Ed Balls today said George Osborne’s “economic mission”, on his own terms as set out two years ago, “on all three counts”, has failed.
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Ed Balls today said George Osborne’s “economic mission”, on his own terms as set out two years ago, “on all three counts”, has failed.
Upon ascending to power, the chancellor outlined his economic strategy to “deal with our debts, set our country on a brighter economic course and show that we are all in this together” – promises he has abjectly failed to deliver on, according to Balls.
Writing in the latest Tribune magazine, the shadow chancellor takes each point in turn:
First, on securing a brighter economic future, the government inherited an economy which was starting to grow strongly with unemployment falling month by month.
But the recovery was fragile and, as we warned, cutting spending and raising taxes too far and too fast risked choking off that growth – especially as a global economic hurricane was brewing. The chancellor thought he knew better, but ever since his spending review the British economy has flatlined and has now been pushed into a double-dip recession. And let’s be clear: this is a recession made in Downing Street by David Cameron and George Osborne’s economic mistakes.
For all the attempts to blame the eurozone for what’s gone wrong here, the fact is Britain would have been in recession over a year ago if it was not for the positive contribution to the economy of exports to Europe and the rest of the world. Despite the problems in the single currency area, France, Germany and the eurozone as a whole are not in recession. [As Graph 1 shows].
After trying to blame the snow, the Royal Wedding and then the eurozone, the chancellor has run out of excuses for why his reckless and unfair policies have failed.
Graph 1:
Second, on George Osborne’s claim that ‘we are all in this together’, the budget exposed that as an empty slogan.
How can it be fair to give a £3 billion tax cut to the richest people in the country – worth over £40,000 for just 14,000 millionaires – while raising taxes on pensioners, families, pasties, church repairs and even charity donations? When a family with children will lose an average of £511 from changes coming into effect this year, the Budget’s tax cut for those on over £150,000 showed just how out of touch the government has become.
And finally, the voters were promised that all the pain of deeper spending cuts and bigger tax rises would be worth it to get the deficit down.
Many people who voted Conservative in 2010 were prepared to go along with short term pain for long term gain. But slow growth and rising unemployment, with more people out of work on benefit rather than paying taxes, has meant billions more borrowing. The government won’t now meet its key pledge to balance the books by 2015 and is set to borrow an extra £150 billion-– borrowing to pay for economic failure, rather than borrowing to invest in the jobs of the future.
• Osborne’s austerity is strangling Britain 16 May 2012
Grim times indeed; as Balls concludes:
“A prolonged period of high unemployment and slow growth will make the deficit worse not better and cause damage well beyond the two years of economic failure we have already seen.”
31 Responses to “Balls: Osborne’s “we’re all in this together” economic mission has failed”
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Slow growth and high unemployment make cutting the deficit impossible: http://t.co/vpdswOcn #PMQs