"Now we know Labour's recipe for dealing with a recession: increase national insurance contributions by 0.5%, at a cost of £4 billion to the very people who are expected to dig their way out of the crisis. As Osborne pointed out, that will add £100 million to the NHS wages bill. Then there was the classically tokenist 45% tax rate for "fat cats" earning over £150,000 - despite warnings from economists it will raise virtually zero revenue, damage GDP and cost 35,000 jobs.
The declared intent to increase total public sector debt to 57% of GDP by 2013 and raise the national debt to £1 trillion, when viewed in detachment, is an act of insanity. More than half of that - £518 million, if one accepts the usual Brownite over-optimistic growth forecasts (2% growth in 2010 - I don't think so!) - will come from today's announcements.
But, of course, the crisis Darling was addressing was not the recession, but the next general election. Osborne put his finger on it when he asked why 2011 had been selected as the date when the fiscal pain would start to afflict the nation. The transparent ploy is to give away £20 billion before the election and claw back £40 billion immediately after.
Darling's attempt to blame America for Britain's problems was pathetic: our recession is forecast to be much more severe than that of all the other major economies and the author of that disaster was sitting next to the Chancellor. Remember him standing at that same despatch box, six years ago, and disbursing £60 billion of taxpayers' money to the undeserving client state."
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