Britannia Radio

Clearly the wake-up call has finally penetrated to the heart of the 
Tory party, assisted, no doubt, by some unpleasant polling trends.

Letwin  has been drafted to add to the Treasury team specifically to 
find areas of Brown's expenditure plans which could be cut without 
harming the nation.  One must ask why it has taken till now for this 
to supersede the previous policy of matching Labour expenditure, 
which as any beginner could see was wildly extravagant.

However unlike a certain blog which has clearly got a death-wish for 
the nation when it says cynically " A Tory victory would be an even 
bigger catastrophe for the country than a continued Labour 
administration." .    This is clearly balderdash .  The Tories may be 
criticised for indecision and lack of drive but their approach is 
right even if not nearly radical enough.  Meanwhile Brown is doing 
what all Labour governments end up doing - wrecking the currency!  
I've lived through a lot of them  - more than most readers! - but  
Brown's reckless spending has been worse than any and his only cure 
is to step his very recklessness to a new high.   We're on the brink 
now and we can't afford any more at all of his catastrophic policies.

I am not a member of the Conservative party but I know where my duty 
as a citizen lies now.  I will continue to urge ever m ore radical 
solutions and hope that at least some will come to fruition.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx cs
===========================
CONSERVATIVE HOME B log   16.11.08
1. Osborne hits back at critics on Andrew Marr Show

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has hit back at his critics during 
an assured performance on BBC1's on the sofa with Andrew Marr this 
morning.

He made a number of points, including:
. It is his job to show the choice the people will face at the next 
election between a Labour Government which has been fiscally 
irresponsible and a Tory one which would be fiscally responsible;
. He believes that he and the Conservatives have been proved right 
in their economic judgments over the last couple of years;
. He is still committed to "sharing the proceeds of growth" over an 
economic cycle;
. The recent devaluation of sterling has been greater than any other 
devaluation in the last forty years;
. He highlighted Ken Clarke's statement that there was no convention 
that shadow chancellors do not comment on sterling;
. He said that (contrary to press reports during the week) he was 
still working on strategy and election planning, not least because 
the economy would be such a big election issue
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 

AND 

2. It is both the right and duty of the Opposition to hold the 
Government to account
Jonathan Isaby

Twice this week the Prime Minister has accused Her Majesty's Loyal 
Opposition of speaking out inappropriately.

First came the moment during Prime Ministers' Questions when Mr Brown 
took exception to David Cameron's line of questioning about the 
failures at the heart of Haringey chidren's services.

And then yesterday, he expressed "disappointment" at George Osborne's 
"partisan talk" when the shadow chancellor raised perfectly 
reasonable questions over the dangers of too much borrowing. (By the 
way, the PM would do well do look at the results of today's 
Independent on Sunday poll which show the public overwhelmingly 
supporting a reduction in spending rather than increased borrowing to 
fund tax cuts)

All of which raises the question, isn't it the role, nay duty, of the 
Opposition to raise probing questions about the issues of the day and 
the way the Prime Minister and his Government is running the country?

As Fraser Nelson has rightly pointed out on Coffee House:
"There has never been a greater need for full-blooded, disrespectful, 
combative, full-on scrutiny of what he [Brown] says."

Amen to that. It would be a dereliction of duty on the part of the 
Opposition to stand idly by and let the Prime Minister get away with 
whatever he wants in the name of "doing the right thing by the country".

Mr Brown would obviously take the view that what he is doing is 
right; but it is absolutely vital that he be held to account, 
criticised, questioned and condemned as necessary when what he is 
doing and saying is evidently not the right thing for the country.

Many have expressed concerns at various points over the last few 
years that the Conservative Party has taken a too consensual 
approach, not least in its desire to match Labour's spending plans, 
for instance.

So it's reassuring to see some fire in the Tory belly - and it has 
clearly rattled the Prime Minister. I look forward to seeing more 
robust lines of attack from David Cameron, George Osborne et al in 
the run-up to the general election.

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

 AND

3.Ken Clarke adds his heavyweight backing to George Osborne

During the course of Saturday, a number of shadow cabinet figures and 
others made clear their support for shadow chancellor George Osborne 
over his outspoken attack on the Government in the Times, in which he 
stated that too much government borrowing risked a run on the pound.

Perhaps most significantly, the former Chancellor Ken Clarke has now 
added his voice to unquestionably back Mr Osborne's position - and to 
pour scorn on the suggestion coming from political opponents that it 
was breaking a convention for him to speak out in this way.

Here's what Ken Clarke has had to say:
"I have never heard of any convention that Opposition politicians - 
including the Shadow Chancellor - cannot comment on Sterling. The 
foreign exchange markets had already made their minds up about the 
pound, regardless of any political comment.

