Bolitics The New Condem Government

[snowychap]

I didn't say that they were mostly protest votes. But they undeniably get a certain amount of protest votes.

I didn't assign that 'truism' to your perception of things, only.

I do think that you've got the importance of 'protest' votes amongst their vote share wrongly and I don't think that's unique - I think that Tories and Labour both did the same (whether through actual belief or spin) about this most recent election.

I would suggest that a fall in Lib Dem votes would occur more through a rough time from their activists than through any (small share of their vote that is) the level of protest voters.

[thetrees]

I haven't clicked the link because I prefer to play a guessing game.

Obvious: 'Red'

GB's arrogance: 'I've done everything for you'

GB's pre-election hopes: 'Make it last'

GB's performance over 13 years: 'Reckless'

:winkold:

[drat01]

Just been listening to Cameron on the Marr programme, if you are a LibDem supporter I would be looking to see if you can get your membership fee's back.

The arrogance of Cameron shone through massively, I have done this, I ill do that, I am going to etc etc. No WE, no recognition of his new allies, nor interestingly references to his objectors in his own party.

He gave a mixed message on VAT, he said it would not be raised and then when pressed said we would have to wait and see.

He contradicted himself wonderfully also, "the last gvmt used external consultants - bad" "we will have an independent audit - good" - so are we supposed to be using outside companies now or not?

Also loved his hypocrisy about not wanting news24 channels running the show - maybe you should have said similar before the election and stopped the shameful action of Sky - and how you supported them in things like the leadership debates

the guy is playing the LibDems and Clegg in particular like his little Oik. I actually now feel sorry for those who went out of their way to vote LibDems because you have endorsed Clegg and consequently Cameron also.

When is Gideon's budget? - is there any truth in the fact that it will happen to possibly coincide with a key England match in the WC?

[thetrees]

I haven't clicked the link because I prefer to play a guessing game.

Obvious: 'Red'

GB's arrogance: 'I've done everything for you'

GB's pre-election hopes: 'Make it last'

GB's performance over 13 years: 'Reckless'

:winkold:

I couldn't resist.

None of the above

[tonyh29]

and only another 4 years 346 days to go ...hope for your sanity they don't win a second term :-)

Labour had a good run , and the country overwhelmingly rejected stalinism ..let it go

[Risso]

He contradicted himself wonderfully also, "the last gvmt used external consultants - bad" "we will have an independent audit - good" - so are we supposed to be using outside companies now or not?

There's no contradiction or hypocrisy there at all. We require limited companies to have independent audits to make sure their figures are correct, surely it makes sense to apply that to politicians as well.

[Gringo]

He contradicted himself wonderfully also, "the last gvmt used external consultants - bad" "we will have an independent audit - good" - so are we supposed to be using outside companies now or not?

There's no contradiction or hypocrisy there at all. We require limited companies to have independent audits to make sure their figures are correct, surely it makes sense to apply that to politicians as well.

Maybe no hypocrisy at the moment, but if we come back in a years time and judge his actions against his words, he will like every PM since thatcher, have promised to cut quangos and then increased them.

[Awol]

Bloomin marvellous, talk about scorched earth!

Jon please tell me now you are not being serious - your hatred for Labour is totally and utterly clouding your judgement.

All this shit about scorched earth it's as though you know the Tory party does not have the answers and you want to make excuses for them up front.

Hatred? Yes. Clouded judgement? It appears not..

Labour hid ‘scorched earth’ debts worth billions

THE government last night accused Labour of pursuing a “scorched earth policy” before the general election, leaving behind billions of pounds of previously hidden spending commitments.

The newly discovered Whitehall “black holes” could force even more severe public spending cuts, or higher tax rises, ministers fear.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, said: “I fear that a lot of bad news about the public finances has been hidden and stored up for the new government. The skeletons are starting to fall out of the cupboard.”

The new cabinet has been discovering previously unknown contracts and uncosted spending commitments left by their spendthrift predecessors.

“There are some worrying early signs that numbers left by the outgoing government may not add up,” said Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister.

David Willetts, the universities minister, claimed that Labour had left behind “not so much an in-tray as a minefield”.

Billions of pounds in public money was committed in the run-up to the election campaign in a deliberate strategy to boost Labour’s chances at the ballot box and sabotage the next government.

One former Labour minister told The Sunday Times: “There was collusion between ministers and civil servants to get as many contracts signed off as possible before the election was called.”

One former adviser to the schools department said there was a deliberate policy of “scorched earth”. “The atmosphere was ‘pull up all the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the Tories’,” he added.

