We asked three of our political consultants to give us their view on Tuesdays Emergency Budget. Here's what they had to say.....................
Conservative Opinion
Fixing the mess
It was the budget that no-one really wanted, but everyone accepts the country desperately needed. George Osborne has set out a package of very stiff measures aimed at reducing the record £158billion deficit. To put this in perspective, for every four pounds the government currently spends one pound of that is borrowed. That is a huge amount of money and the consequences of not getting to grips with this mean that we are now shelling out more on debt interest than the cost of educating our children.
It needs to stop and the Coalition government have resolved to do something about it.
This budget was remarkable for the way that it went out of its way to protect poorer people. Those on modest incomes in the public sector will have to make a contribution as their salaries will be frozen, but this is more than compensated by increasing the personal allowance by £1,000. Almost a million people will be taken out of paying tax altogether.
Of course the headline of this budget is the VAT rise to 20%. For any government serious about getting a deficit down this is the best way of doing it as you tax at the source of any purchase. But the commitment to restore the link between pensions and earnings should insulate those who would feel a VAT rise the most, pensioners.
All in all this budget plans for a full parliament. It aims to bring the deficit down from 25% of national income to 1.1% in 2015. Most importantly it has given the UK economy the kind of credibility it needs to carry on functioning on the international markets. It has, in essence, saved this country from bankruptcy.
Antony Calvert
Antony was the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) in the Morley and Outwood constituency for the 2010 General Election and was also formerly a Wakefield councillor and deputy leader of the Conservative group.
Labour Opinion
This Con Dem Budget is the biggest gamble since Apollo 13 attempted re-entry, and it has just as much a risk of burning up.
The fundamental risk is that cutting deeper and faster the Con Dem government will damage the fragile recovery. This slash and burn approach to the public sector is dressed up as some national crisis. We all know that debt reduction is important, but economic growth and sustained investment in key sectors is a better solution than ripping the heart out of the public services and making hundreds of thousands more people unemployed. The Tory Party have a long held an ideological aversion to the public sector and this is truly at the heart of this budget. The economic recession gives them the cover from which to unpick the national health service, deregulate and privatise education, and destroy the safety net of the welfare state. This is a radical budget, a right wing radical budget - the Nasty Tory Party are back in power.
So how the Liberal Democrats can be happy sat there nodding in approval as the Tory Chancellor announces policies only a few weeks ago they were opposing in the election is beyond belief and principle. They have surrendered any pretense to progressive centre left politics.
The key points that stand out are a real terms cut in Child Benefit, a freezing of public sector pay while VAT is pushed back up to 20%. People on housing benefit will have it capped at £400pm and this will result in thousands of people losing their homes. Child Tax credits will be limited, and thousands of public sector employees will be sacked as 30% cuts are pushed through. That will mean less nurses, police and teachers as well as civil servants.
The poorest in our society will be punished and the bankers still with their bonuses get off lightly. As local government budgets are slashed, social services, education and children’s services, care homes and support for the most vulnerable in our society will be hit very hard.
The danger is that all of this will stall the recovery and lead to a double dip, the Americans have been so worried by this approach Obama even called on our politicians to think twice before embarking on this journey of such risk. The impact will not just be reducing the public state, but it could tip the balance of recovery in the private sector. The Japanese followed the same budget philosophy in the 90s and it led to years of pain and no recovery.
Before the general election, Nick Clegg said that big, early cuts in public spending would be dangerous for the ordinary working people of Britain. But this week's Con Dem budget is a combination of tax rises and spending cuts -- and it will hit ordinary families the hardest of all.
Paul Harvey
Paul is the former leader of Basingstoke and Deane County Council and a current Labour councillor.
Liberal Democrat Opinion
Tuesday’s emergency budget made for interesting if rather demoralising reading. Those on the political centre-Left will have found solace in a lower than forecast VAT rise, but little else. The £1,000 increase in personal income tax allowance, 10% rise in capital gains tax on top-rate earners and the extension of the entrepreneurs 10% “relief rate” from the first £2m to £5m too will go some way to appeasing the Conservative’s critics.
Any enthusiasm for the above, however, will be tempered by the understanding that this budget has been a hammer-blow to the public sector, and anyone unfortunate enough be in a position of dependence on the services that its mechanisms provide.
Of course, in tackling the deficit, the coalition has been left with little choice but to trim the fat of the state where it sees fit, and to confront wasteful spending head on. We can all accept that the country needed a radical financial overhaul, and that New Labour left the Conservatives an unenviable task in restructuring an economy in tatters. However, the disparity between the rhetoric (particularly that of “fairness”) and the budget’s main thrust is striking, and will have done little to comfort Liberal Democrats gauging the party’s influence over their Conservative “allies”.
Some Tory maxims, devolution for example, have been more fully evinced in the emergency budget, particularly with regards to planning. The emphasis on localism will encourage local Councils, although the Conservative proposals for replacing the current bureaucratic planning structure remain a mystery. Commitments to the environmental agenda were predictably thin and flakey, burying the central issues in Committees, reviews and the usual decade-spanning targets for emissions cuts. Given the overwhelming ambivalence on the Conservatives’ part, it seems unlikely that this will change for some time.
Osborne was quite right in saying that this Budget was the one that nobody wanted, but the country needed. Whether he has got the balance right remains to be seen.
Ally Kennedy
Ally has recently joined Curtin&Co and previously worked on policy and research for the Liberal Democrats at their Headquarters in Westminster and at constituency level.
