Tories should be bold enough to hand back some of our money
A SENSE of gloom is enveloping the economy.
A slide towards recession seems all but inevitable. And what has worsened the crisis has been the Government’s grotesque mishandling of public finances.
Through a mixture of recklessness, incompetence and political dogma, our rulers have squandered a fortune, plunging the Treasury into massive debt and driving up taxes to pay for their spending binge.
Most of the hard-working public, weighed down by the biggest tax burden in history, have gained nothing from the State’s larceny and profligacy. Public services, especially health, education and transport, remain dismal in spite of all the vast sums they have swallowed.
Too many of our schools have become citadels of mass ignorance, too many of our hospitals swamps of mass infection.
At every turn, the ordinary citizen is hit by rapacious demands from the State machine, whether in soaring fuel charges, national insurance, stamp duty, council tax bills or continual hits on savings and income.
The only gainers have been the army of benefit claimants, who are generously rewarded for their refusal to work, and the growing number of well-paid officials within the State’s vast, useless bureaucracy.
Instead of reversing these destructive tendencies, last week’s Budget worsened them. Synthetic concern for the environment was used by Chancellor Alistair Darling as a convenient cover for imposing rises in “green taxes”, while yet more money was pumped into the welfare system with the professed aim of “lifting children out of poverty” – though in reality higher social security expenditure increases poverty by heightening the dependency culture and removing incentives to work.
If Darling and his boss Gordon Brown thought their bag of tricks might fool the electorate, they were badly mistaken.
The Government’s ratings have plummeted since the Budget. One opinion poll published at the weekend showed Labour’s popularity has fallen to 27 per cent, the party’s lowest level since the mid-Eighties.
The survey also found 67 per cent of people thought that the Government should tax, and spend, less.
The growing cynicism towards Labour presents the Conservatives with a golden opportunity to press the case for an alternative economic strategy. Yet there are signs the Tory Party may be too timid to exploit the public mood.
Scarred by three successive election defeats and pummelled by Labour propaganda that portrays the Conservatives as “uncaring”, David Cameron’s Shadow Cabinet seems terrified of departing from high-spending, high-taxing socialism.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne has announced that an incoming Tory Government will stick to Labour’s expenditure plans during its first years in office. Even more worryingly, Shadow Chief Secretary Philip Hammond said yesterday there would be no tax cuts in the initial four years of a Cameron-led Government.
The justification for this dispiriting policy is the building up of Treasury reserves so that tax reductions could be offered in a second Tory term. But Hammond failed to recognise that, with his approach, there is precious little chance of a first Tory term.
The country is crying out for change yet his stance is just a counsel of despair, a pathetic surrender to Labour politics. If the Tories are not promising a change in direction from Left-wing greed and waste, it is hard to know why they think they deserve to be elected at all.
Cameron’s party needs to be far bolder. Labour’s approach has plunged our economy into a mess, leaving us vulnerable in the gathering storm of crisis. As the Confederation of British Industry warned, our tax system is making us “uncompetitive” in a climate of turmoil.
British working households, hammered year after year under Labour, deserve a message of hope, not a threat that nothing will change. It is estimated the middle classes have been paying an extra £1,250 every year in tax since 2002. The Tories have a political and moral duty to make that burden lighter and pretending there is no room for significant tax cuts is absurd.
The Government will spend £618billion this year, with far too much of it frittered away on propping up officialdom and a corrupt welfare state.
Around £180billion is spent on quangos such as the £12billion Learning And Skills Council, which has done such
a woeful job in running further education, and the Regional Development Agencies, which are nothing more than expensive talking shops.
Top-heavy management is rife across the public sector, which has grown by more than one million employees since Labour came to power. Moreover, there should be tremendous scope for savings in the £169billion annual bill for the benefits system.
