Britannia Radio

From the twistings and turnings, the evasions and the half-truths it is clear that “the books” when the Tories finally get to look at them - provided they do! - are in a worse state than anyone has admitted.

The Tories are right not to make abolition of the NI extra 1% ‘Jobs tax’ a manifesto promise but they come as close as they dare without seeing those books. He makes “a very clear statement of intent” but he has to be the judge of that when he gets the chance. Things are moving fast on the whole financial crisis and it would be irresponsible to go further now. Rescuing the country must take priority over everything.

Christina

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TELEGRAPH 12.12.09

Labour has declared war on ordinary voters

Telegraph View: Labour has not just declared war on the super-rich, but also on ordinary, hard-working British voters. It is the Tories' job to fight back on their behalf.

According to 10 Downing Street yesterday, there were no disagreements between the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer over the contents of the pre-Budget report (PBR). If this were, in fact, the case, it would be one of the few occasions in recorded history that the First Lord of the Treasury and his next-door neighbour have not fallen out about such an important statement (other than when Gordon Brown was chancellor and simply did not tell Tony Blair what he was up to). Robust debate is to be expected in government – of course there will be differences in emphasis, and even fierce dispute. Yet we are assured that "there was absolutely no disagreement on maintaining spending for 2010-11 and no disagreement on halving the deficit in four years".

Why is Mr Brown so determined to quash suggestions that the Treasury wanted to take a tougher line on public spending? Because this immediately raises the question as to why it was refused permission to do so – especially when the bond markets were demanding that the PBR contain a clear plan as to how Britain would get its finances back into shape.

If the Treasury did initially intend a more detailed debt reduction plan than was eventually announced, then with the public finances in their worst state in living memory, the question must be put: why was this option not taken?

Political calculation, can be the only answer. In the end, Mr Brown put his own interests ahead of the country's. Not only that, but Alistair Darling's alternative fiscal approach – increasing VAT rather than raising National Insurance contributions for 10 million people – was vetoed. As a consequence, the pre-Budget report took on a surreal quality. Far from being cut, public spending will actually increase in absolute terms next year.

An additional £31 billion is to be spent, come what may, on the NHS, education, and law and order – despite ample evidence that 12 years of simply pouring cash into all three areas has failed to bring about improvements commensurate with the investment. Mr Brown was spending again yesterday, pledging £1.5 billion over three years to tackle global warming in the world's poorest countries.

The Prime Minister spent many years giving the impression that he had discovered the Philosopher's Stone of economics by abolishing the boom and bust cycle, when all he had done was ride a wave of unparalleled economic growth until it crashed on to the rocks of global recession. When calamity came, he was unprepared, having spent all the rainy-day money that a prudent man might have kept in reserve. Even then, despite his limited options, Mr Brown was unwilling to use the word "cut" in relation to public spending – it had to be dragged out of him.

For all its obfuscation, Labour is planning an eventual spending squeeze – but only once the election is safely out of the way, as the Institute for Fiscal Studies discovered by burrowing into the Treasury's published documents. So why was the Chancellor not more open with the country? The Government's motives for its actions were clearly political rather than economic.

Faced with such a lack of candour, the Conservatives are finding it hard to focus on their target. It should, though, be a straightforward task to develop a rhetoric that stands up for enterprise, low taxes and living within our means. This was the week that Labour put its own prospects ahead of the country's and once again asked the middle classes to pay for the governing party's profligacy and incompetence. Labour has not just declared war on the super-rich, but also on ordinary, hard-working British voters. It is the Tories' job to fight back on their behalf.

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THE TIMES 12.12.09

We will drop national insurance increase, says Osborne

Alice Thomson, Rachel Sylvester and Philip Webster

George Osborne today pitches for the votes of middle Britain with his clearest hint that the Conservatives will campaign at the general election on a promise to stop Labour’s planned 1 per cent rise in national insurance.

In an interview with The Times, the Shadow Chancellor said that his first priority if the Tories were elected would be to avoid the tax increase announced by Alistair Darling, which is due to come into effect in April 2011.

“I will do everything I can to avoid that tax rise,” he said. “The national insurance rise is a tax on jobs. It is a tax on people earning more than £20,000. That is middle Britain, the aspirational classes who want to get on in life, the people who are out working hard for their families.”

Although Mr Osborne insisted that he was not yet ready to give a firm commitment, he said: “I am giving you a very clear statement of intent ... the No 1 priority is to try to avoid bringing it in, that is something you can judge us on between now and 2011.”

Mr Osborne’s intervention comes amid claims of a split between Mr Darling and Gordon Brown over the Pre-Budget Report. Treasury officials have claimed that Mr Darling wanted to give more details of how he would bring down the £178 billion deficit. It is also known that a Treasury plan to raise VAT was rejected by Mr Brown and other ministers.

Concerned that a perceived rift might threaten Britain’s top credit rating, Mr Brown said that the reports of clashes were completely wrong.

Mr Osborne is certain to come under pressure to show how he could afford to scrap the 2011 rise, which the Treasury said would raise £6.94 billion. This week the Chancellor announced that Labour would increase national insurance by a further 0.5 per cent on top of the 0.5 per cent rise announced a year ago.

The Tories hope that a promise to block the increase would put them on the side of hard-working families and throw off Labour accusations that they are the party of the rich. The rise would apply to employers paying salaries of more than £14,000 and people earning £20,000 or above.

“Someone earning £20,000 isn’t rich,” the Shadow Chancellor said. “These are people below the medium income but they are what Gordon Brown thinks of now as rich. Gordon Brown’s class war now has squarely in its sights someone on £20,000. I think he has made a massive political error.”

Mr Osborne also warned that the national insurance rise would put further pressure on companies already struggling to cope with the recession. “If you are trying to help new businesses start up, create new jobs, deal with very high unemployment ... putting a tax on jobs isn’t sensible.”

[ AND the hypocrisy of the lies that Darling spoke have been exposed this morning when the promise that he gave that the Old Age Pension would rise in April by 2.5% proves to be a deceit and an untruth.

“Government accused over 'shabby' pensions move

The Government was today accused of treating pensioners in an "underhand and shabby" manner after it was disclosed that its promised 2.5 per cent rise did not apply to all elements of the state pension...... the uprating would not apply to extras, such as the State Earnings Related Pension (Serps), which will remain frozen.

At the same time, the small earnings-related supplement called graduated pension which is paid to more than 10 million people, and the additional pension of £57.05 paid to 41,000 men who have wives under 60 were also said to have been held at this year's levels.” (Independent 12/12/09)