Don’t believe Cameron’s claims; there is no need for austerity – and there never was

Flinging around the bling: Someone should have told David Cameron that he shouldn't surround himself with gold when he's rubbing the proles' noses in unlimited austerity. The horse impression may also have been ill-judged.

Flinging around the bling: Someone should have told David Cameron that he shouldn’t surround himself with gold when he’s rubbing the proles’ noses in unlimited austerity. The horse impression may also have been ill-judged.

David Cameron must think we are a nation of fools.

He came into office by the back door after failing to convince a majority of British citizens that his pal Gideon’s George’s plan to starve the economy of money would magically refill the Treasury’s empty coffers. Three and a half years of relentless pro-Tory propaganda from the tabloids later, and he tells us – at an opulent banquet, no less! – that austerity is here to stay.

Isn’t that because his policies have been a disaster, then?

Yes. But a disaster for us, not him or his bankster/financier/corporate masters.

As this blog stated more than a year ago, “people need to understand that the Coalition government’s fiscal strategy isn’t about reducing the national deficit at all. If it was, we would not have had a big tax break for the richest in society as part of the last budget. It’s a strategy to axe public services, selling off to rich corporations any that might be capable of yielding a profit. George W Bush followed this policy in the United States a few years ago; it’s called ‘starving the beast’.”

Look this up on Wikipedia and you will find that it involves cutting taxes in order to deprive the government of revenue in a deliberate effort to force reduced spending. In the USA, we are told, “the short- and medium-term effect of the strategy has dramatically increased the United States’ public debt rather than reduce spending”.

Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson’s tax-cutting plan was expected to be funded by lower government spending on social security and healthcare – and it is important that people here in the UK should see the similarities between that and the Coalition government’s privatisation of the National Health Service (we’re told the NHS is a registered company now), along with its many attacks on people who claim social security benefits.

We’ve had tax cuts for the very rich – the so-called “millionaire’s tax cut” that brought the top rate of Income Tax down from 50 per cent to 45 per cent. Corporation Tax is coming down from 28 per cent to 21 per cent while the corporations that write UK tax policy are using it to facilitate tax avoidance schemes. And the poorest workers in the country are being fooled into believing they are getting a good deal out of the policy of raising the tax threshold to £10,000 per year.

Let’s look at that. Nick Clegg wants to raise it still further, so that nobody is taxed on earnings below £10,500 per year, but this means the Treasury will be starved of £1 billion. That’s a lot of money. Meanwhile, the deficit – and the debt – keeps rising.

We’ve had almost no change in the national deficit, year on year. Michael Meacher’s latest blog entry tells us, “the UK debt overhang is growing, not reducing… the budget deficit is not going down appreciably either. In 2011 it was £118bn and in 2012 this had hardly fallen at all at £115bn. The 40% cut in public spending budgets and the £18bn cut in benefits and hence in consumer demand, plus the £40bn further intended cuts after 2015, has produced searing pain, yet next to [no] improvement in the national accounts which was supposed to be the whole aim of the exercise.”

It is also important to note that the effect of raising the tax threshold for poorer people has been completely negated by other changes in government benefits for people on low incomes, unemployment or incapacity support; in fact they are worse off.

It is against that background – tax cuts for the very rich and the corporates, “searing” pain for the poor and worsening national debt – that David Cameron announced, at the gold-trimmed Lord Mayor’s Banquet, “We are sticking to the task. But that doesn’t just mean making difficult decisions on public spending… it means building a leaner, more efficient state. We need to do more with less. Not just now, but permanently.”

At last he has admitted the point of the last three and a half pointless years. He has been starving the Treasury of the cash it needs to balance the books, and now he feels able to tell us that it isn’t going to happen unless public services are cut drastically.

He must be so happy.

Presumably he hasn’t realised that he has just told the British public that his policies, those of his political party and the Coalition of which it is a part, have been an abject disaster for the people of the United Kingdom.

He promised that he would get the deficit down; he failed.

He promised that the measures he took would be applied equally to everyone, from the highest-earners to the lowest; they weren’t.

Now he has promised to build a leaner, more efficient state, using examples from education and health, whose funding has been ring-fenced throughout his period in office; he is lying.

It is time, now, for serious-minded people to draw a line below the selfish policies of the last 30 years and start thinking about government for all the people once again.

When governments talk about making cuts, they’re not talking about help for the rich. Social or economic programmes, supported by taxes, are only ever put in place to level a playing field that would otherwise be tilted against the poor or disadvantaged. Removing such programmes means a less equal society; one that is more UNfair.

