Don't let it be lazily said that Labour and the Conservatives are 'the same'
The next time someone (particularly someone on the left) tells you that Labour and the Conservatives are the same, point them to today’s Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) assessment of the parties’ spending plans for the next parliament.
We’ll start with the Conservatives.
Conservative plans for a reduction in borrowing in the next parliament require ‘some large spending cuts or tax increases’, as the IFS puts it. It adds:
Departments outside the NHS, education and aid look to be facing cuts of 17.9 per cent between 2014–15 and 2018–19. This would imply average cuts to these spending areas of one third in real terms from the start of austerity (in 2010-11) up to 2018-19. These ‘unprotected’ areas include defence, transport, law and order and social care.
As for Labour, according to the IFS:
[Labour] have pledged to ‘get a surplus on the current budget’ without specifying either exactly when or how much of a surplus. This pledge could be consistent with any reduction in borrowing totalling 3.6 per cent of national income or more (given the coalition government’s investment plans). A reduction in borrowing of 3.6 per cent of national income would require little in the way of spending cuts or tax increases after this year.
In terms of the measures required by Labour to bring about their plans, the IFS says that:
If [Labour] can find £7.5 billion of revenues from anti-avoidance measures, as they say they can, then they might need to find a mere £1 billion from further real cuts to unprotected departmental spending.
So there is a choice and it is between ‘cuts of 17.9 per cent between 2014–15 and 2018–19‘ and ‘little in the way of spending cuts or tax increases after this year“.
Don’t let it be lazily said that Labour and the Conservatives are ‘the same’.
James Bloodworth is the editor of Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
35 Responses to “There are big differences between Labour and Conservative spending plans. The IFS just proved it”
Disgusted of Totter's Lane
Oh, OK, I see how this works now. Cool! So, you’re *just* a rabid Blairite whose opposition to the welfare cap IS designed, 100%, to avoid having to take any real action to address low pay and high housing costs, in case it upsets your capitalist chums. I completely oppose your “unbalanced” call to make the poor ever more reliant on crumbs from the table so that employers and landlords can get rich. There’s no “maybe” about your despicable intentions, no “front” at all.
I mean, OK, that’s a grossly unfair misreading of your stated position, but at least it means I get to righteously oppose a straightforward (albeit imaginary) Bad Guy rather than dealing with awkward things like differences between myself and other progressives.
nodbod
The national debt is currently 1.3 to 1,4 trillion pounds. I do not recall it being that high even when Labour left government. Gidiot Osborne has borrowed more in five years than all the labour governments ever. He is still borrowing more than budgetted for but that doesn’t make for good headlines. Gidiot also complained that the rules for banking/bankers were still too restrictive under Labour but Labour was the party in power.
Where ever this idea came from that the Tories are financially competent just leaves me bewildered (but then I am not the sharpest tool in the box). I also recall that a numberof major nations suffered financial crises around 2008, including USA, Japan, Germany, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland. Did Gordon Brown cause their problems as well? I remember that Brown was hailed as a genius (for a short time) for stopping the banks going bust. I just wonder what would have happened if he had not borrowed to bail out the banks.
One last thing, what happened to the £385 billion that Gidiot and the Bankof England invented (Quantative Easing), the equivalent to giving each and every person in the country £5000? It was supposed to have been loaned out to small businesses to kick start the recovery. We have only just started growing again and they did it some years ago.
Leon Wolfeson
Works? I’m talking about Labour, not your fantasy image of them. Your position there is a fair reading of your position of course, as I note the Coalition’s position, very strongly staked, as “progressive”.
For myself and my actual views, I’m not “progressive”, I’m a Mutualist.
Very, very few of the leftists – from various parts of the spectrum – I discuss things with these days will have anything to do with the “progressive” tag either, it’s a poison pill these days.
I’ll keep fighting for voting reform, you keep fighting for the welfare cap.
Leon Wolfeson
Do remember that national debt as a figure is essentially irrelevant. What’s relevant is %GDP.
Also, no, QE is in no way equivalent to giving people the cash. In fact, several oil-rich counties DID give every citizen a chunk of cash. QE is quite different, and mostly went to Bank’s reserves under the new rules on holding those – rather than being spent.
Also, please don’t fall for the headlines on growth, we have a bubble in the city, the rest of the economy is going sideways at best.
Leon Wolfeson
Improved? Oh yes, the City’s doing fine, the rich are richer, wages are down in real terms.
We *were* recovering under Brown, the Coalition instead stopped that on an emergency basis and we had a depression while other countries recovered, as you whine about a 0.6% average deficit (not ideal, but hardly disastrous).
You manage to make Labour look honest. Well done.