Tuesday 2nd December

I have lived my whole life slowly understanding, but never becoming reconciled to, an inherent unfairness.  We get most of our information from the Press, or TV, or possibly nowadays by quite openly biased alternative websites which do at least offer a different if still skewed vision of the World.  The Labour party are at the very difficult point of presenting their prospective policies ahead of the General Election and are coming under scrutiny, which is quite right and proper.  They are proposing two things – one, that they will, at least to begin with, stick to Tory spending plans.  But they are proposing spending an extra 2.5 billion (peanuts actually) on the NHS.  All the commentators are now questioning exactly how they will pay for this, almost gleefully.  The accepted wisdom of the right-wing press is that Labour spend and tax recklessly, and so even when Ed Balls meticulously explains their costed spending plans which include a mansion tax they are mocked, their calculations rubbished and their arguments ignored.

Yesterday George Osborne in well orchestrated leaks announced an extra 2 billion for the NHS.  When asked politely how the country could afford this he smiled and repeated the mantra that now that the economy was fixed it was time to spend this money, even though over 3 billion has just been wasted on yet another pointless re-organisation, to say nothing of the billions the introduction of Universal Credit is costing.  So, the economy is fixed.  So, that’s alright then.  And nobody questions this statement. The truth us that the deficit, the difference between what is raised in taxes and how much we spend is still over 100 billion a year.  And rising.  It had been steadily but slowly falling but this year it has increased again.  It is in fact in proportion to our GDP higher than the deficit in France, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Greece.  Yes, Greece, you remember them – the basket case of Europe.  Well, their public finances are actually in better shape than ours.

In 2010 Osborne proudly announced that the cuts he was making would wipe the deficit out by 2015.  In 2013 he extended this deadline to 2018.  Any guesses when it might be now?

So, Labour are mauled by the press when they propose spending 2.5 billion (and raising money to pay for it) and yet the Tories are praised for spending 2 billion with no extra revenue.  Incredible.  Oh, by the way Cameron also promised (unspecified) tax cuts if he is re-elected and was applauded for this.  Unfairness, yes we expect a degree of that, but this is ridiculous and it makes my blood boil.