On last night’s Newsnight Kirsty Wark had obviously been instructed to sex up the “savage cuts will cause the death of millions of women, children and old people” narrative by wheeling in a trio of rent-a-whiners waving shrouds on behalf of defence, the police and, naturally the NHS.
As Kirsty wielded her remote each of these Duracell bunnies leapt into life to squawk about the horrors to come. Former Brown minister Lord West went Cassandra over the possibility of cuts in defence expenditure though oddly enough the Admiral, who has had very close links with the defence industry lobby in the past, clearly forgot to say anything about the financial black hole of procurement.
One tear jerker of note that had been programmed into the Police Federation robot – “Cuts = Christmas for criminals” – obviously caught Kirsty’s fancy because she threw this at the hapless coalition sacrificial goat who was tethered in the studio in front of Wark and her bunnies, Economic Secretary to the Treasury Justine Greening.
Only Justine turned out to be not so hapless after all. She ignored Wark’s Paxman-like attempts to steamroller her into pleading guilty to plunging her knife into the heroes and heroines of the frontline services. Instead she hammered home on one simple fact.
The average taxpayer is paying £1400 not on schools, hospitals or police but debt interest.
Unless we take these immediate steps to reduce the deficit the cost of servicing that debt will increase year on year leaving much smaller slices of the pie for defence, policing and healthcare.
Strangely enough, after Ms Greening made that point in a quiet but assertive manner, the Duracell bunnies sat in their chairs lifeless and silent and Kirsty quickly passed on to the next item.
Watch here from 14.43 onwards..
Game, set and match to Justine Greening…..
cross posted at The Aged P
Testing
Great stuff from Justine and a lesson to other Tories. The BBC and their stooges just can’t understand that there is NO MORE MONEY.
When it’s put them like this they don’t like it at all because they know they’ve lost the argument. They don’t like it up ’em.
From our friendly, neighbourhood, public sector PR machi… er… broadcaster:
BBCNewsnight The public sector make the case against big cuts to defence, police and health budgetshttp://bbc.in/c0HIXY
I’d suggest getting our kids out of school before the BBC and its allies decide a purge in this area is the only way to protect their gold plated pensions.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2010/sep/16/bbc-licence-fee-freeze?
Those holiday vila tennis courts don’t light themselves at night, you know.
Spare a thought for the beeboid sensibilities – having to defend plod rather goes aginst their early training.
Oh, yes, good point. Having to pray in aid the pigs, the filth! 😀
Who gave the police the authority to play politics? They are there soley to protect the public. They, like the BBC, get their funding from the public and unless Cameron has already introduced elected police cheifs, they have no right to play politics with our safty. “Christmas for Criminals” indeed. I read that one top copper had said that one crime that will go down the list of priorities is burglary. Labour introduced 3,600 new offences and the police think that burglary is low level. It is not.
The police have no right to make scaremongering public statements – any sensitive issues should be conducted through our elected governemnt and not through people like Kirsty Walk and her ilk.
Remember the Police (by which I mean the senior Officers promoted under nu-Lab because of their ability to play politics) are scared sh*tless by the Tory plan for elected Chief Constables. I reckon they are prepared to use any tactic to stop that from happening.
The BBC did not like the police, until Blair politicised them and turned them into the domestic paramilitary wing of the Labour party. Now the BBC think that the Police are just fine and dandy.
I’m still not convinced that the coalition, and the Tories in particular, are going to win this argument. They don’t seem to have the killer instinct which serves Labour so well in opposition. I get the impression that confronting an argument head-on, using plain words, is considered a bit coarse.
Before the election, Brown was allowed to claim time and time again that reducing public spending amounted to taking money out of the economy. This should have been crushed but it still seems to be a view widely held.
The BBC enabled that, even going so far as to incorporate Mr. Brown’s language into their news broadcasts and questioning in interviews. It’s been documented here.
The one eyed liar was also allowed to prattle on about ‘Labour investment v Tory cuts’ without so much as a ‘ahem’ from the BBC pointing out this lie.
The debt interest figure is sobering and when it was put to them plainly, along with the thought that it could pay for their beloved public services, they quickly shut up.
A quick succinct dose of reality to which they had no real answer was coolly and cleanly delivered by the Treasury minister.
Indeed, as Jeff Randall shows here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/8007556/The-Coalition-is-spending-even-more-than-tax-and-waste-Labour.html
The Tories will be spending more money than labour did, every year, year on year to 2014/2015. They will be spending almost 100 BILLION pounds more than labour did in the election year 2005. I do not remember the police and health and public sector unions protesting that labour were not spending, sorry, investing enough money in 2005.
The Problem is, labour so wrecked the economy that we are now having to pay upto 1.5 times the entire cost of the defence budget in debt interest alone and that figure is going to increase every year over the next 5 years as the total debt keeps increasing. The total amount of debt will not start to come down (and therefore the interest therupon) until after we have piad off the deficit entirely and then start to pay down the debt. So long as there is any deficit at all, the underlying debt will keep increasing and the interest on that debt will keep increasing, taking more and more of our money away from schools and hospitals to pay to international central bankers…
If we did as labour suggests, we would be wasting the entire cost of the education budget in interest payments in 2020, instead of being in a position to spend more on education, health, policing etc… Making cuts to pay down the deficit now, and pay down the debt is the best REAL investment the Government can make now, as it will mean MORE money will be available for schools and hospitals in the future, and LESS jobs in total will need to be cut over the next decade.
