Austerity is dead? (1 Viewer)

Deleted member 5849 said:

I do wonder how many of the Tory backbenchers would react to this budget. Support austerity for years, criticise Labour policy as fantastical pie in the sky... see your own party turn on the borrowing taps, and now have to go out and defend that.

Looking forward to George Osborne's reading of it...

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theferret said:

You're just regurgitating Andrew Neil's recent monologue. It's all very well criticising his record (justifiably in some cases), but you cannot equally ignore his successes, of which there were a few, the fact he won two elections in left-leaning London comfortably suggests he was not nearly as hapless as some like to suggest.

His commitment, for example, for heavy investment in telecommunications infrastructure and scientific research is eminently sensible, and he will not personally be responsible for delivery of these projects.

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theferret said:

Andrew Neil is just about the finest political broadcaster we have. Just my opinion like.

Fine, won't indulge in the 6th form politics. Your pathological dislike for the man renders you incapable of reasoned discussion it seems. Of course much of this will happen; policy is set, budgets are allocated and the civil service implement said policy. That doesn't mean certain schemes will run into trouble, big infrastructure projects often do. We're not talking about pie in the sky vanity projects here, most of them are sensible and deliverable. Broadband infrastructure, very specific projects like the A46 proposals - we're not building a bridge to the moon. We're talking about specific projects that will receive the funding promised and will be delivered. Whether they are delivered on time or on budget, or if they represent value for money, that's for later. The idea that Boris is 'making up' these commitments is for the school common room.

I keep making the mistake of pitching in to the politics threads. Will happily have sensible knockabout discussions with shmmeee, stupot, CVD, FP, but amongst all that you have to deal with batshit stuff like this post. Pointless.

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fernandopartridge said:

I'll give the Tories their due, they've proposed a levy on Google etc and have also levelled the playing field for retailers against Amazon by removing business rates this year. This is a good practical move and the sort of thing I'd thought should happen.

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clint van damme said:

You don't need to be Andrew Neil to see he's a grade A bullshitter who gets away with it because a nation of cap doffers got taken in.by his posh accent and a few quotes in Latin.


But he makes some salient points.
Think back to Johnson's inaugural speech as Tory leader. High on bluster and promises, (much of it undeliverable including a broadband roll out every bit as fanciful as Corbyns which got nowhere near the scrutiny), let's see how much he actually delivers.
He's a proven bushitter who's low on principle and strongly suspect that at the end of this parliament he will have implemented very little of what he promised either in the aforementioned speech or in the 2019 manifesto.

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theferret said:

I recall the inaugural speech. My recollection was that it was very light on policy detail and was largely aspirational and a rabble-rousing call to arms, which was probably right for the occasion tbf. The main focus was to repeat his Get Brexit Done mantra ad nauseum, which, he kind of did really.

Full super-fast broadband coverage by 2025 is ambitious, but ultimately it depends on how much money you throw at it. The budget today revealed a commitment of £5 billion for that, but I've no idea if that's enough.
It's in no way Keynesian unless you are equating all deficit spending to be
Ultimately, they today delivered a budget that was almost Keynesian, it's a huge fiscal boost. Senior labour figures must be seething.

I don't share you're contempt for Boris, I really don't. I see his flaws, but I think he is smart and much more moderate than some have us believe. His eccentricities I can overlook if he makes the right calls on issues I care about, and there was a lot to like today. I say this as someone who would happily vote for a Labour Party if it weeded out the metropolitan elites and realised life exists outside of Islington. While the Tories surge to 50% in the polls, they're languishing on 28% and eating themselves with internal spats about identity politics. Need to get their house in order quickly.

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chiefdave said:

Are they giving local authorities anything to make up for the loss of business rates?

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David O'Day said:

All most Keynesian? Unless you equate all deficit spending g with Keynesian theory then it really isn't.

Also it's really not a huge fiscal boost the original figure of 30 billion us quite small and equates to 460 quid person and it seems it could be as liwas12 billion it's laughable.

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David O'Day said:

Someone saying it's like a Gordon brown doth not make it Keynesian. I referenced the 30 billion as this would be the real Keynesian part of the budget I.e. counter cyclical spending and it is enough for the potential recession. Keynes didn't advocate endless deficit spending.

The capital investment is still nowhere near enough and that is before you take into account a lot of it will be repackaged

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theferret said:

I did say 'almost' :happy:.

Enough? Who knows. iirc it's around £100 billion more than was pledged in the Labour manifesto. Politically at least, it's very significant.

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