It's the waiting that gets me

As you may have deduced from my previous post I actually forked out £2 for 'Rupe's Rag', The Sunday Times, today.  To call it a rag is rather unfair because it turned out to be quite a good read but the fact is that I am rather cross with 'Rupe' who has not only stopped me from reading his rag free of charge on the net but has also hidden one of my favourite bloggers, Oliver Kamm, behind his wretched pay-wall, too.  Anyway, finding myself far from home and next to a newsagent this morning I treated myself to a copy.

I was impressed by an article from Michael Portillo, and depressed by one from Imogen Stubbs, of which more later.  Sticking with Portillo who, unlike so many astute but outside commentators, has actually been on the inside of government where the blood is spilt, I was interested to see his suggestion that 'Cameron's savage cuts', as they will undoubtedly be labelled by the Left, will likely fall far short of expectations - not that that will save them from a chorus of wailing and gnashing of (false) teeth!

Portillo describes the scene in the 'Star Chamber', of which he has prior experience, when the chairman, Danny Alexander, and a phalanx of senior ministers call in departmental heads one at a time and go through their meagre and pathetic 'cuts' and insist that more is needed.  However, Portillo warns that whether or not ministers buckle will depend on their sense of whether the Prime Minister will or will not flinch at the bad headlines which will almost certainly flow, along with the blood, when they are announced.  One not very promising augury lies in Cameron's hasty retreat from the very sensible idea that it is not the business of HMG to buy milk for nippers.  Terrified of being labelled 'Maggie Mk. II', he instantly turned, er, milky, himself, and ran away.  That will have been noted by departmental ministers!

Portillo reckons that the hopes engendered by the 'bliss in that dawn' when the coalition was formed and expectations were for fiscal cuts to be four-fifths of what was required to deal with the deficit and only one-fifth of tax hikes, are almost certainly doomed to failure.  Even 'that woman' only managed 50-50!  The real test will lie in the welfare budgets.  According to Portillo there is no chance that the coalition will actually cut benefit rates and the various bullying tactics (much needed in my view) to force claiments back to work (assuming there is any work to go back to!) is never going to save a quarter of the £150 billion budget of the Department for Work and Pensions which is needed.

So, expect an equal amount of smoke and mirrors from the government as they duck and dive to match that of the opposition led by 'Mr. Bean' as they forecast the end of the world as we know it.  As always, we shall have to depend on the 'red-braces brigade' in the City to tell us a sort of truth as to exactly how effective 'Cammy & Cleggy' really are.  In the meantime, we can only sit nervously on the beach and watch as the sea mysteriously recedes over the horizon and wonder what it presages.

 

Comments

[dearieme]

The rational political calculation compares the savings (from scrapping milk: peanuts) with the resultant political ordure (from milk: a huge steaming midden). So he may well have been wise. Political capital should be preserved for important business. He'll need it soon enough.

[David Duff]

Yeees, that sounds sensible but remember that 'Maggie Thatcher, the milk snatcher' went on to win three elections. In other words, she showed some guts adn conviction. It may have been the lack of any sign of either on Cameron's part which was the reason he failed to win a shoo-in election.