"Gordon Brown reminds me of Harold Wilson blaming the weakness of 
sterling on people 'selling the pound short' when it had already been 
weakened by his government's own policies. The pound has dropped more 
than 30% from its peak because of concern in the markets about the 
scale of government borrowing.

"George Osborne has made a perfectly sensible comment that in any 
analysis of the situation, one must have regard to the possible 
problems of selling more government bonds, or of a possible fall in 
the value of sterling if government policy becomes too reckless."

=================

Osborne is like a man waking from a deep sleep  and coming gradually 
to his senses - very gradually .  His article, first here, is well 
thought out.

The Sunday Times does a hatchet job here   (see second posting 
below).  Of course, Osborne has brought it on himself but he appears 
to have - at least partially - woken up.

Christina  aka Cassandra
===========================
SUNDAY TELEGRAPH   16.11.08
Our reckless PM is leading us down the road to ruin
By George Osborne

The defining economic event of the post-war era was the Labour 
Government's humiliating appeal to the IMF for help in 1976. Unable 
to fund its debt, incapable of controlling spending, powerless in the 
face of a sliding pound, it begged for terms to avoid the country 
going bankrupt.

James Callaghan realised the significance of the event when he spoke 
to the Labour conference later that year and warned them: "We used to 
think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase 
employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell 
you in all candour that that option no longer exists." But Labour 
wasn't listening.

What followed was 18 years of Conservative governments that took the 
tough decisions and transformed the economic prospects of our 
country. Then along came Gordon Brown, desperate to exorcise the 
demons of Labour's economic incompetence.

Time and again he extolled the virtues of prudence, of setting 
responsible limits to borrowing, of the need for binding fiscal 
rules, and of creating a credible macroeconomic framework that would 
inspire international confidence in the British economy.

He told his party conference in 1997 that he had "learned from past 
mistakes", acknowledging that "you cannot spend your way out of 
recession". As recently as two years ago, Mr Brown was telling us 
solemnly that "to make unfunded promises, to play fast and loose with 
stability is a return to the bad old days". For a while he fooled 
almost everyone.

But today all that talk of prudence is over. As is true in life, so 
it's true in politics: the fundamental test of your values is not 
what you say when times are good, it's what you do when the going 
gets tough. It was easy for Mr Brown to talk tough on the public 
finances when the global economy was booming, even if he was racking 
up the biggest budget deficit in the developed world while other 
countries were using the good times to build up budget surpluses.

No, it's what the Prime Minister is doing now that demonstrates his 
true colours. He's going around briefing about plans for unfunded tax 
and spending commitments paid for by reckless borrowing. Our response 
to Mr Brown could not be clearer: piling up more debts and trying to 
spend your way out of the recession would be a monumental mistake, 
both for today and for the future. It is the road to economic ruin 
for our country. Let me explain why.

First, and most obviously, all borrowing has to be paid for, as even 
the Chancellor was forced to admit last week. As Martin Wiele of the 
National Institute for Economic and Social Research puts it, "a 
fiscal stimulus today is borrowing from tomorrow".

Even before the downturn, Mr Brown had already increased national 
debt to precipitous levels of almost £650 billion, more than £26,000 
for every household in the country. And, as if those figures weren't 
eye-watering enough, they don't include massive liabilities such as 
public sector pensions and the true cost of PFI debt that the Prime 
Minister has spent years hiding off the Government's books. In fact, 
if these are taken into account, it's estimated that the full extent 
of government liabilities is £2.4 trillion, equivalent to more than 
160 per cent of the UK's GDP.

Because Labour didn't fix the roof when the sun was shining, 
additional borrowing now means higher taxes just as the economy is 
starting to recover. Paying back Mr Brown's planned £15 billion in 
extra borrowing is the equivalent of an additional £880 tax bill for 
every family in the country. This is a tax bombshell lying ready to 
explode under the recovery.

The crippling debt levels aren't the only problem with Mr Brown's 
plans. The second fundamental flaw is that the more government 
borrows, the more taxpayers have to shell out for the debt interest 
bill - the "bill of social failure", as the Prime Minister used to 
call it. Labour is already spending more of your money on servicing 
its debts than on educating the country's children. Higher borrowing 
means things would get even worse. Taxpayers could soon be spending 
more on debt interest payments than on the entire Ministry of Defence 
budget. The third fatal flaw with Mr Brown's irresponsible plans is 
that additional borrowing exerts downwards pressure on sterling and 
upwards pressure on long-term interest rates.

