George Osborne

Don’t Congratulate George Osborne For Stealing Labour’s Living Wage

Samuel Hooper13 Comments

George Osborne - Budget 2015 - Living Wage - Minimum Wage - Conservative Party

 

We are in danger of getting so carried away praising George Osborne’s tactical genius in commandeering Labour’s compulsory national living wage that we forget to notice his total betrayal of conservative principles.

On a purely tactical level, George Osborne’s Budget of 2015 – the Conservative Party’s first for nineteen years – was a masterstroke.

At the nadir of Ed Miliband’s dismal attempt at being Leader of the Opposition, the Labour Party attempted to wow voters with their feeble plan to increase the minimum wage to £8 per hour – by the year 2020. And yet despite having defeated Labour resoundingly in the 2015 general election, it seems that the Tories were only just getting started – they have now twisted the knife by neutralising Labour’s main line of attack against the budget with their secret weapon, a re-branded “national living wage” of £9 per hour by 2020. With Tories like this, who needs the Labour Party anyway?

A fair question. But given George Osborne’s shameless appropriation of a flagship Labour policy, here’s another equally valid question: why bother voting Conservative ever again, either?

The national minimum wage – state control over the wages and employment conditions of over one million people – is a thoroughly un-conservative idea. What’s more, George Osborne’s rush to embrace the living wage makes a mockery of conservative arguments against government-controlled pay – either the Chancellor is deliberately riding roughshod over conservative orthodoxy, or he genuinely believes that conservatives were wrong about the minimum wage all along.

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What Kind Of Politician Has To Enshrine Their Own Promises In Law?

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

David Cameron - Conservative Party - NI VAT Income Tax Lock - General Election 2015

 

“No other chancellor in the long history of the office has felt the need to pass a law in order to convince people he has the political will to implement his own Budget” – George Osborne, 2009

“We will legislate in the first hundred days to make sure these taxes can’t go up” – David Cameron, 2015

 

What kind of politician has to promise to enshrine their campaign pledges in law?

The answer, of course, is one who cannot be trusted – one who knows that their promises are quite unachievable, but desperately wants to portray a strong belief in their viability. And this is exactly the cheap trick now played by David Cameron and George Osborne, only five years after they mocked Labour Chancellor Alastair Darling for doing the same thing.

The Spectator drily summarised the Tories’ announcement in their Election 2015 Espresso bulletin:

The Conservatives would bring in a law to block rises in VAT, income tax and national insurance for the duration of the next Parliament, David Cameron said today. ‘Why can I make this pledge? Because I’ve seen the books, I know what needs to be done,’ the Prime Minister said. And evidently what needs to be done is to have a pointless law brought in by a leader who once promised to cut red tape. ‘If you trust me, vote for me,’ Cameron says – but his promise of legislation shows that he thinks the public don’t trust him to keep to his word. 

Of course, the Conservative promise to place a legal restriction on government preventing it from raising the “big three” taxes will do no such thing. There is already a legal requirement in place committing the government to eliminating the deficit by the year 2015, and yet here we are, about to go back into the polling booths, and the deficit was not even cut in half – with the national debt continuing to soar upwards.

Will George Osborne find himself on the wrong side of a prison door for having failed to eliminate the deficit? Will the coalition cabinet all receive criminal records? Or will they or the government face civil penalties (raising the hilarious prospect of the government having to pay itself a fine for breaking its own law)? Of course not. These “laws” aren’t worth the paper that the party press releases are printed on, or the air that emanates from the Prime Minister’s mouth as he patronises the British people.

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George Osborne’s Lloyds Bank Share Sale Pledge Is Cynical And Short-Sighted

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

George Osborne - Lloyds Bank - Lloyds Banking Group Share Sale - General Election 2015

 

It isn’t always easy defending Conservative policies. While left wing parties have the luxury of flaunting their “compassionate” credentials with every unfunded pledge and extravagant promise to spend other people’s money, those on the right have the trickier task of explaining that a smaller, less interventionist state and a safety net reserved for those in real need is the only true path to a happier, more self sufficient population.

