It’s nice of Alastair Darling to effectively concede that there is no chance of Labour winning the next election, isn’t it?
Well, that’s the only explanation that I can come up with for his Pre-budget Report yesterday, in which he bravely put off any single decision until after the election. Meaning that all the difficult choices that are needed – and there are many – will need to be made by the winners of that election.
And that means that Darling assumes that that won’t be him, and that the Tories will be the ones that need to make the cuts. So Labour can then blame the evil tories for killing the public sector, while Labour just built the gallows and tied the noose.
It’s a fun way to govern, isn’t it? with no sense of responsibility, but plenty of thinking of destroying your opponents no matter the cost…
Of course, the irony is that for the first half of their time in government, New Labour were busy accusing ‘the previous administration’ for anything that they didn’t like. Despite the previous government being responsible for, y’know, the financial bedrock that Brown/Blair then proceeded to replace with sand…
I think he did the best he could with what he had. He had to let us “common” people know that things are not great, while not pissing of foreign investors and the City. I have to say, I was sortta impressed
In saying that its all wank. With the three major parties at each others throats, saying that their way is better. Basically we all fucked, whoever gets in. 12% of GDP is not a good place to be – and it has to be paid back in some fashion. But in an election year he can’t go ahead and do what is needed. He is just delaying the pain, but then again he has no choice.
I think most of measures are stupid anyway, the VAT change last year (and putting it back this year) probably cost more than it saved. The 50% tax on bonuses, while popular with the “common” people – isn’t that smart. Most banks have their top people flying around the countries like Bono – so they will avoid giving any local taxes.
Whoever is in power next time, no matter who they are – they will be very unpopular.
The real thing that annoys me is that listening to Darling and Osborne this morning – is that they really think that they have power over us.. The main problem with the whole damn system is that they are there to serve *us*.. We are their masters.. So I wish they would stop fighting with each other – try and give us the best possible solution to fix this mix and leave us the fuck alone!
Best possible solution? Surely that would be just to leave us the fuck alone in the first place…