Remember that when Cameron and his cronies – especially people like Iain Duncan Smith and Esther McVey – talk about making Britain a fairer place to live and work.

Their words carry about as much weight as their leader’s 2010 election promises.

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50 Comments

  1. Editor November 18, 2013 at 8:23 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on kickingthecat.

  2. gingerblokeblog November 18, 2013 at 8:33 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on gingerblokeblog.

  3. socialawareness2013 November 18, 2013 at 8:37 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Social Awareness.

  4. amnesiaclinic November 18, 2013 at 8:41 pm - Reply

    A report has just come out on yahoo news about malnutrition rates soaring in Britain since 2008. Teachers are reporting children falling asleep because they are hungry and fantasising about food – just how damaging is that to their bodies, minds and emotions? I think the word is torture and this is happening more and more in this rich country and economy.
    A quick solution, take the sovereign wealth fund and distribute it fairly amongst us all. No child hungry tomorrow!! Then we really start on sorting out the unfairness of it all.
    Common law anyone?
    Thanks Mike.

    • aidan7 November 20, 2013 at 9:13 pm - Reply

      You need to all look up agenda 21 to see what this is all about

  5. Phil November 18, 2013 at 8:57 pm - Reply

    I think it’s important to remember that significant amounts of money are STILL going to the insolvent banks. £1.4 trillion was pledged to bailout the banks in 2008. It wasn’t a one-off payment, it is ongoing support.

    Half the public debt is Royal Bank of Scotland’s liabilities (debts). If everything was a-okay with these debts the banks would keep hold of them wouldn’t they?

  6. […] Don’t believe Cameron’s claims; there is no need for austerity – and there never w…. […]

  7. Boz November 18, 2013 at 9:01 pm - Reply

    Excellent!
    This ‘coalition of the depraved’ don’t care how many they kill along the way – we are on the road to ‘nazi nirvana’ and none of us voted for it.

  8. Colin M. Taylor November 18, 2013 at 9:27 pm - Reply

    I heard a Nobel-Prize -Winning Economist on the Today Programme this morning saying just what a disaster Austerity has been for the economy and Cameron’s Claims that the Economy was recovering as a result of Austerity was as valid as him hitting himself round the head with a baseball bat, stopping and thus feeling better, and ascribing feeling better to having been hit round the head by a baseball bat…

  9. Johns Keen November 18, 2013 at 9:29 pm - Reply

    Cameron and his team are nothing less than hucksters, they have no substance but are damned good at shell games, they have done a stirling job of selling a load of gullible fools a “golden t**d”, it looks shiney and valuable but it is still a t**d.

    They have taken advantage (and let’s be honest who can blame them) of a public that historically wants to be left ignorant of the country’s needs because it’s just too much bother.

    Yes the public whinge and whine and make uneducated accusations at this group or that group because they “know” that those in power would “never” screw them so it MUST be some other reason.

    No it has nothing to do with production being destroyed over the last 30 years or banks that have bet everything on a three legged donkey on the stock markets or corporations AND banks being rewarded with greater tax breaks and a “deal” to just forget the tax they owe…..

    Nah……none of that……not even greater opportunities for government officials to claim expenses…

    NO, Those with control of the purse strings are not to blame at all! no no no…. it’s them lazy b*****ds who dared to become unemployed because their jobs were destroyed but failed to use their unemployment benefit to start new businesses and become self-made millionaires!

    By the way what the hell is all this “job seekers allowance” crap?

    It’s UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT!… It is money that allows you to stay alive long enough to find a job, it is for FOOD, HOUSE AND HEATING not for luxuries like bloody daily bus fares, internet access and mobile phone bills!

    If your really really careful electricity and gas at £20 per week, food at £5 per day (for ONE MEAL) and water rates (bet you geniuses hadn’t thought of that eh?) at around £14 a week,

    Now to make it easy I’ll TELL you it adds up to £69..take this figure from £72.60 (which i believe is the going rate for UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFIT) AND IT LEAVES £3.60. (figures based on the “normal” allowance, if sanctioned then the above leads to a deficit)

    This “of course” leaves a massive amount of money for such things as travel to and from a work placement (unpaid because you were “persuaded” to volunteer) or a jobcentre (because you had to sell your computer and mobile phone to live and cannot afford internet) to search daily for the same damned jobs that were there yesterday, the day before that, the WEEK before that, the MONTH before that BUT if you’re lucky every now and then a NEW job will show up and obviously Joe Bloggs is desperate for a job….as a pole dancer…….

