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Even IF Cameron and Osborne ARE as lefty as they claim, their party is not and therefore their claim is not really valid.
New Labour are still to the left of the Conservatives, and the Conservatives are still to the right of Labour.
So, after my initial noticing of it, i've now read it.
The thing that stands out to me is "make use of open source IT to drive down costs and improve standards."
Wow, that's big. A Conservative
He does let himself down when trying to attack Brown for his attempts to "fight on the old terrain of "Tory cuts versus Labour spending"."
Well, that IS how it is.
In this article Osborne is trying to say that the Conservatives are a bit like Labour, slightly different and more competant.
I believe that his assment of Labour's lack of ideas would reflect equally onto his party. Their idea is to get experts in to help micromanage the odd policy, while getting a Labour-ish think tank into bed briefly so as not to put off too many middle/floaters/moderates/Lib Dem etc. They are making a centre-right appeal to the odd centre lefty. Not unwise really, apart from the centre-RIGHT bit which is obviously silly and wrong by definition. Of course.
Of course I don't like it, I'm a lefty. I make no pretense to impartiality.
The use of phrases such as "age of austerity" are their attempt to justify their planned cuts with the use of "austerity" to give them weight and the appearance of being ready to govern
1 comment:
some great retorts on the CiF:
Thanks George - private primary academies to 'drive up standards'. I'd love to 'drive up standards' at the school my kids go to. Can they be like the one you and your chums went to? Will there be enough money for 12 in a class. Will there be enough for teachers with the highest possible academic qualifications and not a couple of D grades and a PGCE from Krapston University? Will they be able to remove the head case kids who take up all the teachers' time attacking them, unable to go to the toilet on their own let alone read and write. If parents are able to choose schools with the funds to have the kind of education you enjoyed then great, I'm all for driving up standards. But if you can't fund that then don't make promises you can't keep with sweeping statements like 'choice' and 'driving up standards'.
The prime minister will not allow the government frontbench to engage in this debate at all.
Labour does not need to debate the economy because Gordon Brown has decided how to respond; massive support for banks, massive fiscal stimuli and some freshly minted pounds. And like John Major almost two decades ago, he hopes the economy will recover in a few years when a fiscal brake will reduced the debt which will seem a price worth paying.
George Osborne has new ideas but adds deceit to the ubiquitous denial. Why does he not mention the massive current account imbalances that result from the combination of free trade and free international capital? As debts build up, nations are driven to adopt ever more measures to protect themselves despite pledges to avoid protectionism! See the informative article by Daniel Drezner: http://www.newsweek.com/id/191729
The deceit is more subtle. Osborne claims the Tories will restore the economy by ending excess government borrowing with a new independent office for budget responsibility. But large fiscal deficits are not faults to be ended but corrections for excess saving and inadequate real wages. These result from the deregulations of banking in the 70s and 80s and the freeing of capital and the labour market in the 80s; all Tory reforms.
With the economy based on self-interest and competition and market set prices, the five extra free markets, for national wages and credit and international trade, capital and credit, are together causing our economic crises. The Tories avoid admitting this systemic problem so have no solution. Instead they blame the expansionary fiscal and monetary policies government deploy in mitigation. At best, these are temporary fixes but what else can they do when their masters deny and deceive in the name of democracy?
uysheard - absolutely right. The fact is, we don't want to cut demand in the economy; that's the way to a thoroughly buggered economy.
What we should be doing is stimulating demand for the things that people really want - things that will benefit us all in the long term: better social care, better education, better provision for children and the elderly, a better health service. These are the things that would actually make us happier - and they are the exact same things that Osborne wants us to buy less of, by reducing the quality of service by under-funding and by making us pay for them directly.
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