Cuts or just less spending?
As the pre-election battle hots up, Labour have been campaigning on the theme of £35bn of Conservative spending cuts. The Conservatives angrily deny this.Some observations.
1. Clearly most Tories do want to make £35bn of cuts immediately. John Redwood said that their first year tax reduction of £4bn, paid for by £12bn of cuts, was 'a downpayment'. Shadow Chancellor Oliver Letwin has spoken in the past about wishing to see public spending down to 35% of GDP or lower, equivalent to nearly £100bn of cuts. To be more parochial, every Tory blogger talks of their wish to slash government spending. One can assume this is true of most of their candidates too.
2. However, Labour are wrong to speak about '£35bn of cuts'. It is no such thing. It is simply that by 2011, on projections that may turn out to be false, the Conservatives will be spending £35bn less than Labour.
3. Nevertheless the Tories cannot complain. Their much-trumpeted £4bn tax 'cut' is only a tax cut under exactly the same methodology. No-one denies that the Conservatives will tax more in year X+1 than Labour did in year X, where year X is 2004/2005. It is only a tax cut relative to Labour's plans.
posted by Matthew @ 3/18/2005 09:36:00 AM
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