The Chancellor is trying to distance himself from Gordon Brown but has this idea that he’ll cut sometime but not now, and somewhere as yet undetermined. Not many will fall for that!
Christina
TELEGRAPH 8.9.09
Alistair Darling accused of dodging 'cuts' question
Alistair Darling was last night accused of failing to say anything new about his plans to tackle Britain’s record borrowing levels.
By Andrew Porter, Political Editor at 6.21pm
The Chancellor claimed that Labour was the party that would not flinch from tough spending choices, but George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, said there were no new commitments to cut spending.
Mr Osborne said: “After all the spin, Alistair Darling's speech was striking for what was not in it: no new commitments to reduce spending, no use of the word cuts.
“The speech had nothing to say because this Labour Government has nothing to say about the debt crisis they have created.”
Mr Darling told an audience in Cardiff that the Government’s "first priority" in seeking to bring spending under control would be efficiency savings and shifting resources to the front line, rather than reductions in services.
He attempted to contrast that with David Cameron’s attempt to “cut services.”
The Chancellor said: "This will mean, as Gordon Brown and I have already made clear, hard choices on public spending.
"We won't flinch from these difficult decisions. But we will always be guided by our core values of fairness and responsibility.
“This will be our test of character. Properly targeted public investment can and should make a difference. That means making choices and setting priorities - shifting resources to the front line. It means more efficiency, continuing to reform, cutting costs, public and private sectors working together."
Mr Darling said that Mr Cameron would make cuts immediately, “putting the recovery at risk.”
He said: “Cutting support now, as some are demanding, would run the real risk of choking off the recovery even before it started and prolonging the global downturn.
"But in the medium-term we need to live within our means. Not to do so would be equally irresponsible and damage our country's future."
But Mr Cameron said Labour’s plans to increase spending were unaffordable. The Treasury predicts that borrowing will rise to £175 billion this year.
The Conservative leader said: “We've taken the bold step of saying to the British public very clearly, with a Conservative government, public spending will be cut. Not reduced in growth, not frozen, but cut. That candour is a world away from the current Labour government."
The Conservatives said that Mr Darling’s claim to halve the deficit over the next four years had already been announced in the Budget.
Mr Osborne also highlighted the “spurious” comparisons Mr Darling made with international competitors in his speech.
He said: “The Chancellor made an economic comparison to Germany and Japan, but chose not to mention that figures released today show that the UK has slipped down the international competitiveness rankings. The UK is forecast to have the largest deficit in the G20 and the UK is the only G7 country to have its growth forecast downgraded by the OECD.”
The Chancellor is expected to be more specific about public sector cuts in the Pre Budget Report this autumn.
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