Poll shows we trust Osborne on economy. Are we selfish, stupid or both?
[Image: Another Angry Voice]
A poll by ICM for The Guardian has revealed that the British people have more trust in David Cameron and George Osborne’s economic policy than in the alternative offered by Ed Miliband and Ed Balls.
Considering the results of Calamity George’s economic vandalism over the last four years (see the image above), this amounts to a national declaration of selfishness and stupidity that borders on the pathological.
The only reason for this sudden display of faith is the announcement that the Conservative Party is promising to cut taxes for 30 million people.
Nobody seems to be paying any attention to the small print. These are unfunded tax cuts. That means the Tories will have to cut public services even further than they are already planning, in order to implement them.
Furthermore, they are really only tax cuts for the very rich. The amount of relief on offer to those on middle incomes, and to the poor, is negligible in real terms and will be swallowed up by the additional costs created by the loss of public services that will have to take place in order to pay for it.
Stunningly, the ICM poll shows that the public has more faith in George Osborne than any other prominent politician. That isn’t saying much – his net approval score is exactly zero – but it’s still better than any of the others, who we rightly hold in contempt.
We should hold Osborne in contempt as well. This is the man whose entire ‘Long Term Economic Plan’ is based on a spreadsheet mistake.
Perhaps it’s too much to hope that people might have realised that Osborne’s policies have dumped the UK into a quagmire. Let’s face it – his own nose looks more like a bottom but even he can’t smell what he’s been producing!*
*Vox Political apologises for the personal nature of this line. In our defence, it does seem appropriate to the situation.
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Oh, he smells it fine. The “trust the Tories on the economy” has always been a lie, but now it’s a Big Lie. And once a Big Lie gets out there, the truth is almost powerless against it. Climate change is another example. The strength of a Big Lie isn’t just that it gives idiots and charlatans something simple to repeat, over and over, like a mantra; it’s also its ability to leave those who would otherwise argue against it with a nagging doubt.
I mean, just the line “Osborne has created more debt than every Labour chancellor EVER” ought to sink the myth. But I don’t think it will. After all, four years of pointing out that Brown was running a growing surplus until Blair took us into two illegal wars doesn’t seem to have got us anywhere, does it? People still seem to prefer to believe “Brown sold off the gold at its trough” (as though he was supposed to be precognitive – as though holding onto a physical asset at all, let alone one whose value gave every appearance of tanking, was somehow a sensible thing to do… but those goldbugs sure do get funny about the yellow stuff).
Besides, the overarching lesson of history is that the one thing you can always trust the Tories to do with the economy is run it right into the ground and make sure the only people who don’t suffer from that are their rich mates. Osborne is no exception to that trend – just a fair bit better at it. But the rich mates own the newspapers, and the newspapers set the tone…
Do you really think he’s better at it?
At crashing the country’s economy while feathering his rich mates’ nests? Yep. Whether he’s economically illiterate enough for that to be a happy accident, or whether he knows exactly what he’s doing and why… that I can’t tell – though I suspect the latter.
You what! appalling track record
Um… just to clarify, the Big Lie on climate change is that it’s a myth – or that even if it isn’t, humanity didn’t have anything to do with it. Of course it’s happening, and of course it’s our fault, and of course it’s going to make this century incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to get through. But that’s a hell of a hard truth to face. Perhaps that’s the secret of the Big Lie – the truth has to be sufficiently unpalatable that people will *prefer* the lie. The unpalatable truth, in this case, might just be that capitalism is in the process of collapsing, and that Britain, largely because of the distortions of three decades of Thatcherism, is uniquely exposed to its faultlines; the effect of the next capital-quake on our economy might well resemble that oft-repeated film sequence of the effect of a nuclear blast on a farmhouse.
Yet another blinding example of propaganda paying off.
Of course the poor will pay for the tax cuts. Benefits & Work seem to have noticed that Osborne intends to tax DLA & PIP disability benefits after 2015. More taking away……
Osborne makes my skin crawl, but it’s the amount of power he has with Cameron & the eton junta that is horrifying. The press have managed to make this idiot seem like a good choice. I do despair sometimes.
I seem to recall putting up an article on DLA and PIP taxation in the recent past, too.
Not the first time they have followed your lead?
I honestly couldn’t say.
The hard fact is, Joe public just is NOT being told the facts by the media.
I find the only way to get some semblance of accuracy is to watch foreign news media and current affairs programmes which almost universally think Osborne is a Muppet, (but not quite that directly.)
If more people watched the Kaiser Report they would change their minds.
What hope have we got when the IMF turn round and tell us they now think Osbourne was right about his austerity policies while ignoring the fact that the self-same policies used by the EU have stagnated said EU growth. What the IMF/EU really mean is they should have agreed to Quantitative Easing, which would not have made for much more growth then the UK has had. As for the ‘fastest growing economy in Europe’ line – compared to what? It’s the same as my saying my income has grown faster in the last year than anyone else’s, but I’ve only gained £00.2p overall compared to their £00.1p. Dubious sound-bites and misrepresentation of reality.
“Stockholm syndrome, or capture-bonding, is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending and identifying with them. These feelings are generally considered irrational in light of the danger or risk endured by the victims, who essentially mistake a lack of abuse from their captors for an act of kindness.” (From wikipedia)
That ICM poll – wonder who they really polled…
Back to reality I saw this in a local newspaper at the beginning of the week: 1 in 5 children are going hungry in Gloucester, ref: http://www.gloucestercitizen.co.uk/children-going-hungry-Gloucester/story-23050908-detail/story.html
Please note the figures from End Child Poverty are 2012, ref: http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/why-end-child-poverty/poverty-in-your-area
PS: Mike, perhaps a lot of the MP’s were being polled because of their record claim of £103 million in expenses (year 2013-2014): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xpBv9Cj7BCQ
I’m smiling, but I don’t think they polled MPs. Good point, though!
Osborne has adopted “Austrian Economics” which has failed every time in the past.. and amazingly it is failing again!