In the shreiking about "the cuts" (No folks, actually it's a cultural revolution but more of that another time), it is said that the two former alchemist Gordon's apprentices now turned comedians,- The Two Eds,- are now agreed that "halving the defecit" is a good enough aim. That's a big step from "Do nothing" which is where they were a year ago. It is some progress considering that when Alistair Darling was taking that line before and during the election ,particularly the Balls Ed was saying that even that wasn't necessary. Obviously he felt there was plenty more money to borrow left in the world.
Let's though nail this "halving the defecit" claim once and for all because neither before the Election nor since have the Conservatives in particular exposed the lie. Goodness knows why as it's a sitting duck.
The fact is that Labour was not talking about,- and isn't now,- any plan to actually reduce the rapidy increasing pile of CUMULATIVE debt and therefore interest on it that they were building up. They are only talking about halving the ANNUAL AMOUNT OF INCREASE of its continued growth which, if they were in power, would have continued relentlessly mounting up, year by year, for at least the next five years.
It is an extraordinary scenario and the Eds' bleats that the Coalition should abandon its attempts to get rid of the ongoing structural defecit and adopt the sort of softly softly policies they were toying with but never got round to doing whilst in power are ludicrous even if expressed santimoniously (Ed 1) or with socialistic venom (Ed 2).They are even more ludicrous when expressed quietly with attempted moral rectitude and considered thoughfulness.These two gents are firmly wedded to denial and burdening us and future generations with paying for their excesses and hopeless spendthrift inefficiencies.What they have not understood is that the days of the "spend more money" via ever increasing "government initiatives" reaction to anything are over.Spending money efficiently and effectively is the way to go .Politicians of all parties struggle with how to do it,and "Yes Minister" civil servants largely resist it, but at least this government is having a go.
