Economic failure, backbenchers out of control – blame the immigrants
Terrified of hemorrhaging voters to Ukip, the Conservatives have started to rattle the stick around the swill bucket again on immigration.
Graph showing Osborne’s failure as chancellor
The below graph shows the trajectory of the US and UK economies under both George Bush and Barack Obama and Gordon Brown and David Cameron respectively.
It pretty much speaks for itself.
This week’s most read: a regressive budget, Workfare and Leveson
The most read articles on Left Foot Forward this week.
Deficit reduction has ‘stalled’ and treasury distorting figures with ‘gimmicks’, say NIESR
Deficit reduction has ‘stalled’ and treasury sistorting figures with ‘gimmicks’, say NIESR
Where Osborne’s cuts might fall
Where George Osborne’s departmental cuts might fall.
Look Left going out shortly – sign up to receive it by email
Look Left, our round up of the week’s politics, will be going out shortly.
How the coalition has been helping millionaires – a graph
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has today produced a graph in its post-budget analysis showing just how regressive this government’s measures are – or in plain English, how favourable the coalition’s policies have been to the wealthy.
Budget 2013: IFS says borrowing in 2014 will be 70bn more than hoped in 2010
Budget 2013: IFS says borrowing in 2014 will be 70bn more than hoped in 2010.
The £10,000 personal tax allowance: anything but progressive
In yesterday’s budget George Osborne announced that the personal income tax allowance would be raised to £10,000 from next year, earlier than 2015 as originally planned. Superficially taking people out of income tax does sound like a tantalising prospect – poorer people will have more money in their pockets, will they not? There are two major problems with this.
Better to borrow to invest than borrow because your policies are failing
The below graph shows the additional borrowing in each year compared to the estimates at the Autumn Statement in December.