    Yes there are some “on the fiddle” but you leave someone with nothing and they are going do to whatever they can to survive, or die.

    It actually AMAZES me that in fact SO FEW go the route of crime or fiddling and try so very bloody hard to stay within the rules even though they KNOW it is impossible… these courageous law abiders trying NOT to break the rules or LAWS however bloody stupid those rules/laws may be!

    NOW not being someone who has grown up in a world where i just have to ask a “club” member or “old school” friend or “Friend” of one of my parents to GIVE me a job whether i can do it or not, I am someone who actually DOES live in the real world where, like MOST people believe, you CANNOT HAVE A JOB – IF IT DOESN’T SODDING EXIST!

    The next is for those who still believe the country’s need for austerity is due to the unemployed/disabled or old.

    NO figures this time students, this is your homework…

    Find out how many are unemployed then find out how many jobs are available THEN YOU tell all us morons how YOU would get EVERYONE of those “lazy scoungers” a job each!

    • Mike Sivier November 18, 2013 at 11:22 pm - Reply

      I’m guessing you don’t want me to give provide the answers and say how I’d do it, then?

      • Johns Keen November 18, 2013 at 11:28 pm - Reply

        “The next is for those who still believe the country’s need for austerity is due to the unemployed/disabled or old.”

        the above is specifically for those that believe ALL unemployed/disabled/pensioners are the reason the country is in a mess.

        By all means if you don’t beleive the above give it a shot, bound to make more sense than the believers.

    • feirHF November 19, 2013 at 2:07 am - Reply

      you forgot to blame immigrants as well, Cameron has also blamed them.

      • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 9:53 am - Reply

        I didn’t forget to blame them. Blaming other people is something Tories do.

    • Tony Burrett November 19, 2013 at 11:25 am - Reply

      Is that all you can think of, resorting to the emotive issue of the disabled and the unemployed? Who are you trying to convince that YOU care so much? Yourself? You choose to ignore the fact that things ARE getting better, and delude yourself that under Labour would make it the problems go away. The FACT remains that things ARE improving, and YOU know it, but YOU refuse to acknowledge it for your own twisted ideological reasons. That tells me that YOU really don’t give a crap about
      about the situation, but just PRETEND to.

      • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 11:36 am - Reply

        I really hope this is an attempt at humour – trying to predict a rabid right-winger’s reaction to the piece; otherwise I think we’d have to call a doctor for this poor chap.
        It seems odd that this comment says the article resorts to emotive issues when it is written in such an emotive way itself.
        The evidence shows that the country’s situation is not improving; things aren’t getting better.
        Labour would indeed make the current problems go away, by getting rid of the useless current policies.
        If anyone wants to discuss twisted ideology, I’ll happily go into current Tory thinking and the principles of Hayek on which it is based – but I think that has been done many times already.
        My own personal beliefs and opinions are spread out across this blog in around 1,000 articles – either written by myself or reblogged by me because I agree with them or think there is something worth noting in them. Accusing me of somehow being two-faced about it when there is so much evidence to the contrary is, at best, blinkered.

    • Tony Burrett November 19, 2013 at 11:36 am - Reply

      Read your rant again, and try to look at it from a sensible, considered point of view. Hopefully you’ll see just how irrelevant or just plain biased and stupid they are. Do try and present a reasoned, considered argument in future.

      • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 12:41 pm - Reply

        Tony – anyone commenting here could ask you to do exactly the same.

      • Derek Robinson November 20, 2013 at 8:57 pm - Reply

        Have you got any facts to back up your support for the ‘Coalition’ Tony.

      • Big GC November 21, 2013 at 1:14 am - Reply

        The only ‘facts’ Tony will have will be those provided by the dissemblers employed by the CONservative party. If he were part of the real world, you know the one where the unemployed are applying for hundreds of jobs just to get one interview and then be told they HAVE to work for minimum wage because of ‘the times we are in’ in the same job where 20 years ago they were being paid more than today’s rate of minimum wage. They are the ‘FACTS’ Tony and if that means things are getting better in this country then god forbid if they were to get worse! Wake up Britain those in power haven’t finished yet in their drive to ensure as many people’s living standards revert to those of Dickensian times!

