This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.
You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/mar/20/george-osborne-budget-speech-trickery
The article has changed 6 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.
| Version 0 | Version 1 |
|---|---|
| George Osborne's budget speech attempts to pull off a trick of the eye | George Osborne's budget speech attempts to pull off a trick of the eye |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| If George Osborne had been inclined to quote Marx – not Karl, but a line usually attributed to Groucho – in his fourth budget speech, he could have captured the essence of his address with a classic gag from the Depression-era movie Duck Soup: "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" | If George Osborne had been inclined to quote Marx – not Karl, but a line usually attributed to Groucho – in his fourth budget speech, he could have captured the essence of his address with a classic gag from the Depression-era movie Duck Soup: "Who you gonna believe, me or your own eyes?" |
| For this was the question the chancellor was indirectly putting to the electorate. What's going to determine your view of how I'm doing: all this boring stuff confirming an obstinately bleak economic outlook – or the shinier novelties of a penny off a pint of beer, cheaper petrol and a promised bung of cash to push you up the property ladder? | For this was the question the chancellor was indirectly putting to the electorate. What's going to determine your view of how I'm doing: all this boring stuff confirming an obstinately bleak economic outlook – or the shinier novelties of a penny off a pint of beer, cheaper petrol and a promised bung of cash to push you up the property ladder? |
| In that spirit, he sought to dispense with the gloomy evidence that sits stubbornly before the public's own eyes as rapidly as possible. He admitted that, once again, the growth forecasts had been wrong and that growth for 2013 is now half of what had been expected: a measly 0.6%. | In that spirit, he sought to dispense with the gloomy evidence that sits stubbornly before the public's own eyes as rapidly as possible. He admitted that, once again, the growth forecasts had been wrong and that growth for 2013 is now half of what had been expected: a measly 0.6%. |
| He admitted, too, that the government was going to keep on borrowing far more than it had planned and that the day the national debt falls as a share of GDP is receding ever further into the distance, now postponed to 2017-18. The damning numbers were delivered flat and fast, as if the story they told was wearingly familiar. Osborne might as well have concluded the passage with a "yadda, yadda, yadda, you get the idea". | |
| His gamble is that journalists are growing bored with the economic disaster narrative, that there are only so many ways you can keep saying that the economy is stagnating, flatlining and stalling. | His gamble is that journalists are growing bored with the economic disaster narrative, that there are only so many ways you can keep saying that the economy is stagnating, flatlining and stalling. |
| Perhaps the chancellor was calculating that voters too are sick of that tale and were ready to hear something cheerier. Labour is determined to allow no such thing, of course; to keep restating how bad things are. Ed Miliband did that in a confident, energetic response, declaring: "Under this government, the bad news just doesn't stop." | Perhaps the chancellor was calculating that voters too are sick of that tale and were ready to hear something cheerier. Labour is determined to allow no such thing, of course; to keep restating how bad things are. Ed Miliband did that in a confident, energetic response, declaring: "Under this government, the bad news just doesn't stop." |
| But Osborne clearly thinks that is an attack he can absorb. He doubtless draws comfort from opinion polls which continue to show that a third or more of voters still blame Labour for the country's economic woes – a figure that is proving hard to shift – and from the perception that Labour lacks a clear, fleshed-out, pro-growth strategy of its own. | But Osborne clearly thinks that is an attack he can absorb. He doubtless draws comfort from opinion polls which continue to show that a third or more of voters still blame Labour for the country's economic woes – a figure that is proving hard to shift – and from the perception that Labour lacks a clear, fleshed-out, pro-growth strategy of its own. |
| So the chancellor attempted not so much to defend his record as change the subject. Contradicting the earlier spin that said no rabbits would be harmed in the making of this budget, he yanked several from his hat and held them aloft. The cut in beer duty, the freezing of the fuel levy and the announcement of a help-to-buy successor to the right-to-buy schemes of the Thatcher era were the key headline grabbers, their political purpose utterly transparent. | |
| They were not about boosting the economy – indeed, the Office for Budget Responsibility declared that the budget would have "no impact on the level of GDP at the end of the forecast horizon". Instead, these were populist measures designed to locate the Tories on the side of the strivers, the Astra and Focus drivers who are feeling the squeeze and fear the homeowning dreams available to their parents are slipping out of reach. To ram home the point, Osborne did a state of the union-style shout-out to individual MPs, backbench campaigners who had taken up specific striver concerns. It was this camp which had felt battered by last year's disastrous omnishambles budget and the chancellor was clearly keen to make amends. For his own survival, if nothing else, he needed to show the Conservative benches that he had listened to them and learned from his mistakes. | |
| And so where once there had been taxes on pasties, caravans and grannies, now there was a promise that fines paid by Libor-rigging bankers would fund Christmas boxes for "all our troops". It was all about what the political operatives call the optics. | And so where once there had been taxes on pasties, caravans and grannies, now there was a promise that fines paid by Libor-rigging bankers would fund Christmas boxes for "all our troops". It was all about what the political operatives call the optics. |
| And, as is the way with tricks of the eye, it didn't pay to look too closely. How were many of these giveaways to be funded? Why, by that old favourite, a crackdown on tax avoidance. | And, as is the way with tricks of the eye, it didn't pay to look too closely. How were many of these giveaways to be funded? Why, by that old favourite, a crackdown on tax avoidance. |
| Osborne made that same promise yet again, apparently unaware that by giving such a pledge he was tacitly admitting that his promises to crack down in 2010, 2011 and 2012 had clearly come to nothing. | Osborne made that same promise yet again, apparently unaware that by giving such a pledge he was tacitly admitting that his promises to crack down in 2010, 2011 and 2012 had clearly come to nothing. |
| Nor was it a good idea to look too closely at the heroic assumptions – of a sudden 6% surge in business investment, for example – that underpinned the growth forecast. Or to ask how money was now available for tax cuts when the coalition's organising principle was meant to be the taming of the deficit. Or to wonder whether the help-to-buy scheme might not carry a whiff of subprime, luring those without the means to buy homes they could not afford, thereby fuelling a housing bubble. | Nor was it a good idea to look too closely at the heroic assumptions – of a sudden 6% surge in business investment, for example – that underpinned the growth forecast. Or to ask how money was now available for tax cuts when the coalition's organising principle was meant to be the taming of the deficit. Or to wonder whether the help-to-buy scheme might not carry a whiff of subprime, luring those without the means to buy homes they could not afford, thereby fuelling a housing bubble. |
| Above all, Osborne's budget relied on closing one's eyes to the wider picture of an anaemic, ailing economy. Cheaper beer is nice, but makes little dent when wages are falling in real terms, by 9% since 2009 on one estimate. Nor does cheaper petrol much help public sector workers now facing a below-inflation pay freeze for a further year. | Above all, Osborne's budget relied on closing one's eyes to the wider picture of an anaemic, ailing economy. Cheaper beer is nice, but makes little dent when wages are falling in real terms, by 9% since 2009 on one estimate. Nor does cheaper petrol much help public sector workers now facing a below-inflation pay freeze for a further year. |
| The voters know all this. They see it every day. Come 2015, will they believe George Osborne – or what they can see with their own eyes? | The voters know all this. They see it every day. Come 2015, will they believe George Osborne – or what they can see with their own eyes? |