Chancellor George Osborne has been accused of “fiddling the figures” in his latest Budget and to have used dodges and stunts to try to baffle the voters while even his austerity policies are not working.
The charge comes from Neil Hamilton, chairman of UKIP in Wiltshire, as his party’s surge in the polls after overtaking the Tories in the Eastleigh by-election is heading towards 20 per cent — with the Tories only at 30 per cent.
Hamilton, the 64-year-old former Tory MP and barrister with an expertise in taxation law, has made a clinical analysis of the Budget and issued the results in a mocking statement to Marlborough News Online.
He declares: “Wasn’t there a whiff of Harold Wilson and Denis Healey about the Budget? Wheezes, dodges and stunts to please sectional interest groups like potters and beer drinkers. Meanwhile, George Osborne ignores the elephant in the room — the vast and growing financial deficit.”
“He says he has reduced it — but that’s by ‘one-off’ fiddling of the figures — by transferring the Post Office pension fund assets to the Treasury and shunting QE electronic cash-creation balances from the Bank of England to the Treasury.”
“Here’s the reality: the government borrowed £100 billion in the year ended 1 January, which was £8 billion more than last year.”
“In 2010, Osborne said he would cut State spending by four percent by 2013. In reality his so-called austerity policies have pared a pathetic one per cent.
“He also forecast a budget surplus by 2015. Ha! Ha! That was always unrealistic because it depended on growth of nearly three per cent a year — higher than the British average in our lifetime.”
Far from creating a surplus, according to Hamilton, the deficit is £120 billion this year and the Treasury now forecasts it to be the same in 2014 and 2015. The deficits will almost certainly be higher still, as the economy goes into triple, then quadruple-dip quasi-recession, he suggests.
And he adds: “In 2010 Osborne also forecast the National Debt would peak at 85 per cent of GDP in 2012 and then fall. The reality? He now predicts it will peak at 97 per cent of GDP in 2015 – making Britain equal to the Eurozone’s Club Med countries.”
“The fiddling about in the budget does nothing to address the economy’s real problems — public sector spending out of control — NHS, Education, social security all ring-fenced — overseas aid set to rise still further, rising green taxes making energy dearer and exporting British jobs etc. etc.”
“Oh, and how does scrapping beer tax increases fit in with Dave’s plan for minimum alcohol pricing? Answer: “Er, um, hmm……..”
What of the Budget’s two big ideas?
“Subsidising house-purchases will only push up house prices and transfer default risks from banks and building societies to the Treasury,” insists Hamilton, who has announced that UKIP will contest the local Wiltshire Council elections in May and all Wiltshire’s parliamentary seats at the next general election.
“Has Osborne learned nothing from the US sub-prime disaster – remember Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which triggered the banking crisis in 2008?”
“Cutting employers’ National Insurance is good but inadequate. It is a tax on jobs and should be abolished by merging it into income and corporation taxes.”
“Fiddling with tax breaks for specific industries is a mug’s game. There is no way the government can know which industries to promote, and these projects inevitably collapse into a mess of over–complicated grant schemes and politics-driven bailouts of failing firms. Only consumers can pick winners.”
Hamilton believes that Osborne still doesn’t understand supply-side economics — cutting taxes and current spending to boost growth.
“The Government admits the 50p tax rate lost the Exchequer £7 billion a year, as very high earners quit the country — as in France now,” he says. “Tax revenues generally are below forecast due to slower economic growth.”
“By 2015 tax receipts are estimated to be £62 billion lower than forecast in 2010. So borrowing will be much higher.”
The National Debt was £750 million when Osborne took over. “It will be £1,500 million when he is chucked out in 2015 — £25,000 for every household in the country.”
“Public spending has risen 53 per cent in the last 10 years. Osborne has heroically cut it by one per cent in a series of ‘austerity budgets’. He has become the Viv Nicholson of Whitehall.”
“Spend, spend, spend”. Cyprus, here we come!”
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