Visit any left-leaning website or listen to any left-wing activist speak, and it won’t take long before you hear a tirade against the “Evil Tories”, who in the minds of their accusers are not just wrong, but positively eager to hurt the poor and hound the vulnerable. Whether it’s on healthcare and the NHS, welfare reform, tax policy or public services, British conservatives always begin every argument ten points behind, having to battle against the widely-held assumption that conservative policies are motivated only by greed and a desire to protect the interests of those at the top.

Countering this false, pernicious narrative is hard enough at the best of times. And it really doesn’t help when patrician-sounding Conservative politicians like George Osborne announce the “sale” of partly nationalised Lloyds Bank to the public at a discounted price, a giveaway for the middle classes, the politically engaged and the financially literate at the expense of everyone else.

From George Osborne’s triumphalist announcement, published in the Telegraph:

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The Tories Are Fighting The 2015 General Election On Labour’s Turf

Samuel Hooper5 Comments

2015 General Election Tory Conservative Campaign Public Services Austerity

 

Defend our precious public services! All hands to battle stations in defence of our vital public services! Did you know that the 2015 general election is all about our public services?

The endless platitudes about the vital importance of “public services” to all our lives are starting to sound a lot like the ludicrous list of new government-approved slogans and phrases for the North Korean people to shout in praise of their Dear Leader.

Following George Osborne’s 2015 Budget, yet another let-down for small government conservatives and believers in fiscal responsibility, this blog took the Conservative Party to task for failing to extol the virtues of a smaller state and greater personal liberty during the election campaign. And today’s latest motivational email from the Conservative Party only serves to hammer home the extent to which David Cameron’s Conservative Party are on the ideological back foot.

From the latest Conservative Party fundraising email:

Together we can deliver.

A Britain that lives within its means.

Reducing the deficit so we can keep investing in vital public services.

Newsflash, CCHQ: life is not all about public services.

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With The 2015 Budget, It’s Finally Time For Labour To Put Up Or Shut Up

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

George Osborne Ed Balls Budget 2015

 

David Cameron’s Conservative Party may only be pretending to care about small government, strutting around in the borrowed robes of fiscal responsibility. But in their feeble reaction to George Osborne’s 2015 budget, the Labour Party – much like the proverbial emperor – have been caught wearing no ideological clothes, and possessing no real principles at all.

We have now experienced nearly five years of coalition government, a Conservative and Liberal Democrat joint venture, and throughout that time the Labour Party has squealed and bitterly protested every single action taken by the government to restore Britain to any kind of good fiscal balance.

One might therefore reasonably expect the Labour Party to be ready with a compelling, explainable and measurable alternative raft of policies to fix Britain as the 2015 general election rapidly approaches. But not only does it seem that Ed Miliband’s Labour Party have no alternative vision for Britain beyond carping about Tory meanness, neither are they willing to commit to reversing any of the coalition government’s spending plans, including those announced in yesterday’s Budget.

The Telegraph reports that Ed Balls will not commit to undoing a single Tory spending measure should Ed Miliband win the keys to 10 Downing Street on 7 May:

Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, admitted that Labour would not reverse George Osborne’s Budget measures, including the flagship measures on savings and Help to Buy.

Speaking in response to yesterday’s Budget, he said “nothing had changed” because the Chancellor had produced an “quite empty” Budget, meaning Labour “wouldn’t need to reverse any of it” if the party was successful at the general election.

“There’s nothing … I need to reverse. What I will reverse are deeper spending cuts in the next three years than the last five.”

Pushed as to whether he would retain Mr Osborne’s widely welcomed plans to spare millions of savers tax and to provide new “Help to Buy Isas” – savings accounts for first time buyers which would be topped up with government cash – Mr Balls told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme he would, adding: “I think the Help to Buy Isa is an interesting idea. We’re not going to abolish it.”

This leaves two rather burning questions: why would anyone in their right mind vote for Labour now that Ed Balls has admitted that he would copy all of George Osborne’s ideas? And isn’t it about time the Labour Party apologised to Conservative and right-wing voters for having said such horrible things about the Evil Tories when they secretly agreed with David Cameron and George Osborne the whole time?

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