Cameron announces audit of 'crazy' Labour spending

[dipsydoodle]

David Cameron has announced an audit of the government's books after finding examples of "crazy" spending decisions in Labour's last year in power.

The prime minister told BBC One's Andrew Marr show the review would be officially launched on Monday by the new Office of Budget Responsibility.

He also said there would be a crackdown on top civil service pay and bonuses.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8685125.stm

[fedsron2us]

1. All incoming Tory governments make the same claim

Thatcher did the same in 1979 though the truth was Healy had done most of the heavy lifting in spending cuts for her.

They all do it so they blame any nasty measures on their predecessors

Labour already had hefty reduction in the civil service pencilled into the plans as any brief visit to the PCS Union Web site would tell you.

The awful truth is that this country can no more cut it way to prosperity than it can spend it way there.

The entire focus of the economy has to be moved from financial services, personal consumption and and an insane obsession with inflating house prices to something more productive and sustainable.

The main problem form the Brown and Blair years was not that the government borrowed and spent too much but that the rest of the population and many corporations did so too.

Far too much money was malinvested in assets such as domestic property that had no tangible productive yield.

It was a mirage that has vanished.

The problem is that this government has no more clue how to deal with this problem than its predecessor. Indeed, on areas such as the proper value of housing (which is 3-4 times average earnings on historic trends) the Lib Dems and the Tories have been as crushingly silent as Labour.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Ever so slightly different on this occasion

given the inevitable cuts which were or should have been in the pipeline.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

3. Good post n/t

[LeftishBrit]

4. All too true.

[non sociopath skin]

6. Excellent post, Feds.

The Tory press was full of "Only the Tories can save US" ... and we know who the "US" is.

Not creche staff at SureStart, I'll wager,

The Skin

[TheBigotBasher]

8. Liberal Democrats and surprisingly Howard's Conservatives

highlighted the dangers of the high house price inflation in 2005, although only the Liberal Democrat proposed anything to deal with it.

Neil Kinnock also highlighted the dangers back before the 1992 election which of course resulted in Daily Hate smear stories, however his party died when Neo-Con Labour was born.

[Hopeless Romantic]

5. and who is going to be conducting the audit?

[fedsron2us]

7. Alan Budd

A man who spent a good part of his career at the Treasury and was appointed by Gordon Brown as a founding member of the BOE MMC in 1997

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a2ee24d6-5ed9-11df-af86-00144feab49a.html

The man is Establishment to his finger tips so do not expect anything that will frighten the horses.

It is all a bit academic as the economic tidal wave that is about to sweep the world is going to smash all these hastily erected austerity budget barriers to matchwood.

[TheBigotBasher]

9. One of the worst Chancellors for that was Norman Lamont

who engineered a giant increase in spending before the 1992 election, I think he expected to lose. He was implementing a policy he did not agree with (the ERM) and one that he expected to fail. He was also not expecting to pick up the tab after the election.

In many ways it was lucky for Labour to lose that election, they would have been a one term government who would have ended up being replaced by an unreformed Portaloo.