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The 2015 Popularity Contest (aka UK General Election )
- Thread starter rascal
- Start date
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Whistlin' Dixie
Player Valuation: £50m
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
It's just other peoples views mate, we all have them.........
daylightrobber
Player Valuation: £15m
Nope, apparently not.
George Osborne's economic policy: more poverty, worse public services
The chancellor is shrinking the state to pre-1948 levels. He has other options but this is not just about the money
George Osborne has received little flak for his austerity programme. Opinion pollsters say the public is even more convinced of the need to balance the government's books than it was when the chancellor arrived at the Treasury three and a half years ago.
Voters need to be aware, though, that they are in this for the long haul. Osborne is only half done with spending cuts, which will continue not just for the current parliament but most of the next. The single most arresting statistic in last week's autumn statement was that by 2018-19, the squeeze on Whitehall departments means government will be smaller than at any time since at least 1948, when consistent data was first collected.
A bit of care is needed with this comparison. It doesn't mean public spending as a share of national output will be lower than it was when Attlee was prime minister, because that figure includes welfare payments such as pensions, housing benefit and unemployment pay, which have increased since the 1940s.
But it does include just about everything else: the day-to-day government spending, investment in infrastructure projects and debt interest payments. To a degree this is recognition that Britain is a poorer country than it was before the Great Recession. The level of GDP will not return to its pre-slump peak of early 2008 until the end of 2014 or the start of 2015, while it will take a full decade for real earnings to make up lost ground.
But the shrinking of the state is also a political choice. The chancellor has decided the vast bulk of the reduction in the budget deficit will occur though cuts in spending rather than increases in taxation: an 86%-14% split according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
On current Treasury plans, this means that cuts in spending by Whitehall departments will be deeper in the next parliament than they have been in the current one. Between April 2011 and March 2016, the IFS says that public service cuts will average 2.3% a year; from 2016 to 2019 they are scheduled to be 3.7%.
Put another way, so far the coalition has cut spending on public services by 8%; by 2018-19 this will have become a cut of 20%. There are alternatives if Osborne doubts whether the public's phlegmatic approach to austerity will endure an extension and a deepening of the programme. He could continue to trim spending at the current rate of 2.3% a year but would have to find £12bn a year from tax increases or welfare cuts to do so.
Either that or he has to get lucky. The current deficit reduction plans are based on forecasts from the independent Office for Budget Responsibility on how much of the damage caused to the economy during the downturn of 2008-09 was permanent rather than temporary.
The OBR takes a pessimistic view. Normally, in the period after a recession there are several years in which growth can be above its long-term trend rate of 2.25-2.5% a year without any sign of inflationary pressures developing. That's because there is plenty of spare capacity to use up.
But the OBR believes the recession has impaired the supply side of the economy, particularly the financial sector. It thinks the output gap (another way of describing the amount of spare capacity) is just over 2% of GDP, which means the economy can only grow above trend for a short period before inflation starts to be a problem.
It is worth pointing out that the OBR's forecasting record has not exactly been unblemished. It was over-optimistic about growth when the economy was flat-lining, and it may be too gloomy now. If it is, and a larger chunk of the loss of output during the recession proves to be temporary, the economy will be able to grow above trend for longer. By the time the output gap has been closed, the higher tax revenues from stronger growth will have reduced the size of the budget deficit and there will not be the need for so much austerity.
But let's assume the OBR is right. What happens then? Well, Osborne made his intentions clear last week when he announced fresh cuts in departmental spending and a cap on all welfare payments other than pensions and jobseekers' benefits. He clearly has no intention of raising taxes. Indeed, the autumn statement includes plenty of giveaways – on fuel duties, marriage allowances and school meals – that will have to be funded out of smaller Whitehall budgets.
And while Osborne likes to draw a distinction between "scroungers" and "hard-working families", the fact is that many of these hard-working families rely on welfare – in the form of in-work benefits – to top up their poverty wages. The autumn statement provided a taste of what is to come when it froze work allowances for three years, the amount low-paid workers can earn before their benefits are withdrawn. This will save Osborne £600m a year but make poor families poorer.
This is quite a contrast from the last Labour government, which introduced the minimum wage and tax credits to help those on low earnings. The impact is well illustrated in a new paper by Christoph Lakner and Branko Milanovic, which looks at global income distribution from the fall of the Berlin wall to the Great Recession.
1966efc
Player Valuation: £20m
Not judging by this thread.
Was a good era.
Woolly Blue
Player Valuation: £80m
I'm a big fan of eight o'clock meself.
Mainly because I'm quite partial to an After Eight ( other mint chocs are available ).
1966efc
Player Valuation: £20m
There's a school of thought that suggests some clergy are partial to an under eight after dinner.
Scurrilous nonsense, of course.
Woolly Blue
Player Valuation: £80m
Scurrilous is an excellent word.
I'm going to use it more often. If Lindsay Hoyle ( decent bloke btw, though his dad, Dougie, or Lord Hoyle as he's now called, was known, allegedly, as Wandering Hands Dougie at the loco works many years ago* ) turns up on our doorstep again I'm going to try and fit it into the conversation somehow. I'll report back if successful
*as reported by me mar, bless her. I'm sure it's a scurrilous rumour put about by some filly who Dougie ignored.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
One of the finest political quotes of all time.
peteblue
Welcome back Wayne
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
George W. Bush........
The Esk
Player Valuation: £70m
Using the Guardian Poll of polls (constituency level, national and English regions, and national polls) currently the likely outcomes are as follows:
Labour 269 seats
Cons 274 seats
Lib Dem 27 seats
UKIP 3 seats
SNP 55 seats
Others 21 seats
Breaking this down into likely alliances to see who gets to 322 seats to win a vote of confidence, we have
Labour & SNP 324 - survive
Labour & LD 296 - fail
Labour & G & SNP & SDLP & PC 331 - survive
Cons & LD 301 - fail
Cons & DUP & UKIP 313 - fail
It looks highly unlikely that the Conservatives can form a minority Government even with a formal coalition and pass a confidence vote without a significant move in the polls. No wonder Boris is the King in waiting.
It also suggests that the Liberal Democrats will have no influence at all in the forthcoming Parliament.
From these figures I believe Ed Miliband will form a minority Government and rely on the smaller parties including the SNP to pass a confidence vote if required.
Labour 269 seats
Cons 274 seats
Lib Dem 27 seats
UKIP 3 seats
SNP 55 seats
Others 21 seats
Breaking this down into likely alliances to see who gets to 322 seats to win a vote of confidence, we have
Labour & SNP 324 - survive
Labour & LD 296 - fail
Labour & G & SNP & SDLP & PC 331 - survive
Cons & LD 301 - fail
Cons & DUP & UKIP 313 - fail
It looks highly unlikely that the Conservatives can form a minority Government even with a formal coalition and pass a confidence vote without a significant move in the polls. No wonder Boris is the King in waiting.
It also suggests that the Liberal Democrats will have no influence at all in the forthcoming Parliament.
From these figures I believe Ed Miliband will form a minority Government and rely on the smaller parties including the SNP to pass a confidence vote if required.
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