Conservative Opinion
Fixing the mess
It was the budget that no-one really wanted, but everyone accepts the country desperately needed. George Osborne has set out a package of very stiff measures aimed at reducing the record £158billion deficit. To put this in perspective, for every four pounds the government currently spends one pound of that is borrowed. That is a huge amount of money and the consequences of not getting to grips with this mean that we are now shelling out more on debt interest than the cost of educating our children.
It needs to stop and the Coalition government have resolved to do something about it.
This budget was remarkable for the way that it went out of its way to protect poorer people. Those on modest incomes in the public sector will have to make a contribution as their salaries will be frozen, but this is more than compensated by increasing the personal allowance by £1,000. Almost a million people will be taken out of paying tax altogether.
Of course the headline of this budget is the VAT rise to 20%. For any government serious about getting a deficit down this is the best way of doing it as you tax at the source of any purchase. But the commitment to restore the link between pensions and earnings should insulate those who would feel a VAT rise the most, pensioners.
All in all this budget plans for a full parliament. It aims to bring the deficit down from 25% of national income to 1.1% in 2015. Most importantly it has given the UK economy the kind of credibility it needs to carry on functioning on the international markets. It has, in essence, saved this country from bankruptcy.
Antony Calvert
Antony was the Conservative prospective parliamentary candidate (PPC) in the Morley and Outwood constituency for the 2010 General Election and was also formerly a Wakefield councillor and deputy leader of the Conservative group.
Labour Opinion
This Con Dem Budget is the biggest gamble since Apollo 13 attempted re-entry, and it has just as much a risk of burning up.
The fundamental risk is that cutting deeper and faster the Con Dem government will damage the fragile recovery. This slash and burn approach to the public sector is dressed up as some national crisis. We all know that debt reduction is important, but economic growth and sustained investment in key sectors is a better solution than ripping the heart out of the public services and making hundreds of thousands more people unemployed. The Tory Party have a long held an ideological aversion to the public sector and this is truly at the heart of this budget. The economic recession gives them the cover from which to unpick the national health service, deregulate and privatise education, and destroy the safety net of the welfare state. This is a radical budget, a right wing radical budget - the Nasty Tory Party are back in power.
So how the Liberal Democrats can be happy sat there nodding in approval as the Tory Chancellor announces policies only a few weeks ago they were opposing in the election is beyond belief and principle. They have surrendered any pretense to progressive centre left politics.
The key points that stand out are a real terms cut in Child Benefit, a freezing of public sector pay while VAT is pushed back up to 20%. People on housing benefit will have it capped at £400pm and this will result in thousands of people losing their homes. Child Tax credits will be limited, and thousands of public sector employees will be sacked as 30% cuts are pushed through. That will mean less nurses, police and teachers as well as civil servants.
The poorest in our society will be punished and the bankers still with their bonuses get off lightly. As local government budgets are slashed, social services, education and children’s services, care homes and support for the most vulnerable in our society will be hit very hard.
The danger is that all of this will stall the recovery and lead to a double dip, the Americans have been so worried by this approach Obama even called on our politicians to think twice before embarking on this journey of such risk. The impact will not just be reducing the public state, but it could tip the balance of recovery in the private sector. The Japanese followed the same budget philosophy in the 90s and it led to years of pain and no recovery.
Before the general election, Nick Clegg said that big, early cuts in public spending would be dangerous for the ordinary working people of Britain. But this week's Con Dem budget is a combination of tax rises and spending cuts -- and it will hit ordinary families the hardest of all.
Paul Harvey
Paul is the former leader of Basingstoke and Deane County Council and a current Labour councillor.
Liberal Democrat Opinion
Tuesday’s emergency budget made for interesting if rather demoralising reading. Those on the political centre-Left will have found solace in a lower than forecast VAT rise, but little else. The £1,000 increase in personal income tax allowance, 10% rise in capital gains tax on top-rate earners and the extension of the entrepreneurs 10% “relief rate” from the first £2m to £5m too will go some way to appeasing the Conservative’s critics.
Any enthusiasm for the above, however, will be tempered by the understanding that this budget has been a hammer-blow to the public sector, and anyone unfortunate enough be in a position of dependence on the services that its mechanisms provide.
Of course, in tackling the deficit, the coalition has been left with little choice but to trim the fat of the state where it sees fit, and to confront wasteful spending head on. We can all accept that the country needed a radical financial overhaul, and that New Labour left the Conservatives an unenviable task in restructuring an economy in tatters. However, the disparity between the rhetoric (particularly that of “fairness”) and the budget’s main thrust is striking, and will have done little to comfort Liberal Democrats gauging the party’s influence over their Conservative “allies”.
Some Tory maxims, devolution for example, have been more fully evinced in the emergency budget, particularly with regards to planning. The emphasis on localism will encourage local Councils, although the Conservative proposals for replacing the current bureaucratic planning structure remain a mystery. Commitments to the environmental agenda were predictably thin and flakey, burying the central issues in Committees, reviews and the usual decade-spanning targets for emissions cuts. Given the overwhelming ambivalence on the Conservatives’ part, it seems unlikely that this will change for some time.
Osborne was quite right in saying that this Budget was the one that nobody wanted, but the country needed. Whether he has got the balance right remains to be seen.
Ally Kennedy
Ally has recently joined Curtin&Co and previously worked on policy and research for the Liberal Democrats at their Headquarters in Westminster and at constituency level.
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