Help help, here comes the IFS

As if poised to prove our point about sleaze, this morning sees the the publication of the annual green paper from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, and ohmygod does it have some worrying stuff in it for Alistair Darling. The overall gist: the economy is slowing, the deficit is growing, and the great performance of Labour with the economy over the last 10 years is increasingly being called into question. Take this:

Labour inherited, by international standards, a big budget deficit and an average public sector debt burden. More than a decade later, the structural budget deficit and the debt burden have both been reduced. But of 21 comparable industrial country governments, 19 have done more to improve their structural budget balances and 16 have done more to reduce their debt burdens than the UK has.

Translation: you know, all that sneering at Germany and France and Spain and Italy might have been a little misplaced.

Or this:

To strengthen the public finances over the next five years, Labour plans to allow the tax burden to increase by 1.0% of national income (£14 billion) and to cut public spending by 0.5% of national income (£7 billion). If delivered, this would take the tax burden to a 24- year high and public spending to an eight-year low.

Yes, you read that right. With a general election looming in 2010, Labour will be in the process of raising taxes to a high and cutting spending significantly for the first time. Nice double whammy that. And whatever ministers say at that time about the unprecedented levels of spending over the previous decade, the TV news is going to be leading on public sector pay awards (and strikes), cutbacks on nurses and doctors and schools saying "we'll have to close, we're over-budget." The consumer spending hangover will have kicked in, and none of us will be able to sell our houses. And the Spice Girls will have reformed for the second time.

Is it too late to move to France?

Written by Lloyd Shepherd on 31 Jan 2008 8:58 AM. Permalink

Department for Tax and Spend

Help help, here comes the IFS