THIS Government has been a disaster — continuing with its financial incompetence cannot be more frightening than an alternative.
David Chaytor’s scaremongering tactics do nothing but hide the issues. (Letters, September 24).
He offers no solutions. In Mr Chaytor’s philosophy money thrown at the public services are ‘investments’ and this spending should, without question, be applauded.
No thought is given to the concept of ‘value for money’. Ed Balls believes he can save £2bn from the Children’s Dept budget — why has this level of waste built up? And there are many more examples of waste and incompetent spending highlighted by the National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee.
Since 1997 productivity in the public sector has fallen — not risen, as in the rest of the economy. Yet some essential spending, for example equipping our troops properly for Afghanistan so as to reduce casualties, is not done.
The fact that Mr Chaytor should have addressed is why we are in the present situation. Why do we have to borrow (if the Government’s own figures are to be believed) £175bn this year after having to borrow £78bn last year? The Government has been borrowing between two per cent and three per cent of GDP every year since 2001. Is adding over £250bn to the national debt in just two years prudence? Will Mr Chaytor show how the promise of balancing the Government’s books over the financial cycle is going to be achieved?
Had Mr Brown been good to his word he would have enjoyed surpluses in the years of plenty so that now we had scope to spend in the years of dearth? Had he acted with prudence we would be getting value for money out of our public services and not seeing productivity drop (and value for money). The simple fact is that National Debt interest payments will rise from £27.2bn in 2008/9 to £42.9bn in 2010/11. That means £15.7bn of taxes are going to pay debt interest rather than paying for front line services. Not just next year but the year after and the year after that — in fact forever.
Mr Chaytor’s boast of lower mortgage payments because of lower interest rates ignores the fact that pensioners are getting less interest on their hard earned savings. Those reaching pension age are now getting much less income for the rest of their lives from their pension contributions that they have built up over many years. Will Mr Chaytor take credit for this? Will he take credit for the drop in the number of final salary pension schemes in the private sector caused in part by Gordon Brown’s removal of tax relief?
Mr Chaytor boasts of spending in Bury. Will he explain why his constituents are worse off than the Scots and the Welsh? Why should prescription charges be made in England? Why should we pay for car parking at our hospitals in England when in Wales it is free? Why do students in Scotland not have to pay tuition fees? And more.
When Labour came to power in 1997 the economy was improving. In fact until 2000 the Government had a surplus, not a deficit. This was because they followed the previous Conservative Government’s financial plans. The Labour Government then went on a spending spree that has resulted in the present mess. Mr Chaytor needs to take responsibility for Labour’s mismanagement of the economy before attacking others for their ideas in solving the disastrous state of the public finances.
All these attacks on ideas for spending cuts and bankers’ bonuses are but a smokescreen. Until the Labour Party accepts its responsibility for the current situation nobody is going to believe that it has credible plans to put prudence back into the public finances Realist Hawkshaw
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