The disclosures come as George Osborne, the chancellor, prepares this week to reveal details of an initial £6 billion of cuts to help plug the hole in the £163 billion deficit. A full emergency budget next month will see some departmental budgets being slashed by up to 25% as well as tax rises, including a possible hike in Vat.

Many ministers are spending this weekend going through their red boxes trying to understand the scale of the budgetary black holes facing their departments.

This week the government is expected to call a temporary halt to recently signed IT contracts, while new public sector construction projects will be reviewed.

The “black holes” that ministers have already unearthed include:

- A series of defence contracts signed shortly before the election, including a £13 billion tanker aircraft programme whose cost has “astonished and baffled” ministers.

- £420m of school building contracts, many targeting Labour marginals, signed off by Ed Balls, the former schools secretary, weeks before the general election was called.

- The troubled £1.2 billion “e-borders” IT project for the immigration service, which, sources say, is running even later and more over-budget than Labour ministers had admitted.

- A crisis in the student loans company where extra cash may be needed to prevent a repeat of last year’s failure to process tens of thousands of claims on time.

- The multi-billion-pound cost of decommissioning old nuclear power plants, which ministers claim has not been properly accounted for in Whitehall budgets.

- A £600m computer contract for the new personal pensions account scheme rushed through by Labour this year, which will still cost at least £25m even if it is cancelled.

Maude, who has been given the task of reducing Whitehall waste, insisted that ministers were not scaremongering to paint their predecessors in a negative light. He said there was widespread concern that Labour had become particularly spendthrift in the run-up to the election campaign.

“We put the last government on notice that contracts should not be signed without specific ministerial direction,” he said. “We are now seeking to find out what has been committed in the last few months.”

He hinted that the hidden “poison pills” could force the government to look at even more dramatic spending cuts than the ones already being envisaged. “It certainly doesn’t make the task of reducing the structural deficit any easier,” Maude said.

Willetts revealed that while Lord Mandelson, whose portfolio covered business, innovation and skills, had recently announced large cuts in the universities budget, little work had been done to plan exactly where the axe might fall.

“The outgoing Labour government left not so much an in-tray as a minefield,” Willetts said. “Issues that were left behind as too difficult to tackle by the previous regime are going to have to be dealt with.”

Gerald Howarth, the new Tory minister for defence procurement, disclosed that the financial pressures on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were even graver than he had been expecting. “The appetite for new programmes exceeded the capacity of the MoD’s stomach, particularly in the run-up to the election,” he said. “In the past few months there was a rush of new orders. What we are going to have to do is ensure the equipment programme matches the military need.”

Defence sources say the military has been using the urgent operational requirement (UOR) to borrow money from the Treasury to fund equipment for Afghanistan that the MoD could not afford to buy. “They’ve been using the UOR system like a credit card,” one source said, “and they’ve been maxing out on the card to the point where they’re around £700m over the limit. It’s all got to be paid back.”

Osborne’s cuts package to be announced early this week includes a freezing of spending on new IT projects, stopping most public sector recruitment and renegotiating deals with government suppliers.

With speculation growing that Osborne is planning to announce an increase in Vat from 17.5% to 20% next month, there are growing fears he could face a tax revolt from left-leaning Lib Dem backbenchers.

Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes said on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday: “Our party remains an independent party. We will take views. We don’t suddenly change our policy.”

Expect to see white faced Ministers tomorrow lurching from their offices and vomiting uncontrollably into the gutter at the sheer horror of it.

We knew it was bad but it seems like it's probably much, much worse.

Cheers Gordon.

[kidlewis]

Bloomin marvellous, talk about scorched earth!

Jon please tell me now you are not being serious - your hatred for Labour is totally and utterly clouding your judgement.

All this shit about scorched earth it's as though you know the Tory party does not have the answers and you want to make excuses for them up front.

Hatred? Yes. Clouded judgement? It appears not..

Labour hid ‘scorched earth’ debts worth billions

THE government last night accused Labour of pursuing a “scorched earth policy” before the general election, leaving behind billions of pounds of previously hidden spending commitments.

The newly discovered Whitehall “black holes” could force even more severe public spending cuts, or higher tax rises, ministers fear.

Vince Cable, the business secretary, said: “I fear that a lot of bad news about the public finances has been hidden and stored up for the new government. The skeletons are starting to fall out of the cupboard.”

The new cabinet has been discovering previously unknown contracts and uncosted spending commitments left by their spendthrift predecessors.

“There are some worrying early signs that numbers left by the outgoing government may not add up,” said Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister.

David Willetts, the universities minister, claimed that Labour had left behind “not so much an in-tray as a minefield”.

Billions of pounds in public money was committed in the run-up to the election campaign in a deliberate strategy to boost Labour’s chances at the ballot box and sabotage the next government.

