvious contradiction, and it happened because you, either naively or misleadingly, compared the change in national debt over a period including 11 years of sustained economic growth to a period including no economic growth.

Look at the strikes we've had over pay freezes, hiring freezes etc. Look at public opinion on policies that involve increasing debt. Can anyone honestly say they 'know' that had they been chancellor they could have successfully cut spending faster given the political realities faced?

It's easy to sit at the sidelines and pretend you could have done it better, but the reason Ed Balls isn't more popular with voters is that for all the dislike they have for austerity they know that Labour's 'alternative' has been to constantly attack any cuts in spending and propose dozens of increases in spending and they remember that's how we got here in the first place.

Onawingandaprayer

srcandas wrote: »

O god I'm depressed. I'll go take a glass of wine ..... no no sorry a beer. I mean a penny off a £3.20 pint will make me feel so much better :beer:

Cheer up, at least the sun's shining and Spring is here. Oh...

Glen_Clark

I used to have some sympathy for Osborne, since it would be a lot harder to reduce the unaffordable public sector salaries and pensions than it was for Blair & Brown to increase them.
But my sympathy has long since evaporated, because all Osborne has done is make our problems even worse.

Glen_Clark

ColdIron wrote: »

Osborne simply isn't up to the job,

Gideon Osborne's skills seem to be in electioneering gimmicks, like changing his name to George, and knocking a penny off a pint of beer. He organised David Cameron's leadership campaign. Its frightening to think his reward is being put in charge of the nations finances - with no financial qualifications at all. This is what he had to say just before the Irish economy crashed;
"A GENERATION ago, the very idea that a British politician would go to Ireland to see how to run an economy would have been laughable. The Irish Republic was seen as Britain’s poor and troubled country cousin, a rural backwater on the edge of Europe. Today things are different. Ireland stands as a shining example of the art of the possible in long-term economic policymaking, and that is why I am in Dublin: to listen and to learn". - George Osborne ,The Times Feb 23 2006