Thursday, June 25, 2009

The Coming Tory Cuts Are Not Necessary


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On last night's Newsnight I was amused to see Jeremy Paxman's fake shock at the Guardian front page lead story about the Conservative plans to hold a two day Cabinet session to decide how best to cut public spending. From Paxman's reaction, you would have thought it was akin to King Herod wanting to cull the first born.


While I abhor the idea of a Tory government, Paxman was off the wall last night. With a substantial poll lead it would be a massive failure if the Tories were not doing advance planning.

Clearly the government deficit needs to be addressed. But ALL Tory governments tend to do this is ways that hurt the already poor and minimally help the upper middle class, and give away wealth to the financial elite.

There is no reason for Labour not to campaign on this issue. And point out that the deficit can be contained by a combination of some cuts (Trident, ID Cards, ending PFI), actively using public ownership of the banks to frustrate the greed of the rich, and, yes, by raising income taxes.

The Tories, as it is, want to punish the poor for the crisis caused by the rich and upper middle class.

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