Budget debate exposes Osborne’s boasts as lies – Michael Meacher MP
The truth finally came out, writes Michael Meacher.
Osborne claimed that the deficit was being cut this year when in fact that is only due to the exceptional delaying of tax payments till the end of the fiscal year by the super-rich in order to take advantage of the reduction in the top income tax rate to 45%. Without that, which will never be repeated, the deficit would have risen this year, as on present policies it will rise in future years.
He promised “the biggest increase in real spending for a decade in 2019-20″, but that’s only because of a boom-bust roller coaster after massive spending cuts in 2016-18, which any Whitehall mandarin will tell him is a crazy, not to say utterly irresponsible, way to manage public services.
He claimed that the national debt would begin to fall in 2019-20, but that is only because he’s planning to pocket the £20bn windfall from selling off the proceeds from the bank privatisations, not because the fundamentals of debt inflation have in any way improved.
He complimented himself on a nationwide recovery spread across the whole country. The truth is that London and the South-#East continue to pull away from the rest of the country, and manufacturing and construction are still lagging badly behind the finance sector.
He claimed that Britain stood tall and was now beginning to pay its way in the world. The truth is the precise opposite. The OBR is predicting that in 2014 Britain had its biggest current account deficit since 1845, nearly 200 years ago.
He claimed that with rising real wages – albeit by only a fraction and only because the slump in the oil price, prosperity was now returning to British households. The truth is, average real wages are still nearly 8% below their pre-crash levels while at the top, inequality marches on relentlessly. The ratio between the average FTSE chief executive’s remuneration and median pay in those same companies is now more that 140:1, and according to the Sunday Times Rich List the richest 1,000 people in the UK have actually doubled their wealth in the last 5 years from a staggering £250bn to a scarcely imaginable £500bn!
The conclusion from all this is unavoidable: The real fundamental problems of the economy have not been redressed at all.
Read the rest on Michael Meacher’s blog.
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None of this will bother multi-millionaire Michael Meacher. He with 12 homes who is typical of the champagne Socialists who preach their mantra from positions of privilege and wealth. There is no longer a credible Labour Party in this country. The opposition front-benchers have never experienced working in the real world, most of them are millionaires (or very close to it) and they are so far removed from the partys’ roots that they are no longer credible. Why should any true Labour supporter give them a second glance ?
Which party do you support, since you’re so keen to run Labour down?
You are suggesting that Michael Meacher is a hypocrite but have provided no proof. You can be a socialist and be loaded – absolutely LOADED – with money, you know.
Government is about setting the best conditions in which the population of your country can prosper – it isn’t about going without, yourself.
The Tories have gone wrong because they have changed conditions here to suit only the richest people; that’s not what Labour is about, and showing that members of Labour are rich themselves doesn’t change that.
Please prove your claims about Michael Meacher.
MM has been the most honest and consistent of those remaining on the HoC of his generation. He has consistently urged a more socialist agenda for Labour. I hope his influence is rewarded on the next Labour government.
Being a socialist has nothing to do with sackcloth and ashes. It is about building a more equal society and redistribution, decency, quality of life and eliminating need. Harry’s view is more akin to Pol Pot than MM and the Labour movement in the UK now or before.
well said Mike Sivier. michael meacher is a true socialist and i admire hime greatly
Now there’s a question: what’s more useful to those in poverty – champaign-socialist spending some of his money giving the down-trodden a voice or someone else complaining about the hypocrisy of it all? No-brainer really.