Majority of the public reject Osborne’s austerity plan

Green Politics

Poll shows that neither Cameron nor Miliband are trusted to perform safe cuts.

Poll shows that neither Cameron nor Miliband are trusted to perform safe cuts

A ComRes poll carried out for The Independent shows that the majority of the public rejects George Osborne’s plan to cut public spending faster to clear the deficit.

Only 30 per cent of people agree that government spending should be reduced faster, even if this means cutting public services, while 66 per cent disagree with this approach. This means the public disagree with Osborne’s austerity plan by a 2-1 margin.

As the chancellor publishes his Charter for Budget Responsibility, aimed at clearing the deficit on day-to-day spending on services by 2017-18, the ComRes poll found that 36 per cent of people support such a legal requirement to balance the books, while 59 per cent reject it.

People do not trust either David Cameron or Ed Miliband to cut public spending without damaging public services, despite both promising to do so. The two leaders had identical scores in this part of the poll, with 28 per cent of people saying they trusted them to safely cut spending and 67 per cent saying they do not.

As in the previous ComRes survey for the Independent, Labour has a three point lead.

Labour is on 32 per cent (up one point), the Conservatives on 29 per cent (up one point), UKIP on 16 per cent (down two points), the Liberal Democrats on 12 per cent (up three points), the Greens on 5 per cent (down two points) and others on 6 per cent (down one point).

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21 Responses to “Majority of the public reject Osborne’s austerity plan”

  1. Leon Wolfeson

    Er, the Green’s plans are not austerity. Just as bad for the poor, but not austerity.

  2. Leon Wolfeson

    Well, Balls plans 5 years more austerity for starters…

  3. Norfolk29

    Balls knows about economics which is why Gordon Brown asked him to leave the Financial Times and join him at No 11. Do you think for a moment that he does not understand that the world of easy money is over? He does and so do I. We are living in a time when the rich are robbing us blind and there is nothing we can do about it. You know the rich. They are the people who pay less than 10% of their income in tax to HMRC and another 5% to KPMG and PwC to help them avoid the other 30% tax. I think Balls will try harder than Osborne (whose family fortune is tied up in a Trust to avoid tax) to root out this tax avoidance but there will be less money (liquidity) around in the next 20 years as the world adjusts to the 2007/8 financial meltdown.

  4. Leon Wolfeson

    The “adjustment” you are arguing for is accepting, in Britain and in Britain only, that the 99% are screwed. YOU want less liquidity. YOU are arguing against investment, when even America avoided that trap.

    But no – you’re a good Labourite. Britain must suffer.

  5. littleoddsandpieces

    The biggest con by al parties is the flat rate pension that is not more pension but less or

    NIL STATE PENSION FOR LIFE for women born from 1953 and men born from 1951

    https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

    The state pension should never have been included in Austerity as now proved by the denied state pension at 60, so denying a couple 7 years of payout, having saved nothing as the £30 billion is in the National Insurance Fund is still there from last year and being called a surplus by all parties, instead of paid out and going to generate business and create jobs on the high street.

    The money cannot be spent on general expenditure by government because it is not a tax.

    If Labour or a real socialist party did a u-turn and paid out the state pension in 2015, repealing Pension Bills 2010-2014, to the rate of £12,500 a year (the basic tax allowance from best offers out there) too those who turned 60 from 2013, for men and women equally, then we might actually get a majority government and not this neck and neck coalition of 4 parties that the pundits say will be the case, fromt he closest general election since 1945, because so few people will otherwise come out to vote.

    The old folk are the best voters and all pensioners from 60 to 100 will like the £12,500 a year full state pension, irregardless of National Insurance contribution/ credit history.

    As would councils with not having old folk from 60 left forever on benefit, with no ability to pay council tax and needing to be fed for the rest of their lives, with the flat rate pension
    that even does not pay the tiny top up to the even tinier part basic state pension to someone turning 80 in 2016

    https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/state-pension-at-60-now

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