One former Labour minister told The Sunday Times: “There was collusion between ministers and civil servants to get as many contracts signed off as possible before the election was called.”

One former adviser to the schools department said there was a deliberate policy of “scorched earth”. “The atmosphere was ‘pull up all the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the Tories’,” he added.

The disclosures come as George Osborne, the chancellor, prepares this week to reveal details of an initial £6 billion of cuts to help plug the hole in the £163 billion deficit. A full emergency budget next month will see some departmental budgets being slashed by up to 25% as well as tax rises, including a possible hike in Vat.

Many ministers are spending this weekend going through their red boxes trying to understand the scale of the budgetary black holes facing their departments.

This week the government is expected to call a temporary halt to recently signed IT contracts, while new public sector construction projects will be reviewed.

The “black holes” that ministers have already unearthed include:

- A series of defence contracts signed shortly before the election, including a £13 billion tanker aircraft programme whose cost has “astonished and baffled” ministers.

- £420m of school building contracts, many targeting Labour marginals, signed off by Ed Balls, the former schools secretary, weeks before the general election was called.

- The troubled £1.2 billion “e-borders” IT project for the immigration service, which, sources say, is running even later and more over-budget than Labour ministers had admitted.

- A crisis in the student loans company where extra cash may be needed to prevent a repeat of last year’s failure to process tens of thousands of claims on time.

- The multi-billion-pound cost of decommissioning old nuclear power plants, which ministers claim has not been properly accounted for in Whitehall budgets.

- A £600m computer contract for the new personal pensions account scheme rushed through by Labour this year, which will still cost at least £25m even if it is cancelled.

Maude, who has been given the task of reducing Whitehall waste, insisted that ministers were not scaremongering to paint their predecessors in a negative light. He said there was widespread concern that Labour had become particularly spendthrift in the run-up to the election campaign.

“We put the last government on notice that contracts should not be signed without specific ministerial direction,” he said. “We are now seeking to find out what has been committed in the last few months.”

He hinted that the hidden “poison pills” could force the government to look at even more dramatic spending cuts than the ones already being envisaged. “It certainly doesn’t make the task of reducing the structural deficit any easier,” Maude said.

Willetts revealed that while Lord Mandelson, whose portfolio covered business, innovation and skills, had recently announced large cuts in the universities budget, little work had been done to plan exactly where the axe might fall.

“The outgoing Labour government left not so much an in-tray as a minefield,” Willetts said. “Issues that were left behind as too difficult to tackle by the previous regime are going to have to be dealt with.”

Gerald Howarth, the new Tory minister for defence procurement, disclosed that the financial pressures on the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were even graver than he had been expecting. “The appetite for new programmes exceeded the capacity of the MoD’s stomach, particularly in the run-up to the election,” he said. “In the past few months there was a rush of new orders. What we are going to have to do is ensure the equipment programme matches the military need.”

Defence sources say the military has been using the urgent operational requirement (UOR) to borrow money from the Treasury to fund equipment for Afghanistan that the MoD could not afford to buy. “They’ve been using the UOR system like a credit card,” one source said, “and they’ve been maxing out on the card to the point where they’re around £700m over the limit. It’s all got to be paid back.”

Osborne’s cuts package to be announced early this week includes a freezing of spending on new IT projects, stopping most public sector recruitment and renegotiating deals with government suppliers.

With speculation growing that Osborne is planning to announce an increase in Vat from 17.5% to 20% next month, there are growing fears he could face a tax revolt from left-leaning Lib Dem backbenchers.

Lib Dem MP Simon Hughes said on Radio 4’s Today programme yesterday: “Our party remains an independent party. We will take views. We don’t suddenly change our policy.”

Expect to see white faced Ministers tomorrow lurching from their offices and vomiting uncontrollably into the gutter at the sheer horror of it.

We knew it was bad but it seems like it's probably much, much worse.

Cheers Gordon.

I don't know how the figures and senarios above can be proved, but if they can then the new government should use it to seriously damage the labour party.

This is a direct attack on the country because it's a classic biting noses of to spite their face.

'it is highly unlikely we will be in power so lets burn the country to the ground financially'.

I doubt the tories will make too much of the above if true, but if it can be proven then they should absolutely get this out onto the front pages.

[avfc89]

"Clegg is having a sniff of the power knickers" -

[leviramsey]

"Clegg is having a sniff of the power knickers" -

Have you called the moving vans to take you oop to Scotland?

[drat01]

Jon - honestly it was 101% certainty that Gideon would come out with that crap, frankly it's pathetic and the spin they put on it, and seemingly you buy, is worrying

One former Labour minister told The Sunday Times: “There was collusion between ministers and civil servants to get as many contracts signed off as possible before the election was called.”

