The dominant media meme in the wake of the pre-budget report continues to be the alleged need for government cuts. This has now taken a shriller tone.
The dominant media meme in the wake of the pre-budget report continues to be the alleged need for government cuts. This has now taken a shriller tone, with allegations of a rift between Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling over how deeply to cut.
Brown is being cast as the bad guy in this; as resisting Darling’s ‘prudent’ desire to come up with real cuts in this pre-Budget Report, rather than delaying the ‘necessary’ cuts until 2011.
However, as Tony Juniper argues in today’s Independent, the hysteria about the ‘need’ for cuts is all wrong. The Green New Deal Group have just published their second report, to discouragingly little fanfare. This important document presents a powerful blueprint for how Britain could stabilise its economy, through a further and thoroughly-green expansion of ‘quantitative easing’.
This could enable us to avoid a repeat of the ‘Roosevelt recession’ – the kind of downturn through premature cuts that occurred in the States in 1936-8, and would occur here too, if the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives got their way and put into place the ‘savage’ cuts they are promising.
Cuts are not needed, certainly not at this time. The beauty of green Keynesian measures is that they pay for themselves, in that they guarantee future savings (lower fuel bills etc) that will repay any elements of the package which do not already pay for themselves through their positive effect on the economy.
The current attacks on Brown, then, are completely misplaced. The government should take more pride in not putting spending cuts into place. This should mark a clear dividing line between Left (Labour and Greens) and Right (Tories and Lib Dems). But at present it does not – because the government has not resisted openly the cuts meme – and because it has not bought into green Keynesianism in any meaningful way.
It is an incredible disappointment that the PBR did not embody substantive moves towards a Green New Deal (except for the boiler scrappage scheme, brilliantly and now-successfully promoted by Mick Williams.
At this time of all times, with Copenhagen in the balance, the need for leadership and for us to think of the future should have been manifested in Darling’s proposals. That, and not the welcome absence of public spending cuts, is the real scandal of yesterday.
29 Responses to “The cuts won’t work – time for a Green New Deal”
Rupert Read
The excellent Mehdi Hasan over at _NS_ has this to say, which buttresses my argument in this piece:
http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/mehdi-hasan/2009/12/160-spending-credit-debt
Anon E Mouse
Rupert Read – You are off again making outlandish claims to inflate your ego further (should that be possible). If you answer post an article then at least have the courtesy to defend it or don’t post it I say.
You will not answer any specific point put to you about your idea that Governments have the rights to oppress their peoples just because it suits your flawed science. It is a shameful position to adopt.
You know full well that I am far from a so called “Climate Change Denier” but that doesn’t suit your case so you ignore it and continue posting articles like the one here.
What I find disturbing is the fact you must now know the Hockey Stick graph used as an excuse to tax the poor is flawed you still defend it. Why?
You state the CRU email leaks: the ones showing how the (so called) scientists dishonestly altered the data to fake their case then destroyed the original data to prevent themselves being caught was not important – rubbish.
Explain exactly why posting questions to you, because of the deception you attempt to perpetrate, will hamper the wasted time and money spent on that farce over in Copenhagen? What important position do you hold at the talks?
Why not start by producing science that proves your case and work from there.
Why are you right and David Rind from Nasa wrong?
Why are you right and Keith Briffa from the CRU wrong?
Why are you right and Richard Lindzen, Professor of Meteorology at MIT wrong?
Why are you right and Tom Segalstad, head of geology Oslo University wrong?
I suggest Rupert Read that since you have no academic scientific qualifications that they are right and you are wrong.
Stop advocating the taxing of decent hard working people using this nonsense and stop these silly, alarmist remarks. Why should the poor suffer for this drivel?
David
Rupert I agree, Nick Clegg probably regrets using the word “savage” it was a stunt that went wrong, most media just reported the “savage cuts” as if the Liberal Democrats were joining the cutting consciences, without looking at the substance. Look at what Nick said at the time, it was about protecting the vulnerable. “If ending tax credits for high earners is the price we pay for cutting class sizes and investing in disadvantaged pupils, so be it. We need to tell the highest paid public sector staff they won’t get an increase in their pensions, so that we can afford to keep teachers, nurses, policemen and women in their jobs, so be it.” The very opposite of the Fianna Fail/Green Party cuts across the Irish Sea.
Rupert Read
Thanks, David.
Look, the question you have to ask is WHY Clegg thought the stunt one that he wanted to undertake in the first place. And the answer is this: That he wanted to be seen to be going along with the public mood in favour of substantial cuts to the government’s budget. That is (1) an abnegation of leadership, (2) a rejection of Green Keynesianism, (3) a right-wing quasi-Hooverist stance. There’s no way around this.
You are quite right that elements of the LibDems’ fiscal programme are progressive (though I disagree with the LibDems’ movement away from universal provision, a movement which in the long run will undermine the welfare state, as the rich will not see themselves getting ANY benefits from it). But points (1) thru (3) above stand, no matter how progressive they are.
p.s. Purely fyi, on Ireland, this is an interesting (!) clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8TRXJ0SHm4
Anon E Mouse
Rupert Read – Not even 9 O’Clock and you’ve obviously been on the coffee already – start the week the way you mean to go on I say.
Your three point are YOUR points Rupert Read, just because you say it does not make them so – they simply do not stand.
A rejection of Green Keynesianism? What a meaningless comment and Nick Clegg shows more leadership than anyone in the Green Party where your comments in this blog make it clear you’ll say anything just to make yourself more popular – but what you never do is address the pressing issues on Climate Change.
The way around it Rupert, as you’ll discover next year, is the election of a new government. Although presently they share your blind belief in this Climate Change nonsense, one can only hope that once this waste of time and taxes in Copenhagen is over people will realise the handshakes and grins are as worthless as the last ones.
Then whole world can set up a genuine and radical means of reducing CO2 and saving the planet unlike the frankly delusional strategies you advocate.