News from Labour Matters

Media rubbish ConDems claims economy “worse than we thought”

Claims by David Cameron that the economy is “worse than we thought”, following the publication of Sir Alan Budd’s report, have been rubbished by economic correspondents.

The Economics Editor of The Telegraph, Edmund Conway, said:
“…Cameron is simply wrong: the public finances do not look any worse than under Labour. Ironically, the Tories actually had sight of some of these private calculations a year or so ago and leaked them to the press, so even if Cameron is merely neglecting to read the papers, he surely cannot claim that he had no inkling of what he was facing.”

Even right wing journalist Fraser Nelson, editor of The Spectator, couldn’t back the Tory claim, saying:
“So when Mr Osborne declared yesterday that “it’s worse than we thought” he had precious little to point to. The so-called structural deficit (the amount of overspend that will not be eliminated by an economic recovery) is a little bigger than had been estimated. But crucially, Mr Osborne’s election goal – to abolish “the bulk” of the structural deficit by 2014 – would have been easily achieved had Mr Darling remained in place. No more taxes need to be raised, or budgets cut, to honour this Tory manifesto pledge.”

Faisal Islam, Channel 4 News’s award winning economics correspondent, said: “So overall, the chancellor has not got the mandate for radical further action he would have ideally liked from this report.

“Of course it does illuminate that Alistair Darling had already pencilled in £44bn of cuts before the election, but the new chancellor cannot credibly blame his decision to accelerate this on a ’shock’ in today’s report.

“Next week’s epic budget will see additional cuts or tax rises made out of political choice rather than through objective economic necessity.”

Read the full article.

Other news from Labour Matters

• Southampton Labour release alternative 'Budget for Fairness' - 6 February 2012
• "Bleak unemployment figures are bad news" says John Denham - 12 October 2011
• Westminster Council to cut Taxicard budget by £500,000 a year - 11 August 2011