Osborne wants a ‘year of hard truths’. Here’s one: He’s HIDING the truth

Swivel-eyed loon: This is the kind of man who listens to George Osborne's comments about the economy. [Picture: Left Foot Forward]

Swivel-eyed loon: This is the kind of man who listens to George Osborne’s comments about the economy. [Picture: Left Foot Forward]

It must be panto season because the Conservative Party’s very own Ugly Sisters have just wheeled themselves out to deliver another helping of hilarious family fun:

Even more cuts are needed, worth billions of pounds, and there are still huge underlying problems with the economy, said Sister George, even though he knows that cuts are not the answer.

The small upturn he managed to engineer last year came from a natural upswing in the economy and the artificial housing boom that he created by Keynesian means and was nothing to do with austerity cuts. As for the economy, he’s had three and a half years to fix it! It seems clear that if there is an underlying problem, its surname is Osborne.

We may also extract some bitter humour from his words. Only days ago, his cabinet colleague Michael Gove attacked TV comedy Blackadder Goes Forth for claiming that our leaders in World War One never learnt from their mistakes but merely repeated them, over and over again, at huge cost in the lives of the working-class people who had to suffer the consequences of their decisions.

Now here’s George, telling us that he’s following up his failed austerity cuts with… more austerity cuts.

So we will see another £25 billion cut out of the British economy after the next election if the Conservatives win, including £12 billion from social security, he told us, providing everybody with an income lower than £50,000 per year with a perfect reason not to vote Conservative in 2015.

Come to think of it, why do working-class people ever vote for clowns like him?

He’ll cut departmental budgets by £13 billion, starving already wafer-thin public services and paving the way for their takeover by the private sector – on the long-disproved premise that profit-making businesses can do a better job for less money.

He’ll cut housing benefit for young people (under-25) who are just trying to get started in work – but he won’t force under-paying firms to boost their wages in order to offer a decent standard of living!

He also said – no, wait, that’s all he had to offer.

George justified his plan by trotting out the now-classic justification line of this Parliament – that the deficit was down by a third since 2010. He has been saying this for the last two years, and in all that time, the deficit hasn’t dropped at all! Last year the difference was a fraction of one per cent.

This is because the drop was achieved by cutting capital projects and there aren’t any more to cut. Taking billions out of the economy with benefit cuts and investment cuts actually harms the economy – there is less money moving through the system and therefore less opportunity for the fiscal multiplier effect to take place, for profit to be made and for taxes to be taken.

George has always had a bit of a blind spot there.

Sister George said he supported universal benefits for the elderly as they will only save around £10 million – but Sister David has suggested cutting free TV licences, bus passes and winter fuel allowances. Pensions are also taking a battering – never mind what they’re saying about the triple-lock.

David also said he wanted to cut taxes for the poor before the wealthy – but planned to do so by raising the threshold at which they begin to pay tax. This means they will not pay National Insurance either, and will have to find a higher-paying job before they can expect to contribute to their own pension fund. This means some people may never qualify for the state pension.

So they’re starting 2014 by promising austerity cuts that will harm the economy, cuts in benefits for the elderly that will save a comparatively negligible amount but will cause misery, and cuts in government budgets that will open the way to further privatisation and corporatisation of the state.

Those are the real hard truths – but you won’t hear these two characters admitting them.

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11 Comments

  1. Robert Fillies January 6, 2014 at 4:52 pm - Reply

    More austerity for the poor, more wealth for the rich, typical tory politics really.

    Good piece Mike

  2. beastrabban January 6, 2014 at 5:04 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on Beastrabban’s Weblog and commented:
    Another article from Mike knocking flat the rationale behind Osborne’s proposed austerity cuts, and laying out just what they mean for ordinary, working and lower-middle class people: even more hardship, suffering, and starvation. I have already spoken to one person today, who, thanks to the bedroom tax, now has a choice between heating and eating. And this person is by no means alone. You can read similar stories here, on my blog, Johnny Void’s, Another Angry Voice, Benefit Tales and a thousand others. And it will demonstrably get much, much worse under Osborne if his cuts go ahead. Let’s take the removal of housing benefit from those under 25 as an example. According to Private Eye, the last time the Tories did this, under John Major, the number of teenager and young 20 year olds on the streets rocketed up. So, if Osborne does the same this year, the result will be even more kids out on the streets, living poor, miserable, and extremely short lives. There is absolutely no reason why anyone with an income lower than 50k should ever trust Osborne and the rest of the Chuckle Brothers with their vote, whether they are working class, or a clerical or relatively low paid professional, like teachers and increasingly university and HE lecturers. And despite Thatcher’s boast of coming from the ranks of the small businessmen, they don’t stand or represent either. Cameron and Osborne favour rich multinationals, not men and women struggling to support themselves by the work of their own brows. They don’t represent us, and their policies shriek their absolute contempt for everyone too poor to afford the £30,000 per term fees for Eton. They do not deserve our vote, only our contempt.

  3. Joseph Smith January 6, 2014 at 5:11 pm - Reply

    Osbourne really is a world class kn*b. In the autumn he told us we had turned the corner, economy growing, unemployment reducing, mortgage lending up, what a f**kin’ idiot. He actually believes the crap he spouts, deluded clown. And state pensions get a triple lock. We enjoy the lowest pension in Europe, a few % increase each year barely buys two small loaves! because the pension is so low. There’s an e-petition demanding state pensions rise to £300 per couple per week. Including winter fuel and other benefits. This is a level of pension required to be able to live in this country. Get it signed.

  4. seachranaidhe1 January 6, 2014 at 5:12 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on seachranaidhe1.

  5. […] It must be panto season because the Conservative Party's very own Ugly Sisters have just wheeled themselves out to deliver another helping of hilarious family fun: Even more cuts are needed, worth …  […]

  6. deb January 6, 2014 at 5:24 pm - Reply

    LET US EAT CAKE !

  7. […] Osborne wants a ‘year of hard truths’. Here’s one: He’s HIDING the truth. […]

  8. jaypot2012 January 6, 2014 at 5:42 pm - Reply

    Re-blogged on Jay’s Journal and commented – but I went a bit off track ‘cos there has been so much happening today that my head is like mince :)

    Just when you think that you can’t hear anything more stupid, you find out you can!

    By stopping people getting paid as they make most of the unemployed work for nothing through workfare, they stop people paying tax ‘cos they can’t tax the benefits (Yet!) Less money means more small businesses going bust as working for no money means that the only thing people will have is not even enough to live on!

    No taxes puts us further and further into debt and the country ends up without the money to run anything, and this lot have not been able to run a pish up in a brewery!

    It’s common sense to pay a proper wage for people to be able to look after themselves, be able to pay their bills, save for a mortgage if they want, go and spend on stuff other than food, go out for a nice meal now and again etc. But this un-elected government haven’t the brains they were born with to even think that is what keeps the country ticking over – not up to it’s eyes in debt!

    If we want to solve the deficit then we need to get rid of Osbourne and the tory party next year! We cannot go through another five years of this, we really and truly can’t!

  9. Editor January 6, 2014 at 5:42 pm - Reply

    Reblogged this on kickingthecat.

  10. Jean Casale January 7, 2014 at 1:42 pm - Reply

    Osborne wants a ‘year of hard truths’. Makes a change from 4 years of effortless lies.

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