Death of a Thousand Cuts

It is looking increasingly clear that the next election will be fought largely on the issue of public spending cuts. Both the major parties, currently, are maintaining a fundamentally dishonest position on this issue. Labour is pretending that everything is going to be OK, that the economy will pick up, and therefore no real “cuts” will be necessary. The Tories have built their entire platform on the necessity of cuts, but other than generalised statements about quangos, have been strangely reluctant to specify where, when and how the cuts should fall. My next sentence was going to be something like, “Quite how we can have an election when both the main parties are lying, escapes me.” But then I thought … hang on.

I don’t even know which one is the more dishonest, although I do know that the Tories have the edge on populist appeal. Labour’s Micawber-ish whistling past the graveyard attitude will not find favour with a cynical electorate who are even now seeing jobs and livelihoods vanishing before their very eyes. Whereas Cameron, with the instinct of the apparatchik to mount every passing bandwagon, has tapped into a rich seam of Daily Mail public sector-hating bigots who would have you believe that the ratepayers of England are regularly subsidising the Lesbian Muslim Hopscotch Agency, or similar.

At the same time as calling for the quangos to be hacked down, root and branch, Cameron has also added his voice to the many which have been clamouring for better equipment for our troops in Afghanistan, specifically more helicopters. So at least we can safely infer that he is broadly in favour of maintaining or increasing defence spending in an era where the government coffers have been used to bail out Lloyds and the Halifax. And even now we are unsure if we can afford Trident’s replacement and the two new huge aircraft carriers that will be the backbone of the Fleet for the next generation.

So assuming we’re going to find some extra money for extra helicopters (in response to the latest casualty statistics, I don’t recall Cameron being that concerned before we lost 15 soldiers in one week), plus the money for Trident II, plus the two aircraft carriers, what is he going to cut to pay for all this? So far, all we have heard is vague rumblings about Natural England (they never did care for the environment, preferring to leave it to rich farmers). Natural England will not pay for all this. Someone should ask Cameron outright, and keep on asking, no matter how often he blethers and obfuscates and tries to change the subject, how many schools and hospitals he will cut to pay for all this.

In fact, Broon should start asking that question now, and continue until the eve of polling, if he wants to avoid a landslide disaster for the Labour party, and the even greater disaster for the rest of us of a slash-and-burn Tory administration, protecting the rich and making sure the poor are the ones who pay for their mistakes.