Frank Field on public spending
I wrote a short while ago that painful decisions would be needed after the next election whoever wins it. Otherwise Britain will sink in a sea of debt.
One Labour MP who is willing to be open about this is Frank Field, who had an excellent article in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday headed
Bribing voters with their own money is no longer an option.
The first few paragraphs of the article include the following:
"When asked by the Telegraph this week how he would like a Tory government to be remembered, David Cameron's answer was clear: "We sorted out the deficit."
History will indeed judge the next government by whether it walks the walk on public expenditure and provides a titanic dose of sanity to the public accounts ...
The point is that ever since 1945, parties have competed for votes by promising to expand public expenditure. Bribing voters with their own money has been the order of the day. Now the tables have turned ...
... this is no ordinary set of economic circumstances. All previous post-war recessions have seen the economy move back fairly quickly to what is called its long-term growth rate. This recession, however, has damaged the structure of the economy: the Institute for Fiscal Studies calculates that it has wiped out nearly five per cent of our total wealth. That means the country is permanently poorer, and will take well over a parliament just to restore its lost wealth.
The uniqueness of this recession also shows in the public accounts. In all previous recoveries, tax revenues have been quickly restored. Not so this time. The Government admits that, even with the economy growing once again, there will still be a gap of £80 billion in 2013 between revenue and spending."
After arguing convincingly that Britain cannot go on as we are, Field goes on to suggest that the challenge is to find radical ways to improve public services while spending less money on them. restore public finances by finding radical ways to provide good public services more cheaply.
You can read the full article here.
One Labour MP who is willing to be open about this is Frank Field, who had an excellent article in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday headed
Bribing voters with their own money is no longer an option.
The first few paragraphs of the article include the following:
"When asked by the Telegraph this week how he would like a Tory government to be remembered, David Cameron's answer was clear: "We sorted out the deficit."
History will indeed judge the next government by whether it walks the walk on public expenditure and provides a titanic dose of sanity to the public accounts ...
The point is that ever since 1945, parties have competed for votes by promising to expand public expenditure. Bribing voters with their own money has been the order of the day. Now the tables have turned ...
... this is no ordinary set of economic circumstances. All previous post-war recessions have seen the economy move back fairly quickly to what is called its long-term growth rate. This recession, however, has damaged the structure of the economy: the Institute for Fiscal Studies calculates that it has wiped out nearly five per cent of our total wealth. That means the country is permanently poorer, and will take well over a parliament just to restore its lost wealth.
The uniqueness of this recession also shows in the public accounts. In all previous recoveries, tax revenues have been quickly restored. Not so this time. The Government admits that, even with the economy growing once again, there will still be a gap of £80 billion in 2013 between revenue and spending."
After arguing convincingly that Britain cannot go on as we are, Field goes on to suggest that the challenge is to find radical ways to improve public services while spending less money on them. restore public finances by finding radical ways to provide good public services more cheaply.
You can read the full article here.
Comments
However, I don't share it with Winston Churchill.