Michael Meacher MP

Osborne’s constant repetition that the Budget was fair, even “progressive”, reveals not that it was (the IFS and all other analysts show conclusively that it was not), but rather how exceedingly anxious he is that we should be conned into thinking it was.   He’s trying to learn the lessons of the Geoffrey Howe budget of 1981 which contained (till then) the biggest spending cuts since the Second World War, but made no pretence of fairness or proportionality, and provoked a huge political backlash.   Four factors however are working strongly against Osborne.

One is that a stark austerity programme now in the UK will not be compensated for, as it was in 1947 and 1981, by an expansionary international economy inviting a surge in private investment and exports.   Britain’s manufacturing industry has suffered a long-term decline, the US recovery is fading, and the Eurozone which normally takes half of all UK exports is still gripped in crisis and flat.

The second factor is simply that Osborne’s claim is downright wrong, on several counts: (more…)