Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
You reap what you owe with the Tories
POINTS OF DISORDER #1
Nothing tells us Theresa May is happy for the North to be a Poorhouse, not a Powerhouse, as much as reimbursing only £12million of the Manchester bombing bill of £28million.
Manc Mayor Andy Burnham’s justifiably livid when Home Counties Theresa doesn’t consider all police and NHS costs “reasonable”, despite 23 people dying and hundreds injured.
Every MP of whatever party at a meeting in Parliament today championing Northern England must demand she pays fair and tips up. I AM old enough to remember the days when Britain was the world’s fifth biggest economy – before we slipped to sixth behind France.
Tory austerity and a ruinous Brexit vote in June last year have slowed economic growth, shrunk the pound and hiked inflation.
Our demotion from fifth place was acknowledged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the International Monetary Fund predicts we will fall further behind next year after Philip Hammond’s Budget House of Horrors.
Like most people, I have little or no time for fiscally-inept Phil, but he has every right to curse George Osborne, a Tory Chancer who bequeathed a bankrupt legacy.
Osborne pretends big problems are nothing to do with him as he lectures the nation from his lofty new perch as editor of London’s evening newspaper – a psycho dreaming of cutting his nemesis Theresa May into tiny pieces to bag up in his freezer.
However we dice the figures, Osborne was a Triple-a flop.
The debt fetishist doubled the amount we owe and missed his target to be in the black by 2015. The debt mountain is likely to grow until 2031. Tories, not Labour, are the binge borrowers and debt junkies – the total owed now nudges £1.8trillion.
Data compiled by Labour shows how, in their first 15 months as Chancellors, the debt interest paid by Hammond was £70.6billion, while for Osborne it was £65.2billion.
The figures for Labour Chancellors – admittedly before the global financial collapse, which Osborne these days concedes blew in from the United States – are £45.7billion for Alastair Darling and £42billion for Gordon Brown. It is perfectly legitimate to quiz Labour about the party’s spending plans, but rarely do I hear the Conservatives subjected to the same degree of scrutiny.
The bias was glaring at the last election, when Labour costed its manifesto and the Tories were gifted a free pass for a largely uncosted programme. Behind the spin, Hammond’s Budget was as flaky as Osborne’s pasty tax disaster five years ago.
It is a litany of disgraces – from the £65billion lost growth and a full two decades of lower wages, to inflating house prices and slipping our RBS bank shares to City speculators at a loss to the taxpayers.
I bumped into Shadow Chancellor John Mcdonnell and discussed the price of borrowing, debt and bonds before he went on TV and radio, and refused to put figures to Labour’s plans. That is a high-risk strategy.
But you understand why he is striving to change the terms of the debate when Labour is roasted while the incompetent Tories are given an undeserved easier ride.
To see economic failure, look at Hammond and Osborne.