Climate change minister Greg Barker has said the government is making cuts that "Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s could only have dreamt of".
Climate change minister Greg Barker has said the government is making cuts that “Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s could only have dreamt of”. He made the comments on a visit to the Darla Moore School of Business in South Carolina.
Local newspaper The Daily Gamecock reports:
Barker began his speech by outlining Britain’s budget crisis and expressing the Conservative commitment to austere measures as a solution, saying his colleagues plan to cut spending by 75 percent.
“We are making cuts that Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s could only have dreamt of,” Barker said.
Barker’s comments, as well as letting the cat out of the bag on the true scale of cuts – 75 (seventy five) per cent – also further undermine the claims of some right wing commentators, like Toby Young, that there will be next to no cuts.
As Nicola Smith wrote on these pages last week:
‘Cuts, what cuts?’ asks Young – all of those worried about the devastating impacts these negligible spending reductions will have (and our polling shows it’s not just half a million marchers but over half the country) are simply ‘useful idiots’.
It is tempting to suggest that there is only one idiot here. Denying that Britain is about to face the sharpest cuts in public spending in decades is simply wrong…
The IFS, hardly known for being producers of misleading propaganda, have stated that:
“The cuts to total public spending… are, after economy-wide inflation, set to be the deepest since World War II and the cuts to spending on public services will be the deepest since the four years beginning in April 1975.”
Reducing spending, while the population and its needs continue to grow, will have real impacts. The poorest will be hit hardest, unemployment will rise and services will suffer. And it won’t only be the public sector that is hit – with 38p in the pound of public spending going directly to private sector companies workers and businesses across the economy will, as the FT sets out, feel the impact.
Last year, Wikileaks cables revealed foreign secretary William Hague’s description of himself, David Cameron and George Osborne as “children of Thatcher”. Today’s revelations will reinforce that perception.
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166 Responses to “Tory minister: We’re making cuts Thatcher “could only have dreamt of””
Anon E Mouse
damon brown – The neighbourhood of groupthink would that be? (Some of these stats come from UK Uncut)
It may have escaped your attention that the last election was:
Labour’s worst performance in a general election since 1918.
More seats were lost than at any general election since 1931.
The Conservatives achieved their second biggest swing from Labour since Thatcher in 1979.
2% more than Michael Foot in 1983 – 3% less than John Major in his landslide defeat of 1997.
Over 4000 councillors lost since Tony Blair’s election as Labour leader.
No government has lost so many votes/ percentage points as Labour 1997 and 2010.
Five million voters lost since 1st May 1997.
More people voted Conservative in Wales than Labour for the first time ever.
Gordon Brown was the least popular Prime Minister since records began.
The PLP never elected Brown or Miliband. Or the Labour Party members.
The biggest budget deficit in British peacetime history was inflicted on this country.
Labour owes in excess of £24million – it’s bust.
Perhaps instead of living in your bunker damon, watching as the party loses election after election – which it will with the boundary changes – why don’t you start admitting Labour’s faults like a “Truth and Reconciliation” thing and start being positive.
The public knows you know and if you think this nonsense from the leadership denying responsibility for the deficit will help you are mistaken.
Does no one here have anything positive to say about Labour because I’m in a time warp here…
Rowan Burrows
RT @johannhari101: Tory minister brags: “We're making cuts that Thatcher could only have dreamt of” http://tinyurl.com/3gherj2
egg of truth
RT @johannhari101: Tory minister brags: “We're making cuts that Thatcher could only have dreamt of” http://tinyurl.com/3gherj2
White Heath
RT @johannhari101: Tory minister brags: “We're making cuts that Thatcher could only have dreamt of” http://tinyurl.com/3gherj2
irene rukerebuka
RT @johannhari101: Tory minister brags: “We're making cuts that Thatcher could only have dreamt of” http://tinyurl.com/3gherj2