HOW much longer is this Government going to pursue its catastrophic economic experiment that is having such a devastating impact on jobs and prosperity?
More families are facing Christmas without a job than at any time since the Conservative Party was last in power in the early 1990s.
Last month saw unemployment hitting a new high and the depressing fact is that there is no end to this misery in sight. In the last three months alone, for every job created in the private sector 13 jobs were lost in the public sector.
But what is so extraordinary is that the Government continues telling us that there is no alternative, even though its policies are going so spectacularly wrong.
Youth unemployment is up by 54,000 and now stands at 1,027,000. Long-term unemployment among people aged 50 plus has gone up by 21.3% since January and the number of unemployed women is the highest it has been since 1988.
The truth is the country is crying out for a different approach. Labour's five-point plan for jobs and growth offers a way for the Chancellor to halt the frightening economic tailspin the Government's policies have caused.
On Wednesday, the House of Commons debated a Labour motion urging the Government to reconsider its refusal to adopt our plan.
We argued getting people back to work was a better way to reduce the deficit and secure Britain's future economic prosperity.
But the combined voting strength of Conservative and Liberal Democrat MPs meant that Labour's motion was defeated.
The five-point plan includes creating 100,000 jobs for young people and building 25,000affordable homes using funds raised from a tax on bank bonuses.
It also incorporates bringing forward long-term investment projects, temporarily reversing January's VAT rise and a one-year cut in VAT to 5% on home improvements.
These measures would generate jobs and growth, as would our proposal to give small firms, which take on extra workers, a one-year national insurance tax break.
But if the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats won't listen to Labour, they should at least take account of the considered view of the International Monetary Fund.
The IMF has said if the economy continues to stagnate the Government should slow the pace of cuts and tax rises.
However, it seems this Tory-led Government is determined to plunge us into a new Dickensian era. There are parallels with Charles Dickens novel 'A Christmas Carol' and George Osborne seems to be doing his best to emulate Ebenezer Scrooge.
People will remember Scrooge was a cold-hearted, tight-fisted and greedy man, who despised Christmas and all things which gave people happiness. The evidence of the last 18 months suggests that Scrooge would have certainly fitted the job description for a modern-day Tory Chancellor of the Exchequer.
But in the end, Scrooge did at least redeem himself by changing his ways and I hope Mr Osborne will do likewise. I have just sent him copy of 'A Christmas Carol' in the hope that he adopts the moral of this Dickensian tale. Time will tell if he does.
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Chris would you agree that the reason so many western economies are going into a tailspin is that they have been run in a fundamentally unbalanced manner for the last thirty years with cheap credit being used to fund consumption.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that we are like a drug addict. You can always argue that stopping taking the drugs will cause lots of short term pain but in the long term its going to be a good thing. We need to understand that unless we can pay our way more we are going to be a lot less well off as a nation in the future. Our previous 'wealth' was in fact an illusion. Labour did not deliver a period of sustainable economic growth at all. It was UNsustainable debt fuelled growth which has left us with a massive headache.
ReplyDeleteThe standard Labour MP response to that fact is that these were 'global problems' so nothing to do with Labour. However this misses the point entirely all that is saying is that we made the same mistakes as other societies.
We need an analysis from Labour of how badly they screwed the economy up and an acceptance that they share responsibility for much of the economic turmoil which we are now experiencing.
ps why don't you do a blog on the Hunting Act - I will hang you out to dry on that one ;)
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