The question really should be, do we cut some departments by up to 40% now? or by up to 60% in four years? or by 100% in 10 years.
Thought Greening did exceptionally well and stood up to the appalling attack by Ward. I even saw a couple of the hired goons in the background nodding away at her points, it’s difficult to argue with the hard truth.
It’s good to see a coalition member taking the fight to the BBC, if only other ministers would adopt the same stance. The BBC is just a coalition bully and we all know if you stand up to a bully, they soon disappear.
“Christmas For Criminals”, FFS, I expect a slightly more intelligent level of debate from the BBC.
Yes you are correct, but I don’t think Greening will get reinvited anytime soon,” they dont like it up ’em “to coin a phrase!
They be looking for a somewhat easier fallguy next time, she gave Kirsty hell. Bloody marvellous!
I’ve posted here on this several times. We pay over 30 billion a year on the interest on the deficit alone. That’s the same as the defence budget. So the deficit is really 150 billion PLUS another 30 billion we have to pay in interest.
Thank god Greening pointed this out, but the Tories need to hammer this every time they are on the BBC, also ignore the leftist twats like rat face, she might like to gloss over the fact that the jock one eyed mong put us in this mess, but the Tories must hammer it every single time.
Aged P,
Great post !
Kirsty Squawk makes me ashamed to be a Scot. I totally disown her !
Don’t forget Marr as well Grant, you don’t get off THAT lightly 🙂
Martin,
The list is too long to publish here.
Now , please get back to your warm beer and morris dancing !
I’ll stick with deep-fried Mars bars washed down with Irn Bru , watching Scottish country dancing to the sound of bagpipes, preferably The Black Watch playing “Black Bear”.
Awa , ye Sassanachs !!!
Martin, Grant has been known to point out our responsibility for John Prescott, but as a Lancastrian I reject the charge out of hand!
Prescott was apparently born in Prestatyn, Wales – which would make him Llew’s responsibility!
Yep Prezza is a taff I believe.
That explains Prescott’s losing battle with the English language !
Prescot is a socialist and also a bit of a fibber.
“I was born in Wales, went to school in Wales and my mother was Welsh. I’m Welsh” he proclaimed.
Which is a fib, because he was 4 when he left Wales. He went to school in England and has had a deep loathng of the English since he failed his 11 plus.
“I’m Welsh. It’s my place of birth, my country” Prescot has said. But when it comes to the English.
“…there is no such nationality as English as laid down by various acts of Parliament and accession. Persons born in the United Kingdom are citizens of the United Kingdom and are therefore British.”
http://www.theenglandproject.net/mt/archives/001030.html
Can’t stand the hypocrite – but very much off topic.
The cuts need to be administered by an outside agency formed from successful companies in the private sector. That way the layers of labour placemen and women (many if not all common purpose to boot)that infest our public services can be extracted from their positions by somebody with experience of what is actually required to run a service.
The profligacy of the public sector including the BBC must come to an end, if they can’t identify areas for cuts then remove them from their positions and find somebody who will.
Just as David Blunkett yesterday sat in the commons as the remains of the
ID card scheme was crushed into the ground yesterday. The sad broken man, spoke of his ‘good intentions’ and it’s clearly beyond his wit to conceive that somebody could actually do the job better than him by doing less better not more worse.
The cuts could start with the BBC being reduced to two channels and get rid of all their sprawling web output.
I saw it last night too, and I concur with your perception entirely. Four-on-to-one does not seem very fair does it?
Justine Greening quietly persisted with the crucial point about the cost of debt servicing, in spite of Wark’s attempts to bludgeon with interruptions. These are not even “cuts” we are talking about, but rather, as John Redwood and Guido have often pointed out, a reduction in the amount of increases.
No, it was the three stooges sat opposite who were hapless. At the end of the day they could not argue with her point of not being able to spend what we haven’t got.
Crick’s preceding report was also five-against-one (not counting Ben Page of Ipsos Mori), with Crick, three trades union leaders and a Labour advisor piling on the attack, & just Douglas Carswell to put the other point of view (very briefly).
Slursty is the worst of all the Newsnight interviewers – the most blatantly biased and the most cack-handed too.
“Slursty” ! Copyright it !
Spot the difference
Justine Greening was excellent/magnificent in a matter of fact, business-like way, sticking to the point and not giving any credence to the emotional phrases so loved of the BBC/left in this era of “cuts”.
Thank’s for posting on this – she’s brilliant.
The only depressing thing is that the coalition does use her approach more often.
“BBC whinge watch”
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1312825/BBC-bias-Whinge-watch.html
“If the BBC employed a few more Conservatives, it might occasionally run stories that examined the wastefulness and inefficiency of the bloated state”
(Tim Montgomerie)
http://conservativehome.blogs.com/thetorydiary/2010/09/if-the-bbc-employed-a-few-more-conservatives-it-might-occasionally-run-stories-that-examined-the-was.html
Wow she is good isn’t she ! Looking at wikipedia she also had some of the lowest expenses of any MP as well and has real world business experience.
I would hope someone in Tory central office will decide to promote her and rapidly or to keep her George Osbournes media attack dog.