  10. Joseph smith November 18, 2013 at 9:42 pm - Reply

    So no Tories, or lib dumbs. And no feckin coalition of lib dumbs/Tory fascists. Who’s left?millipede and the labour f**wits, UKIP? Uncertain Farage is very gifted at talking the populist line, but his views on benefits are ill defined therefore uncertain, some of his comments re, get a job, when there aren’t any leaves me cold. Quite like the euro stance, but we all know we can’t leave but we might be able to effect change. It’s easier to be inside the tent p***ing out than outside p***ing in. So maybe another coalition labour and UKIP. But who for PM? Not millipede, or Balls or b*****ks as perhaps better known, not Gove, perhaps we should start by scrapping the five year parliament guaranteed term. Better possibly than Tory / lib dumbos. Personally I’d vote Stalin in rather than that self seeking clown Cameron. At least you know what and where the threat is.

    • Mike Sivier November 18, 2013 at 11:15 pm - Reply

      UKIP’s line on benefits is that they’d scrap unemployment and incapacity benefits and have a non-means tested ‘basic cash benefit’ for low earners and the unemployed – unless you’ve lived here for less than five years. The party’s general attitude to those on benefits is reported as being that they are “parasites”, though.
      The chances of a Coalition between Labour (which still considers itself to be a left-wing party) and UKIP (further to the right than the Tories) are zero.

      • Joseph asmith November 19, 2013 at 7:57 am - Reply

        Then who and or what Mike. We’ve tried Fascism via the Tories allied to lib dumbs, it hasn’t worked and has and is causing immense distress to tens of thousands. So what’s your suggestion?

      • Tony Burrett November 19, 2013 at 11:30 am - Reply

        This is for Joseph Smith. Joseph, the thing is, it HAS worked, it IS working, Just because YOU choose to ignore that tings are getting better is neither here nor there. And as things hopefully continue to get better, the people having problems now (providing they at least TRY to get a job) will get better. You can’t have the cart before the horse. It’s the horse that pulls remember, and he cart that gets pulled.

        • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 12:40 pm - Reply

          I’m going to answer anyway: Where’s your evidence that it has worked and is working? You’ve got a fake, engineered recovery for a very few people, a naturally-occurring upturn for a few others (because we’ve reached that point in the economic cycle – and it is a cycle, remember; it changes even if the politicians do nothing), and a nine per cent real-terms cut in wages for the masses. Where are the jobs? You can’t get one if they aren’t there to be got!

  11. thelovelywibblywobblyoldlady November 18, 2013 at 9:46 pm - Reply

    Well said Mike. People also need to be aware that no matter who you are or whatever the level of income EVERYONE pays VAT.

    • Mike Sivier November 18, 2013 at 11:05 pm - Reply

      Absolutely – that’s something I’ve mentioned in the past quite recently I think.

    • TaxPayers Reliant Mk III November 19, 2013 at 9:28 am - Reply

      Quite right too!! There are good tax payers , like us, and bad tax payers , like you though – hahah

  12. […] David Cameron must think we are a nation of fools. He came into office by the back door after failing to convince a majority of British citizens that his pal Gideon's George's plan to starve the ec…  […]

  13. serenityjack November 19, 2013 at 3:32 am - Reply

    Reblogged this on serenityjack's Blog and commented:
    This is pretty much what I’ve been thinking, except I couldn’t be bothered to research all the stats for it. Fortunately, someone else has done it. :-)

  14. thepositivevoice November 19, 2013 at 7:43 am - Reply

    Reblogged this on thepositivevoice.

  15. welshalterego November 19, 2013 at 11:28 am - Reply

    You’re right and I’ve been telling people this for the last 3 years, plus I went onto the Office of National Statistics website and did some analysis on the data, it shows that under Conservative rule since the 1940’s there is a steady increase in spending where as a steady decrease in spending under Labour. The trend says it all!! It took Labour 11 YEARS to raise the national debt by 11% it has taken this government 3 years to raise it by a further 16%, they are so full of nonsense it’s unbelievable, I am equally astounded by the blind following and belief by much of the public. I wish for once people would question and look into it for themselves, their entire basis for election is built on lies and misrepresentation, they are a disgusting, disgraceful group of greedy, malicious cretins whose only achievement is fooling the British Public into thinking they are doing their best. The UK needs to wake up and ask questions, the TRUTH is there for anyone to go and see! It’s always been there. It saddens me that there are still so many people sucked in by this rubbish and still base their votes on visual appearance and policies that mean nothing as no one is held accountable. Sorry for ranting on your blog, I’m glad you are getting the message out there.

    • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 11:38 am - Reply

      You’re very kind.

      (I hope that people like Tony Burrett read this comment and get a clue).

      • welshalterego November 19, 2013 at 11:42 am - Reply

        Well if they want to see the proof, they can look on my page here: http://therandomramblingsofarestlessmind.wordpress.com/2013/09/24/what-isnt-clear-on-the-national-satisfaction-survey/

        I posted the graph I did using the data from the Office of National Statistics. It also details a bit of the National Satisfaction survey and how misleading that is.

      • welshalterego November 19, 2013 at 11:45 am - Reply

        Also if you view the graph you should note that labour inherited a debt from the Conservatives before their last term and didn’t whine on like school boys about inheriting “The greatest debt of our time” (Nope, sorry, 1952, also following Conservative rule, get your figures straight, Tories…oh what am I saying? Osbourne failed his Maths GCSE, of COURSE they got the figures wrong)

  16. Tony Burrett November 19, 2013 at 5:19 pm - Reply

    Labour didn’t whine because they didn’t have reason to. Don’t make up stuff! It’s Labour who are the spenders and the accumulators of debt. You have more or less admitted that and WANT to spend more. Note this: if Labour come to power after the next election, heaven help us if they do, they will not abandon the cutbacks, they will not abandon the fracking which they now oppose, and they’ll probably even go ahead with HS2, which they now oppose. They keep apologising for their mistakes which have done so much damage to the country that even their last government Cabinet Members now acknowledge, and you people STILL trust them! That in itself is unfathomable. But, with socialists, I guess it’s always agenda first, people and country last.

    • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 5:55 pm - Reply

      Take a look at the articles here: http://oxrep.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/1.toc

      I’ll give you advance notice that they give Labour’s handling of the economy a clean bill of health.

      Now, where’s your evidence to the contrary? You demand that this blog should not “make up stuff” (which doesn’t happen – it’s all evidence-based) but you haven’t produced a scrap of evidence to support your own claims.
      As for “with socialists… it’s always agenda first, people and country last” – after Cameron’s speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet last week, it is impossible to accept that as a criticism of the Left. His words were an admission that he has been on an ideological crusade for the past three and a half years, and the people have been made to suffer for it.

  17. bob archer November 19, 2013 at 6:10 pm - Reply

    keep at it mike. we need someone like you who says what we think but dont have the right words to put it out there. the truth will always out. god bless you.

  18. Thedaywillcome November 19, 2013 at 6:58 pm - Reply

    Welshalterego,It is a bit unfair to make such a request on poor Tony Burrett !!! He obviously cannot read material that isn’t in the Sun,Mail,Express,Torygraph etc. The poor chap possesses just 1,2,3 or 4 braincells,that have yet to be brainwashed by rightwing bullsh*t,and that is simply not enough to read,let alone question your findings………..Please refrain from such outlandish requests in future!!

    • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 7:23 pm - Reply

      Please, everybody, I know it’s hard when somebody comes along and criticises without producing a scrap of evidence for their own point of view, but don’t descend to personal remarks. Debate the issues, don’t attack the other person.
      Play the ball, not the player, as someone else said.

      • sean November 19, 2013 at 11:10 pm - Reply

        Good advice, though debate is reciprocal, you can’t debate a brick wall, and you can’t debate someone only interested in negation. To have an evidence based debate, both sides have to be interested.

        • Mike Sivier November 19, 2013 at 11:23 pm - Reply

          I reckon that’s true. To be honest, if Mr Burrett had come back with more of the same I would probably have told him anything else would be dumped in the trash.

  19. steve55551000 November 20, 2013 at 5:25 am - Reply

    Getting off the subject line a little here, but to me the biggest joke about all politicians is that they are welfare beneficiaries themselves!, they produce no real productive activity ( normally the opposite) and they collect large salaries directly from taxes they lay on the actual workers and the private sector.

    • john keen November 20, 2013 at 10:23 am - Reply

      I would say that is NOT off subjectbut rather valid.

  20. activistposter November 20, 2013 at 11:34 am - Reply

    Reblogged this on ActivistPoster.

  21. […] Don’t believe Cameron’s claims; there is no need for austerity – and there never was […]

  22. […] course – as this blog repeated only days ago – the Conservative-led Coalition never intended to cut the national debt. This was just a claim […]

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