George Osborne’s speech to the Conservative Party Conference has received near universal acclaim, even from Guardian commentators.
The obsequious media response is hardly surprising given the near universal acceptance that cutting the deficit is the UK’s most immediate economic challenge. Yep, never mind rising unemployment, plummeting business investment, lack of affordable credit and the yawning output gap – the deficit must be plugged; and quickly. As some admirably independent commentators have noted, this is tantamount to economic masochism.
So, whilst others are better placed to comment on the direct impact of Tory commitments on public service pay and pensions here are some views on the political economy of Mr Osborne’s speech:
“Labour created this mess”
Labour’s role in creating the mess is clear for all to see. Brown, Blair et al completely bought the myth that the financial sector would continue to drive sustainable GDP and employment growth. They actually believed that financial innovation had changed the game. Their complacency in the face of industry abuses and the rise of systematic fragility is shocking.
However, the STUC has argued and will continue to argue, that the financial crisis that began with the fall of Northern Rock in 2007 reflects a general failure of politics. Can Mr Osborne point to a track record in querying the size and power of the financial sector relative to the wider economy? Did the Tories challenge the bonus culture? Or question the sustainability of the rapid growth in credit derivatives and the shadow banking sector? I think not.
Likewise the SNP who sought competitive advantage for Scotland in a super-light regulatory framework for financial services modelled on Ireland. Or the Lib Dems who have singularly failed to build on Vince Cable’s admirable stance on the banks to create anything approaching a coherent vision for the economy.
Labour has to accept the lion’s share of blame for the current crisis but it is the failure of politics that has undermined our collective prosperity.
“It is a terrible mistake to claim that, as Gordon Brown does, that there is a choice between getting to grips with the debt and having an economic recovery’
It isn’t actually; particularly if the recovery is to be robust and demand-led.
Writing recently in the Sunday Telegraph, Robert Skidelsky ridiculed the Osborne approach:
“We couldn’t afford not to have a stimulus in the past year and we can’t afford not to continue it now…The reason is quite straightforward. If output is falling, the Government’s revenues fall automatically and its social spending rises automatically. If the Government tries to reduce the deficit by cutting its spending, it reduces total spending in the economy still further. This causes the recession to deepen and makes the deficit even larger. It is like a cat chasing its own tail”.
Brown’s approach as described by Osborne is entirely mainstream; supported amongst others by Paul Krugman the current Nobel economics laureate. All of which makes Labour’s commitment to enshrine in legislation their commitment to halve the debt within four years utterly bizarre.
‘The world is watching Britain at the moment…It is casting doubt on our country’s credit worthiness’
It would be more accurate to say that the world is watching the world at the moment.
Yes, falling tax revenues, rising social spending and the cost of recapitalising the banks (the upfront costs of which were proportionately higher in the UK than any other developed nation) has meant that Britain’s deficit is, for the current year, the largest in the world. But is does not logically follow, as the deficit obsessed shadow chancellor appears to believe, that the UK is an emerging basket-case.
UK public debt is average by international standards. Investors continue to enthusiastically fund that debt. The spreads on credit default swaps on UK sovereign debt are heading down not up. It appears that these ‘doubts’ amount to little more than one credit rating agency suggesting that it might, in the future, review the UK’s triple A rating.
‘…Or the judgement last November to oppose the VAT cut. That wasn’t the easy thing to do. You try being the Shadow Chancellor who tells the Conservative Parliamentary Party that we are going to vote against a tax cut’
The STUC argued that the 2008 PBR stimulus should have been focused on temporary tax cuts for low paid workers and/or benefit increases for the unemployed – those guaranteed to spend the proceeds. We did not believe then, and we do not now, that a VAT cut was the most effective stimulus measure.
But the shadow chancellor (deliberately?) misses the point. His party opposed the introduction of a stimulus; any stimulus whether one focused on a VAT cut or not. They would not have supported better targeted measures. They would have left the economy to sink deeper into the mire; leaving the UK the only country in the developed world in which the Government did not seek to boost output and save jobs at a time when the private sector was rapidly contracting.
“We are in this together”
I don’t think so George.
On the one hand we have:
· A pay freeze for public sector workers including those earning well below the median wage but above £18k;
· Raising the retiral age to 66 a full decade before Lord Turner’s recommendation.
· Immediate spending cuts with related impact on demand which will almost certainly embed recessionary pressures;
· Yet another drive on incapacity benefit; and,
· Cutting tax credits (for households earning over £50k – the reality is a mother and father earning average wages and paying full-time childcare costs).
On the other hand the commitment to cut inheritance tax thresholds remains as does the promise, as soon as is feasible, to abandon the 50p tax rate. Bankers are merely ticked off and there is an entirely non-specific threat over tax havens. His earlier commitment to abolish NIC payments for new businesses is, as he well understands, an open invitation to dissolve current arrangements, start afresh and claim no NIC.
Osborne’s agenda is wrong-headed and dangerous. Masquerading as a sober, responsible response to an immediate budget crisis, his policy agenda risks plunging the UK economy into prolonged stagnation. A Japanese lost decade is entirely possible and it will be low and middle paid workers and the unemployed who suffer most.
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