-
It is simply intensely baffling that Osborne has not been replaced yet:
Damning verdict doesn't begin to cover it.
-
This is a brilliant comment!
-
It is simply intensely baffling that Osborne has not been replaced yet:
Damning verdict doesn't begin to cover it.
No it's not.
Who would they replace him with?
He will make a convenient scapegoat come election time.
-
Who would they replace him with?
Kenneth Clarke.
-
Kenneth Clarke.
If he has any sense Kenneth Clarke is saying "no fucking way".
I don't believe that there is a damn thing any chancellor can do to fix our economy between now and the next election. The external forces are too great and the political will too small. And none of the usual mechanisms seem to be doing anything.
Far better (for Cameron, you understand, not the country) to keep the idiot in the job, and blame everything on him in a few years time. If he replaces him, and as will be inevitable, the replacements fail too, it will look too much like Cameron's fault, not his chancellor's.
-
all that horseshit about huge cuts being the only way to tackle the deficit, and this being the single biggest priority, and meanwhile borrowing increases year upon year. It's like the UK's been acquired by a private equity firm.
Everyone's OK with it though, because they think they want it, just as long as there's a benefit cap which saves them 0.01% of their income tax.
-
If he has any sense Kenneth Clarke is saying "no fucking way".
Of course, I wouldn't advise him to take it, either, as it's a poisoned chalice, but he'll easily have enough sense himself not to need my advice on that. He is of course not exactly flavour of the month in his party, despite easily being the greatest political heavyweight in it.
I don't believe that there is a damn thing any chancellor can do to fix our economy between now and the next election. The external forces are too great
I don't believe that he could do nothing. Obviously, a lot of time has been wasted, and this ...
and the political will too small.
... is probably true.
And none of the usual mechanisms seem to be doing anything.
I can't really see them applying any of the 'usual mechanisms'. Their agenda only seems to be to destroy the power of the state. Osborne is probably doing exactly what he's been told.
Far better (for Cameron, you understand, not the country) to keep the idiot in the job, and blame everything on him in a few years time. If he replaces him, and as will be inevitable, the replacements fail too, it will look too much like Cameron's fault, not his chancellor's.
Of course, I realise that. A new incumbent could still use Osborne's failure in the same way. Right now, Cameron could also make himself look better by replacing Osborne, but there will be deeper political pacts at work.
-
By usual mechanisms I mean QA, tinkering with the margins of the tax and benefits system,
This problem is structural, and fixing it requires a huge structural change to slash state spending. Something as big as (but not necessarily) leaving the EU and joining EFTA on the same terms as the Swiss, pulling all our forces out of everywhere and massively reducing the size of the military, abolishing the tax system and the tax credits system and starting over with something like a 30% tax band that starts at about £25,000, stopping foreign aid, making decisions to simply stop funding certain things and letting them wither if no-one else steps in to pay (e.g. the arts, museums, galleries, rail subsidies, MP's salaries, the church of England, old age pensions), decriminalising all drugs,
None of that is ever going to happen, and for many perfectly good reasons, most of it never should. but I think if you decide that we need to balance the books again, it requires that kind of re-examining about the fundamental way this country operates.
-
Someone I hardly knows brother was working on a house in a village where an incumbent minister lives. While in conversation with the lady of the house (or hice as it's pronounced in somewhere that is not Burnley ) it emerged that the minister lived there rather than (insert more famous ministerial address). His expression of surprise was greeted by ' oh he's lived here since he was given the hice the year before he went up to Oxford'. We are indeed all in it together.
-
Right on cue:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/25/george-osborne-pressure-austerity-programme
(Osborne has in the past been considered Johnson's main rival for the party leadership.)
-
And just after this much-repeated advice ...
... they appear ready to commit spending to building houses.
-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/05/george-osborne-eu-bank-bonuses
Good to see that Gideon is trying to keep our end up.
Unsuccessfully.
-
Reminds me of this: http://m.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/21/edf-legal-action-democratic-protest
Although eventually some good news in that one: http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/mar/13/edf-lawsuit-environmental-activists-backlash
-
Good luck to anyone affected by the benefit cuts on Monday - it looks like a LOT of people are in for some *very *dark times.
There's not going to be much help available either as the government are also removing legal aid for advice on benefits, housing, divorce, debt, education and employment....
"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy: that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." ~ J.K. Galbraith.
-
You forget that there isn't really any government. We're all in this together.
jaw
branwen
EB
bq
neu
NickCJ
Big_Nick
deleted
dave4
johnnyhotdog
hippy-
Post a reply
About
We're all in this together
Posted by
@Oliver Schick
You really should choose your words more carefully. :)