So said Bob Crow, describing the Prime Minister after his CUTS! speech. Well, I suppose it must have been awkward for you, Mr Brown. The worst thing about lying – for the liar – is the coming clean: the sheepish admitting that you have been trying to deceive people all this time and that you have failed. Not many people believed you when you said that public spending would keep on growing. They thought you were either deluded or being disingenuous. We thought that either you were deliberately trying to wreck the public finances, or trying to spin cash increases as real increases. It turns out that when George Osborne said “the cupboard is bare” he wasn’t being melodramatic at all. It turns out that when you said it was a choice between Tory Cuts and Labour Investment what you really meant was Tory Cuts and Labour Denial. Perhaps you were the last person in the nation to learn of the dire state that the country was in thanks to your predecessor’s Chancellor. Or perhaps you thought the nation was too stupid to understand what a £175 billion deficit means. Perhaps you thought that playing the dour Scot card and berating other people for running up huge personal debts would somehow divert attention from the fact that this is not the first year of fiscal deficit.
Labour’s new line that the Tories are “foaming at the mouth” at the prospect of cuts is quite brilliant. However, it will not succeed in turning people back towards Labour. Why? Because the British people are sensible. We can see that cuts have to be made. We can see that it will be hard. We can see that it is going to take years to get out of this mess. Public spending cuts are exactly the kind of collective sacrifice which socialists invoke to win elections. The public knows that it has to tighten its belt. Those with comfortable incomes know they are going to have to pay a bit more tax and everyone knows they are going to have to do without some of the luxuries. We will make do. We will accept the lower standard of living. We will grumble but we will get on with it.
The logical, sensible thing to do is to start wielding the knife sooner rather than later. You can’t pay off debt by spending more money. The longer we run a deficit, the harder it will be to pay back the debt – because of a little thing called interest. Sensible people want to see a government that is serious about fixing the problem, not one that will do it in a half-hearted way. And that is why your ridiculous caricature of evil Tories who get sadistic pleasure from throwing teachers and nurses to the wolves will not work. Because people want the government to be getting on with sorting out the problem rather than spending its efforts trashing the opposition. They want a government that is hell-bent on mending the public finances, at finding savings which minimise the damage caused to the services people want to use.
You are behind the curve, Gordon. For once Mr Crow is right.
I thought it was obvious that if you’ve abandoned ship and are in a lifeboat that leaks like a seive, it is pointless telling the other survivors to set sail for dry land until you fix the bloody leak. This man has just continued to kicked more holes in it. Not just obvious, Bloody obvious.
But I have ordered more investment in British shipping and extra funding for British lifeboats . The Tories would cut back on frontline lifeboat provision and …[glug,glug,glug}
Hogday – genius!
I thought it was traditional for the captain to go down with his ship, though, not the ship to go down with its captain…
Stu – this isn’t a normal shipwreck though, humanity will actually benefit from the political drowning of the Labour party.
I do believe a certain SS Titanic was ordered to steam full speed into a pack of icebergs – only that captain was a SAmith not a Brown
Bloody typos
His speech was still 99% deluded tractor-factory bollocks, though. Mealy-mouthed “son of the manse” platitudes mixed in with statistics based on guesswork, approximation and outright lies.
Hey Hows it going, I’m back in the Blog world, checking out your blog again, check mine out it’s back, alittle different more on my life , rather then my job (Got my knuckles smacked)
All my follower are gone, so click to follow again… thats if u still like me…lol
http://apolicemanslife.com
Kenny
Great post. Except Crow’s comments weren’t coming from the same angle. I can’t stand the man personally. ASLEF is a much more refined and intelligent union than the RMT.
Excellent, Blue. I particularly like ‘your predecessor’s Chancellor’.
Thank you for the important distinction between ASLEF and RMT, e-k. Beer ‘n sandwiches for the RMT, Sancerre and oysters for ASLEF.
Lancs – no doubt, I didn’t waste the time listening to it because as you say, he only ever repeats the same boring mantras
Kenny – hey!
EK – Crow wasn’t coming from the same angle as me, you do surprise me!! Not someone I would want to have a pint with. I have only ever met one train driver and he was a thoroughly nice chap albeit a bit left wing for my liking. I expect he is an ASLEF member.
Idle – cheers