Britannia Radio

Darling's done it!  

He's wrecked the country. 

He followed the Brown 
pattern of bludgeoning everyone with statistics, percentages and 
figures plucked out of the stratosphere.   

In the torrent of such a 
smokescreen there can be no time for consideration or calling for 
justification.  

It just pours out.  Brown did this in every budget 
and one must wonder if HE wrote the speech.  

It was full of micro- managment of  everything  (a Brown speciality) 

and if I ran a small 
business I would be tearing my hair out at the thought of the 
bureaucratic jungle that would be needed to access all of the small 
benefits proposed.

  Firstly Darling chucked out some utterly lunatic projections for 
fantastic growth in  the economy  which nobody in their right mind 
could possibly trust.  It's all going to come right next summer,  he 
says,  and to believe that requires suspension of one's brain functions.

He's doubling the national debt.  Now at present we pay interest on 
the national debt which debt costs us each year double what we pay on 
the NHS!  If its double now  it will cost us in future  4 times the 
NHS cost just  to service the national debt.  Not once did he 
acknowledge the monstrous burden it places on the citizens of the 
future - the very near future!

He had some temporary give-aways to win the election of which the 
biggest was the reduction in VAT (when both Germany and France have 
rejected such a move as being ineffective).  These will  lumber the 
next government into making savage permanent increases to claw the 
over-borrowing back.

He made climate-change expenditure sacrosanct when, in fact,  it is a 
total waste of resources and when in other countries - notably in 
Germany and Poland -  pressure is building to scale the whole process 
back.

He showed no sign of being willing to alter a single policy even when 
many of them are either failing, failed or detested.

Osborne, speaking without a prior view of the speech, was scathing as 
well he might be , though he too evaded any question of scrapping 
policy sacred-cows.  His response was tough but effective.

xxxxxxxxxxxx cs

[BBC cut from the HoC before Cable for the Lib Dems though that 
party's former leader Manzies was scathing too,  out on the chilly 
lawn!   See comments below)
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POLITICS HOME   24.11.08
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BBC News  at 15:25

Iain Duncan Smith: Britain "is in a mess"

Iain Duncan Smith, Former Conservative Leader

Mr. Smith criticised the government's response to the financial 
crisis.  He said: "This country is in a mess.  It's not just the 
economy.  You can't spend your way out of this."

He added: "Whatever else comes, the key problem is: if the banks do 
not lent money, all this largesse will mean nothing because 
businesses will close, houses will be taken off people.  The 
nightmare will come in February and March."

BBC Two at 17:05

Later, Mr. Smith said that the pre budget report was more about 
politics than economics.  He said: "the government has embarked on a 
spending programme on an unprecedented basis.  Who trusts the 
Treasury forcasts?  I don't."

He added: "The government will have to double the amount of taxes it 
gives back.  It's pretty cynical."
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BBC News  at 15:28
Menzies Campbell: Govt had no choice but to respond

Sir Menzies Campbell, Former Liberal Democrat Leader

Sir Menzies said that the Labour government had to respond to the 
financial crisis.  Sir Menzies said: "To stand back and do nothing 
would mean that the effect of this recession would be far worse.

"The IMF said that Britain will be the worst hit of the 13 largest 
economies.  It would be damaging economically and politically.

He said that the Chancellor should be announcing a fully funded tax 
cut and a reform of the capital gains tax.

He added: "We need a recognition of the fact that the middle and 
lower income families have paid too high a price."

BBC Two at 17:00

Sir Menzies later said that while the pre budget report was rather 
policial, he said: "Osborne's response was pretty poltical too."

He said that Mr. Darling had "missed an opportunity."  Sir Menzies 
added: "The best way to stimulate the economy is to put money back 
into the pockets of people, not to take £5 off of a 250 flat screen TV.

"He's operated a kind of equaliser; though you may pay less in VAT, 
you will pay more in petrol.
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Sky News at 17:19
Darling "hoping for every luck in the world", says Ken Clarke

Ken Clarke, former Chancellor of the Exchequer

Mr Clarke warned that the projections on which the government has 
based its fiscal stimulus package is "not really credible".

"It's really just fingers crossed, hoping for every luck in the 
world," he said.

He said that the recovery "will be much more painful and hard" than 
the Chancellor had set out.

He added: "His successor is going ot face a very great problem 
getting the public finances sorted out".
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Sky News at 17:25
Clegg: Rise in National Insurance is "a massive tax sting"

Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrat Leader

Mr. Clegg criticised the Chancellor's pre budget report.  He said 
"he's given British families a temporary cut in VAT and a massive tax 
sting in National Insturance which will hurt working families in this 
coutntry."

He added: "This 45p rate on earnings over £150,000 is irrelevant.  
That is a great pity because it now leaves |Britain more vulnerable 
to the economic shock and more unfair than it was before."

He gave Mr. Darling's pre budget report "barely a 5" out of 10.
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BBC News at 17:29
PBR won't change anything, says Lord Lawson

Lord Lawson, Former Chancellor

Lord Lawson said that the pre budget report would not be very 
effective.  He said: "we got into a mess, this country.  We had the 
biggest consumer credit binge than any other country has had.  After 
the binge, you have the hangover."

He said that the VAT tax cut was "neither here nor there," adding: 
"It's not going to make any significant difference and will be 
totally undiscernable.

"I think the political balance is quite clear: this is a government 
which has got this country into a tremendous economic mess, 
particularly with the finances.  I don't think that anything that was 
said today goes away from that."