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”
Leon Wolfeson
*All* austerity is unnecessary.
Also, you’re underestimating the effect of Labour moving right on effectively disenfranchising people.
(As to your predictions, I think you’d be better off trying next week’s lottery numbers if you’re that accurate. And then putting the cash into bitcoin)
ForeignRedTory
If you propose spending more, outline where you have ideas to get the money from. It’s what so exasperating about both neoliberalism and the answers of the left: nary a thought given to finding untapped or undertapped sources of Revenue ( with the honourable exception of Piketty, of course ).
Investing – in what? People? Those investments – skills – erode so quickly that we might as well invest in Bitcoin.
More railroads? You missed out by a century or more.
We need to adress Taxation.
It’s iresome that the level of taxation on a Chelsea Tractor is the same as on, say, a PC. Foreign flights – yet another ripe area for raising revenue. Some form, a mild form, of taxation on derivate transactions, say .25%? Seems that idea is one whose time has come. A girl being born now, today, will probably live to be a hundred. How many of those hundred years will she be in paid employment? 50?
We need to look at a future in which taxes on income cannot be the road ahead.
In the absence of new sources of revenue – and please don’t bore me with Taxing the Rich, or Nationalisation because it would be undone by the NEXT change of Government – Austerity IS the only answer. As for me, I favour spending some serious attention on tapping new sources of revenue. I’d suggest starting with listening to Piketty. I think he’s getting many things wrong, but he, at least is TRYING, and kudos for that.
Norfolk29
Log in on 8th May 2015. Labour are 5% ahead at the moment which gives them a 12% lead over the Tories because of the FPTP system they (the Tories) fought so hard to preserve in 2011. I forecast that Labour will be the largest party and, on probability, able to form an administration with only an agreement with the SNP and the LibDems. I do the Lottery but never expect to win. I assume you remember 1997 when New Labour won. The UK was 8th in the GDP stakes. By 2001 it was contending with Germany for 4th place.
Leon Wolfeson
Borrowing drives inflation – and the UK is threatened with deflation.
And of course you won’t allow the people with cash to be taxed, and don’t like parliamentary sovereignty – nope, you’ll only allow shrinking GDP. I’m sure you want to tax the poor breathing, etc. too.
Then you abuse Piketty’s good name. Sigh.
ForeignRedTory
Have you got anything useful to say, ie. not random rants?
There is a ton of money going about that is not even in people’s hands – neither rich or poor. Such as internal transactions between various parts of the same company – Amazon comes to mind. You know, the very same internal transactions that such entities use to evade taxation in Britain while selling in Britain. A ripe target for a bit of revenue-raising.
I am told that the amount of money going about in derivatives is something like 20 times the real economy. Get .25% of that in taxation, and hey, presto! That is the equivalent of 5% of GDP raised in revenue.