News from Labour Matters

Osborne under pressure to detail how he’ll pay for “promises he can’t afford”

George Osborne today walked naked into a press conference to trumpet Tory plans to reverse Labour’s National Insurance increases, without explaining where the £6billion will be found to pay for it if they win the general election.

Claims that unidentified “efficiency savings” could be found to pay for the tax cut was immediately attacked by the Chief secretary to the treasury, Liam Byrne:

“Two months ago the Tories told us that not doing more on the deficit was ‘moral cowardliness’. Since then, they’ve repeated promises for married couples, pledged tax give-aways for the richest estates and promised to sell off the banks at a ‘discount’ rate – rather then getting taxpayers’ money back.

“And just last week they were implying billions extra to increase personal allowances. They have entirely lost sight of cutting the deficit. Rather than making more promises he can’t afford, the test for George Osborne is to tell people how he’ll pay for the ones he’s got.”

The Conservatives will be praying that their friends in the media will skip questions about where the money’s coming from, but it didn’t take long for the Evening Standard’s Paul Waugh to throw George Osborne’s own words back at him, recalling that the shadow chancellor said: “If you want to cut taxes you can’t simply rely on more buoyant tax revenues, you can’t simply rely on cutting red tape, you’ve got to look for real areas where you can reduce demands on the state.”

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