The great pretender

Chancellor George Osborne will boast that he will preside over the “largest programme of rail investment since the Victorian age”, during today’s Budget (March 16).

His misleading and self-aggrandising statement, however, will not be able to mask the harm the extra £4bn worth of cuts he is scheduled to announce will cause the poorest and most vulnerable in our society, nor the fact that under his policies GDP has slowed to it’s lowest rate in half a century.

In truth, the only Victorian element of Osborne’s Budget, is it’s brazen disregard for ordinary people’s living standards and employment choices.

The dismal failure of austerity to pick up the economy is clear to see: GDP per head from 1950 to 2010 was around 2.25 per cent. From 2010 to 2014 it was just 1 per cent.

Even the economic upturn in 2014, an inevitably short-lived response to Osborne’s myopic schemes, declined by 3 per cent by the last quarter of 2015. During last year’s Autumn Statement growth was predicted at 2.4 percent for 2015 as a whole, a figure which has now been revised down to 2.2 per cent.

Black hole

The reduction has left a ÂŁ18bn black hole in the Chancellor’s calculations – a result of falling tax revenues exacerbated by the Tories creation of a low wage economy vulnerable to global shocks and deliberately starved of stimulus. Regardless, Osborne’s bull-headed devotion to slashing state spending will continue unabated.

“We may need to undertake further reductions in spending because this country can only afford what it can afford and we will address that in the budget. Things have got more difficult since the start of the year as more information comes in. We need to make sure that Britain lives within its means,” said Osborne, while attending a G20 meeting in Shanghai this week.

Britain living “within its means” is expected to include leaving 600,000 disabled people £140 a week worse off, as £1.2bn is cut from Personal Independence Allowance payments. Other examples include cuts to Universal Credit that will take £1,600 a year from 2m low and middle income families, reductions to vital public services, such as the police and children’s services, and a neglectful lack of investment in critical sectors.

To top things off Osborne will heighten the 40p tax bracket resulting in savings for the richest 85 per cent of households, according to research by the Resolution Foundation. Even his vaunted “Victorian age” rail investment plan is not all that it seems: A new ÂŁ75m Trans-Pennine tunnel will be lumped into the announcement – an attempt, critics say, to deflect reproval of chronic underinvestment in the north – even though the funds appear to have been allocated previously.

Widespread misery

Despite the widespread misery the Chancellor’s policies have, and will, cause, Osborne has consistently missed every target he has set himself to reduce the ever increasing deficit. Instead his cuts have weakened growth and, conversely, reduced tax revenue that would have helped to pay off the national debt. Austerity has resulted in the slowest recovery from a recession on record.

But like a dog chasing its own tail, Osborne’s blinkered ideological commitment to running a surplus by 2020, means that he is set on refusing to use historically low interest rates to borrow in order to invest in measures that will stimulate the economy – instead there will be another senseless round of damaging cuts.

“Instead of investing to create a sustainable growing economy with decent work for all, Cameron and Osborne have chosen to implement cuts, time and time again,” commented Unite assistant general secretary, Steve Turner.

“It has meant a shredded social security system, public services being cut back and an increase in low paid, insecure work and a weakening economy. Now Osborne is using the failure of his own economic policies to launch another attack on disabled benefits and low paid workers in the Budget.”

Unite is calling for the government to rethink it’s campaign of austerity and encouragement of low paid insecure employment, and rather concentrate on sustainable economic growth that will allow industry and private enterprise to flourish – so that decent and reliable jobs are available to all.