The value of the pound moves daily in both directions on the currency 
markets. But the trend is clear, and the run on the pound in recent 
months has been dramatic and sharper than anything we saw in the 
previous Labour devaluations of the 1960s and 1970s, or even the year 
after the exit from the ERM. We have witnessed a near 30 per cent 
fall in the value of sterling, a larger and more sudden fall than any 
other major currency. More strikingly still, the international 
markets are now demanding almost double the risk premium for British 
government debt than they demand for German government debt. That's a 
sure sign of the global lack of confidence in British government 
policy. Falling sterling ultimately means pressure for higher long-
term inflation and higher long-term interest rates.

So this much is clear: Mr Brown's irresponsible plans are not a way 
forward. They're a return to the dark old days of spiralling deficits 
and capital flight that are the hallmark of every Labour government 
to have ever held office.

As has been the case so many times before, it's the next Conservative 
government that will have to clean up the mess left by a profligate 
and irresponsible Labour Party. We will have to establish a credible 
framework for bringing the public finances under control. That means 
creating a target of a balanced current budget and falling debt at 
the end of the forecast period, policed by a powerful and independent 
Office for Budget Responsibility that will publish independent fiscal 
forecasts and hold governments to account. To satisfy the independent 
scrutiny, we will have to get government living within its means 
again. The age of irresponsible excess in the public sector will be 
over.

And to get the economy moving again, we would use fully funded tax 
changes to help families and businesses get through the recession, 
such as our commitment to freeze council tax, our plan to cut taxes 
for employers who take on unemployed people, our cut in payroll taxes 
for the smallest firms, and our policy to allow small and medium-
sized companies to defer their VAT bills.

When Gordon Brown claimed he had abolished boom and bust, it was not 
only one of the greatest frauds perpetrated on the British people - 
it also meant that no one in government was looking for the boom or 
preparing for the bust. As a result, the country now faces what is 
forecast to be the deepest recession of any major economy in the world.
===========================
SUNDAY TIMES   16.11.08
Under-fire George Osborne says: 'I was just telling the truth about 
sterling'

Francis Elliott, Deputy Political Editor

George Osborne has defended his warning that sterling could be about 
to collapse saying it was his job was to tell the truth about the 
consequences of ballooning debt.

The Shadow Chancellor told The Times yesterday that increased public 
borrowing was already making the currency "less attractive" and there 
was a risk of a "run on the pound".

His comments have been criticised by business leaders as well as by 
Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, and Vince Cable, the Liberal 
Democrats economy spokesman.

With the currency markets due to reopen tomorrow morning, Mr Osborne 
dismissed suggestions that he had "talked down the pound", however.

"What the markets are doing (is) looking at the economic 
fundamentals. They are not looking at what politicians - be it myself 
or indeed any other politicians - are saying. These are hard headed 
market operators.
"My job as Shadow Chancellor is to tell the British people the truth 
about the British economy. The truth that it is the worst prepared 
economy in the world for recession," he told BBC One's Andrew Marr show.

He said there was a "striking lack of confidence" in sterling on 
currency markets and that higher debt was a "bombshell" beneath any 
future recovery.

In the absence of public backing from Mr Cameron on the sterling 
warning,  [totally untrue! -cs] Mr Osborne faced questions over his 
relationship with the Conservative leader. Speculation that his role 
has been diluted in the wake of the Oleg Deripaska affair continued 
over the weekend with a report that Oliver Letwin had been asked to 
draw up a package of potential spending cuts.

He said he was "working very closely all the time" with Mr Cameron, 
but refused to say whether Mr Cameron had given him an "absolute" 
assurance that his job was safe.

Senior aides insist that the Tory leader will endorse his shadow 
chancellor's warning on sterling when he launches a new attack on the 
Government's economic policies early this week.

Mr Darling sought to turn up the pressure on his shadow querying his 
judgment and insisting that it was "utterly pointless to offer a 
running commentary" on the pound.

"All I would say is this, that a few weeks ago the Tories offered a 
bipartisan approach, now that has clearly gone to the wind.  [Of 
course it has, and quite right too! -cs]
"At a time like this, this is when we at home and when we with other 
countries across the world should be working together, that is what 
people expect and that is what I intend to stick to. It is for others 
to decide what what they are going to do.
"I do worry and wonder about their judgment here. Only a few weeks 
ago David Cameron said and he was asked specifically was it right to 
let borrowing rise to support the economy at a time like this and he 
said yes you would expect borrowing to go up. [Of course it would , 
through increased unemployment pay, unless economies in spending were 
made and they have no intention of making any economies anywhere -cs]
"Within a day they said that was the wrong approach - they completely 
changed tack. What I find difficult to understand, inasmuch you can 
discern what the Conservatives' policy is at the moment, where 
exactly they stand."