Wahey! It's budget time and Alastair Darling, perpetuating the all-too-cosy arrangements with the media that everyone has been railing against for the last week, has got his message out nice and early. £15 billion of "efficiency savings" are to be made in order that we're not all eating beans on toast for the next 50 years.
Can such savings be made? Well, having seen first-hand various branches of the public sector in (in)action, those savings are absolutely possible. Which only begs the question...
Why has it taken New Labour 12 years to start the process of eliminating this waste?
It reminds me of those products that advertise themselves as "new and improved", tacitly admitting the previous version was "old and inferior". Maybe that can be Gordon's slogan for the next election: New and Improved Labour, now whitewashes smears more efficiently.
2 comments:
How much window dressing will there be? We must watch closely as they'll be double accounting and trying to cover their tracks prior to vacating government, poor Torys lol!
CD: The reality is the public sector will also be inefficient at making efficiency savings. We'll see real cuts to real services I reckon.
I'm sure there'll be some more attempts to sugar the pill. No doubt some spurious greenery will be prominent. Grants for geothermally powered lawnmowers, or some such nonsense.
Your right, the Tories are going to be on a sticky wicket if they get in. Bit like the mess Obama has inherited, and which has already seen his popularity suffer. But (big!) if they're at all canny they'll tear Labour's economic reputation to even tinier pieces than it's currently in.
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