Balls by name ...
I've already blogged about the frightening fact that the speech by Ed Balls this week was coldly received by Labour conference because they didn't like the fact he signalled some faint awareness of the need to cut the deficit. In other words they didn't like the one thing he said that was right.
But it is only fair to point out that Mr Ball's commitment to sound money, though enough to annoy the unions and upset Labour conference, was paper thin.
While outlining over £20 billion of spending promises, he only explained how Labour would raise £1.9 billion worth of revenue. On this speech alone, Labour have an £18.5 billion black hole in their spending plans.
But it gets worse for Labour
1) Rachel Reeves admitted that the only way to get ‘debt falling’ is ‘to have a surplus on overall spending’ – but that’s not Labour’s position, it’s the Conservative position.
2) Just this week the IFS found that Labour actually want to borrow £28 billion extra.
3) Ed Balls was forced on Monday morning to admit that Labour’s cap on child benefit would only last one year and only save £120 million – despite claiming on Sunday night that it would last for two years and save £400 million.
4). The Centre for Policy Studies has released a report this week warning Labour’s planned tax rises will put up to 375,000 jobs at risk – a serious threat to Britain’s future and hardworking taxpayers’ financial security.
For all their bluster, it’s clear Ed Balls and Labour don’t have a serious plan to cut the deficit. They still refuse to admit they spent too much.
They have opposed every decision the coalition government has taken to cut the deficit in this Parliament.
It’s clear that Labour haven’t changed – they would take our country backwards. All Labour offers Britain is more wasteful spending, higher taxes and more debt than our children could ever hope to repay.
But it is only fair to point out that Mr Ball's commitment to sound money, though enough to annoy the unions and upset Labour conference, was paper thin.
While outlining over £20 billion of spending promises, he only explained how Labour would raise £1.9 billion worth of revenue. On this speech alone, Labour have an £18.5 billion black hole in their spending plans.
But it gets worse for Labour
1) Rachel Reeves admitted that the only way to get ‘debt falling’ is ‘to have a surplus on overall spending’ – but that’s not Labour’s position, it’s the Conservative position.
2) Just this week the IFS found that Labour actually want to borrow £28 billion extra.
3) Ed Balls was forced on Monday morning to admit that Labour’s cap on child benefit would only last one year and only save £120 million – despite claiming on Sunday night that it would last for two years and save £400 million.
4). The Centre for Policy Studies has released a report this week warning Labour’s planned tax rises will put up to 375,000 jobs at risk – a serious threat to Britain’s future and hardworking taxpayers’ financial security.
For all their bluster, it’s clear Ed Balls and Labour don’t have a serious plan to cut the deficit. They still refuse to admit they spent too much.
They have opposed every decision the coalition government has taken to cut the deficit in this Parliament.
It’s clear that Labour haven’t changed – they would take our country backwards. All Labour offers Britain is more wasteful spending, higher taxes and more debt than our children could ever hope to repay.
Comments
Though by your own admission the current governemt intend to have a £75 billion deficit after 5 years in power?
granted they "inherited" a bigger one, but £75 Billion!!!! £75 Billion pounds?????
like as in 75 thousand MILLION pounds???......a year.....every year...... 75 thousand pick up trucks, each pick up truck filled with a hundred thousand tenners.
so if each pick up truck with a hundered thousand tenners on it was 4 yards long, and they were parked nose to tail they would go on for 170 and a half miles.....
that many pounds in deficit??? and you are saying, or rather insinuating, the current government are sane, and if you vote for them then you are also sane......is that the jist of it???
The above 75 thousand pick up trucks is the deficit. this means the line extends by 170.5 miles.
so the nation debt is due be at £1.2 trillion.
that is 1.2 million pick up trucks. each pick up truck, with a hundred thousand tenners on the on the back of it. 12 feet (4yards) long
which is 12000000 x 4 = 4,800,000 yards or 4800000/1760 = 2727.27 miles long.
so we have a queue of pick up trucks with a hundred thousand tenners on every one of them, parked nose to tail, wich is 2727 miles long, and the current government (after 5 years in power) intend to still be extending this line of pick up trucks, by 170.5 miles every year.
Now, does that sound sane to anyone, because it certainly sounds less than tremendous to me.
Let that be a lesson to anyone taking a maths exam in the near future, show the working, not only will you get marks if you make a mess, at least then you can see where the mess is if you have time at the end to give your answers a quick check
so, Jim, who often gets his sums wrong by his own admission, but yet whom is so wise? - you say we are insane if we vote Conservate, and we are even more insane if we vote Labour, who shall we vote for instead? - well you should stop and think, who asked you if they could spend this money on your behalf and force you to pay it, you should start to lose that indoctrination that "Representative Politics" is "democracy" democracy comes from two words "demos" - people, and "Kratos" - Power. without the Kratos to the demos, there can be no demoskratos. The Kratos is currently with the political class, be they labour, liberal, Ukip or tory. and as long as you think that democracy is "representive politics" then you will blindly buy into the muppet show that is the confrence season, or indeed PM questions.
http://i1140.photobucket.com/albums/n569/therealmiracleworker/SourceOfPower-1.jpg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9WIgx6cZFI
And the Conservatives have tried harder to cut it than anyone else would have, with more support from the Lib/Dems (credit where it's due) than I would have expected.
And yet almost everyone else, with you as one of very few honorable exceptions, finds it much easier and safer to put forward ideas about ways the government ought to spend more than to come up with practical measures to cut the deficit and live within our means.
If we had a responsible opposition, then instead of a shadow chancellor who pays lip service to the idea of cutting the deficit and then proposes £20 billion of extra spending, and a leader of the opposition who forgets to mention the deficit at all, we would have an opposition leader and shadow chancellor who put forward ideas for cutting the deficit which could survive ten seconds of serious scrutiny.