Osborne cutting to the point of no return

‘Post 2015 we face either cutting spending on public services to the level of six and half decades ago, rolling back huge segments of the social security system or substantial tax rises’ writes Duncan Weldon of the TUC in a brilliant analysis if the implications of yesterday’s speech by George Osborne MP. The Chancellor reiterated that cuts would continue after the next election in an move calculated to lock down economic policy options into a paradigm of permanent austerity. ‘Politically this is exactly the debate the Chancellor wants’ says Weldon. The big question is whether or not Labour will continue to allow the Tories to set the terms of the debate on public finances or challenge the endless and counter productive spiral of austerity and cuts?
http://touchstoneblog.org.uk/2014/01/financial-repression-deficit-reduction

Public finances a one-way street for cuts crazed Con Dems

George Osborne MP, the government’s leading prophet of austerity, will today announce that ‘more painful cuts’ are needed in the year ahead, pointing out that public borrowing continues at £100bn a year. This is the same government that has depleted public finances by cutting the top rate of tax for those earning more than £150,000 from 50% to 45% and which by 2015 will have brought down Corporation Tax on company profits from 28% to 20%. Whilst, it is to be expected that a government of and for the rich will favour permanent cuts in public services over progressive taxation on the wealthy and increased taxes for corporations, it would be a fatal mistake for an incoming Labour government to adopt the same approach:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25617844

Con Dems continue war against workers across the generations

Yesterday's Autumn Statement from Tory Chancellor George Osborne once again bowed to demands from big business for state subsidies with concessions including a cap on business rates, reduced employers National Insurance contributions and tax relief for city speculators.

Lies, damned lies and Osborne’s statement

To deflect outrage from the OBR’s horrendous forecast that 1.1m public sector jobs will be lost by 2018, in his Autumn Statement Chancellor George Osborne repeated the Prime Minister’s claim from September that ‘1.2m new jobs have been created’ in the private sector since the Coalition Government was elected – a claim which doesn’t stand up to examination with the true figure being 874,000: http://fullfact.org/factchecks/million_private_sector_jobs_PMQs_David_Cameron-28124

Osborne's Austerity Exposed As Lies - Treasury Stops Paying Interest on QE bonds

In a move of enormous cheek and deceit the Treasury has changed its accounting rules so it does not have to pay the Bank of England £35bn in interest payments on the government bonds the Bank bought, by creating electronic money, for its Quantitative Easing (QE) programme.