Didn’t hold out much hope for a balanced view of the budget from Pienaar when he said this last night…
‘They don’t come any craftier than Osborne’
A fairly derogatory way of describing Osborne from the BBC’s finest… just a touch ‘loaded’.
Pienaar has consistently claimed that Osborne is the most ‘political’ of Chancellor’s…..on what basis I don’t know as all Chancellors are political. Even today after the budget Pienaar was still making that claim…and yet Osborne is a politician, his job is to be ‘political’…politics is after all about providing what the ‘People’ want and getting their vote to implement those policies.
It is disengenuous to try to fault Osborne for being political when that is the job.
Having said that just how political was the ‘crafty’Osborne? He had around £6 billion extra to play with and yet he refused to use it to make short term ‘political’ pre-election give-aways. Listening to one business leader he claimed that Osborne’s budget was good for business and highly responsible in not using that £6bn on such populist give-aways.
Osborne has after all presided over the hugely unpopular and difficult Austerity and made the very controversial move to lower the higher rate of tax as well as huge welfare cuts amongst other ‘controversial’ savings in government spending……hardly policies designed to win easy votes….Osborne adopted policies that he knew would cause a measure of uproar.
Pienaar is totally wrong about Osborne creating a Budget for purely political purposes, and in fact, Osborne has put the interests of the country ahead of his Party and its election chances when you consider the economic measures he has implemented over the last 5 years.
Pienaar has always had a soft spot for Miliband and rarely has a critical word to say about him or his policies, Pienaar often claiming it is Miliband leading the way and forcing the narrative.
The BBC is still pushing the ‘government spending will be back to the 1930’s level’ spin that we heard last year when Norman Smith claimed that the Tory spending levels looked ‘utterly terrifying’, taking us back to conditions like those written about by Orwell in his book ‘The Road to Wigan Pier’
In 2019/20 spending will grow in line with the growth of the economy – bringing state spending as a share of national income to the same level as in 2000, the chancellor told MPs.
The BBC’s Robert Peston said this was a move aimed at neutralising Labour’s claim that the Conservatives would cut spending to 1930s levels.
No attempt to put the figures into context…such as GDP being far higher now, so the same percentage of GDP actually means far more money.
Peston looks like he is trying to claim Osborne’s statement was pure spin aimed at neutralisng Labour’s claim….it is of course based on fact, Labour’s spending was as near as damn it to that level in 1999-2000….
Labour’s spending as a proportion of GDP in 1999-2000? 36%
The Coalition’s projected spending in 2019-20? 35.2%
Son of a Labour peer, Peston prefers to spin this by claiming Osborne is spinning, just as Pienaar does, and with Norman ‘utterly terrifying’ Smith on the same bandwagon Miliband is getting plenty of BBC subsidised propaganda handed to him on a plate.
And Channel 4 referred to Osbornes budget as being “populist” and “shameless electioneering”.
Good old Snow will say anything won`t he?-absolutely no efforts to give us the truth, just his Hampstead hokum.
Imagine that-a Tory Chancellor being “political”?
If only Blair and Brown had played politics eh?…Railtrack, Foot and Mouth,David Kelly,the Dome.
Need I go on?…and will Alastair Campbell let me?
I may be missing something but what precisely has Mr Osborne done for the sodding bbc to hate him so? Is it just the simple explanation that he is in the Conservative Party?
No – it’s just that his name isn’t ‘Ed Balls’.
He got a virtually uninterupted hearing on the Today program this morning unlike Ed Ball’s who was continually interupted. More evidence that the BBC is pro tory.
In order to predict the state of the county’s financial situation in five years time they would need to have 2020 vision.
Mr. Ed’s response to George Osborn’s Budget speech was simply to re-hash the old Labour argument that the Chancellor has a “secret plan” to slah NHS spending. Really? Why is it that the Coalition Government has been so desperate to ring-fence NHS spending, a policy that will be followed by any Labour Government? None of the current political parties are going to tamper with this economic sacred white cow, because they are terrified that if they made an attempt to change its funding they would be decimated at the polls. It was depressing to hear Adam Boulton, Joey Jones and Co. describe Mr. Ed’s response to the Budget speech as the most effective so far!! Unfortunately, Pienaar and Co at the BBC are adopting the same depressing approach. In despair I turned over to Sky Sports to watch a masterclass in football from Lionel Messi and Co at Barcelona. Come to think of it, the pedestrian appeoach adopted by the English clubs to the Champions League this season very much mirrors the approach taken by all the political parties towards the long-term spending problems of the NHS.
The point I am making is that simply ring-fencing the NHS will not solve the current financial problems besetting the NHS. When the organisation was set up, the problems of obesity and an aging population did not exist. My late father died of a heart attack aged 54 in 1962 and none of his brothers and sisters lived to the age of 60. However, with the spectacular improvements in health care, the original policy underlining the creation of the NHS is no longer sustainable. I recently read a newspaper article by a Dr. Max Pemberton in the Daily Telegraphn in which he stated that a survey conducted in 1967 found that 9 out of 10 people had attempted to lose weight compared with 57% od adults in 2010. His verdict was that the NHS “will be killed off by obesity.” For instance, managing type 2 diabetes costs the NHS £10 billion a year, and the problems caused by obesity take up just under half of the entire NHS budget. Why are the political parties not proposing to tax fatty, processed or unhealthy foods? What about directing people to make greater use of chemists, a policy which was a successful policy introduced into Holland? Alternative medicines – horror of horrors? What about the political parties introducing some form of compulsory insurance, as is the case on the Continent, to defray the financial burden of the NHS, with exceptions made for low income groups? Broadcasters such as the BBC and Sky need to take the iniative on this matter, in view of the timid approach adopted by the political parties, and to try and persuade the British public to take a more grown up approach towards this problem. The broadcasters need to tell the public that it is no longer sufficient to simply repeat the old mantra, “Isn’t our NHS wonderful.” It is no longer fit for purpose and needs to be radically changed, both in terms of attitude and funding. The broadcasters and the public must no longer hide their heads in the sand, but demand that the politicians stop kicking this problem into the long grass and come up with a viable long-term solution. However, I am afraid that neither the broadcasters nor the public have the courage or the intelligence to initiate such a radical course of action.
Public health initiatives are the answer not more Health service.
It doesn’t take many brains to realise that modern illnesses are the result of modern living ie low exercise and bad diet.
However that does involve a sea change in policies to salt and sugar alcohol and carbs and transport. Rednecks please note!
… modern illnesses are the result of modern living ie low exercise and bad diet.
In place of cash, benefit claiming families could walk to a dining centre to receive healthy meals. That would be a vast improvement over only putting the remote control down long enough to phone the fast food restaurant. Win, win, don’t you think?