One former adviser to the schools department said there was a deliberate policy of “scorched earth”. “The atmosphere was ‘pull up all the railways, burn the grain stores, leave nothing for the Tories’,” he added.

- if this is true bloody well name them so that these words can be investigated.

The rhetoric of the new gvmt was always going to be like this, it's what their scare tactic was all along during their campaign. They now have to deflect and spin as much as possible from the appalling budget that Gideon will be hiding during the world cup, to pay for his friends in business.

Good to see that the ConDems are already making excuses

[Awol]

Good to see that the ConDems are already making excuses

Yes, they have inherited a perfectly good economic situation from Labour, debt levels are fine, unemployment figures are low, record deficit no problem at all...hang on...

...Nurse!

[tonyh29]

They now have to deflect and spin as much as possible

for a second I thought my eyes were playing me up ..

I thought I read a labourite accusing other parties of spin :shock:

whatever next ?

[Guest Ricardomeister]

They now have to deflect and spin as much as possible

for a second I thought my eyes were playing me up ..

I thought I read a labourite accusing other parties of spin :shock:

whatever next ?

A Toryite with some compassion and morals! :winkold:

[CarewsEyebrowDesigner]

It'll back fire on the coalition no matter what, because they'll be the ones inflicting the pain.

The arguments about who done what will fall on the deaf ears of the public, who are more interested in how they are going to afford to keep their homes rather than what petty squabbles rang out on the backbenches of westminster.

[drat01]

Good to see that the ConDems are already making excuses

Yes, they have inherited a perfectly good economic situation from Labour, debt levels are fine, unemployment figures are low, record deficit no problem at all...hang on...

...Nurse!

I think you may well need that nurse for all the conspiracy theories you are believing.

The whole world if you had not noticed has a few issues shall we say with economies. It's how you cope with them to try and ensure that your particular area of this big wide world is how you get judged. Of course the Con's would have never fallen into any problems because isolationism would have meant we never had to deal with dirty old Johnny Foreigner.

Jon you must admit that the Tory spin machine will be in full flow now to blame anything it can on the previous Gvmt, it's what happens in all countries, new gvmt comes in blames problems on last. The simple fact is the ConDem's - at least the Con part have a history of VAT rises and the betting is that we will see record levels again from Gideon. The world is still facing big problems with economies and other countries need to work together to address these. All this shite that Gideon had prepared pre-election is there for all to read in whatever of Murdoch's papers want to headline them. Add a few Daily Mail scares and suddenly it seems that the UK that is the only ones facing problems.

The Tory party wanted massive cuts, which many have said will threaten the UK recovery. It seems that they will do just that and now with the Dem's going back on their policy we shall see a very sever budget that will hit many who can ill afford it. They will use any and every excuse they can to deflect any blame from it. Why don't they say, we feel its best to do it like this and let the people judge them on their record.

[leviramsey]

They now have to deflect and spin as much as possible

for a second I thought my eyes were playing me up ..

I thought I read a labourite accusing other parties of spin :shock:

whatever next ?

A Toryite with some compassion and morals! :winkold:

:?:

[drat01]

Well Levi - he was a Tory when he was younger, he did work with leading Tories and now seemingly likes them enough to join :-)

As for his compassion and morals, let's leave that for another day and for the electorate to comment.

[drat01]

They now have to deflect and spin as much as possible

for a second I thought my eyes were playing me up ..

I thought I read a labourite accusing other parties of spin :shock:

whatever next ?

Tony are you saying that the ConDems's never put any sot of spin or whatever on any of the things that they say? Are you saying that the only party to ever put any sort of spin is Labour?

It may well have escaped your attention but the Tory party have invested millions of pounds from a certain Belize tax dodger in pushing out a message. A message that they used to get into power. They have now gone back on this message and are seemingly rewriting all sorts of things, including the unwritten constitution. Likewise the Dems who are doing massive U turns on election promises and likewise things they have said over the last parliament, again all in an attempt to gain power.

ALL, and that is ALL, political parties play this spin game. You and AWOL keep throwing it out at every opportunity as some sort of defence mechanism, but then use mouthpieces of people like Murdoch as some sort of fact proving mechanism. Can you not see the irony of that?

Gideon will spin out every thing that he can to try and deflect questioning of his budget. "An un-named source said this, a un-named civil servant said that" are just two examples. I thought this whole new party was supposed to be built on transparency? Or again is that just something that was a pre-election spin?

Simple thing now if For Gideon and his old mate to present this budget, correctly and without trying to deflect and hide so that the UK people can judge them on it and realise how much poorer they will be. We all know though it wont be like that at all