The Chancellor should have seized the initiative by declaring that we cannot go on with the public finances in such a parlous condition.
The UK is now ‘front and centre’ regarding market fears over sustaining debt levels. This is not simply a business cycle. It is a failure of statecraft.
We can’t just re-run the austerity messaging of the Cameron-Osborne years. This time the savings plan needs to go hand-in-hand with a growth plan. And as well reducing the size of the state, we need to be reducing demand for the state.
The Tories might have an easier time delivering cuts to working-age benefits, but those don’t even rank in the top three spending areas pushing tax as a percentage of GDP endlessly upwards.
People across Britain are making hard choices every day. They expect their government to do the same. But under Labour, short-term political convenience is winning over long-term responsibility.
Those pre-election assurances have proven to be worthless, eroded by multiple u-turns on things that matter and a sense among investors that the executive is hostage to the legislature.
Budget tax cuts would be disingenuous. Any headroom would be based on earlier tax hikes and further increases and cuts after the election. But are Tory MPs at all interested in the long-term sustainability of the public finances?
A remarkable amount has been achieved. Often against the odds and in the face of adversity. And certainly in circumstances far less benign than those faced by New Labour.
I hope the British public get an answer. Because these are highly consequential decisions about the future shape of the state. £28 billion is £4 billion more than the annual Home Office budget.
Voters believe four of the Government’s five key pledges are more likely to happen under Labour than the Conservatives. Meanwhile, 2019 Tory voters prioritise spending on public services over tax cuts,
We are fed up with being controlled by its incorrect forecasts, and subject to wild policy swings by the Bank of England which did much to give us inflation in the first place.
Even as it is, we have been fortunate riots that have proven a rarity. Cut 6.7 per cent a year from the budget and they become almost an inevitability.
He will probably judge it better to keep a conservative spending message and dial down on the more radical green growth programme. Which would require her to make a painful U-turn.
Monday’s speech and today’s announcement show them choosing their ground for the next election. And since Hunt may find no money for further tax cuts next spring, the option of a May general election is opening up.
The current system places an unsustainable burden on the working-age population and is fundamentally misaligned with the UK’s demographic and fiscal realities.