Oct 09 2007
Questions for the Chancellor on the day of his big tax raid
Questions for the Chancellor on the day of his big give away?
Today the Chancellor comes to brag about how much the public sector will cost us next year. Any increase in spending will be presented as good, whether it is a genuine service improvement, or more of the same- more civil servants, more bureaucracy, more regulations, more spin doctors, more consultancy contracts, more paper chase partnerships, more managers in meetings and more glossy brochures.
The questions to ask include:
1. Why has borrowing overshot in the last year?
2. Why does the Chancellor spend time claiming the figures for the low cost Conservative tax cut proposal do not add up, when the margin of error in his own figures is more than the total cost of the Conservative tax cut? Shouldn’t he spend more time on his own sums?
3. What is the Chancellor hoping to buy for all the extra billions he is going to throw in?
4. Will he tell us clearly how much extra tax he is going to collect next year?
5. Why has he expanded quangoland and the civil service so massively? Will he impose an administrative staff freeze to start getting costs under control?
6. When will the full ??22 billion a year of Gerschon review savings be made?
7. Will he review the current threshold for Inheritance Tax and put it up?
8. What action is he taking to stop a ??6 billion overpayment on Tax Credits?
9. What action is he taking to cut benefit waste and fraud?
10. Does he realise how squeezed people feel by his high mortgage rates and high taxes?
11. Why isn growth slowing?
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
One hopes that Mr. Osborne will be asking at least ten of those questions today, and then showing some anger and passion as Darling tries to make use of the Inheritance Tax proposals.
This government has a redundancy of new ideas!
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12. Will he admit that he is Gordon Brown’s patsy and his job is merely to expand the client state and Labour’s dependent electorate in line with the boss’s instructions?
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Another question that could be asked….Mr Brown announced so many items in his last budget before becoming PM that kicked in over the next few years, does Mr Darling feel tied by these or can he make his own policy decisions….in other words, is the chancellor in charge of the economy or is Mr Brown still micromanaging everything?
Reply: Yes, a good line of questioning
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You should have a look at the “have your say” section on the bbc news website
http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?sortBy=1&forumID=3652&start=15&tstart=0&edition=1&ttl=20071009152402#paginator
Sorry for the long link, but if you read those comments, you may come to the conclusion that the tide is turning in our favour. With disposable incomes sliding ever lower people are actually getting worried (at last) about profligate spending and wasting billions on the idle poor.
Keep up your efforts John, keep beating the drum. Lower taxes and less waste will make The Tories electable again
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Sorry to harp on, but I think the opposition should make much more headway with point nine. My wife is a benefits advisor, and from the few obvious frauds she stumbles on (she is not a fraud investigator, those posts have been drastically cut) would make your eyes water. If I was given the job for a year and 50% of the money saved I could probably set myself up for life!
Do some digging, talk to the people on the front line, the ammuniton is all there.
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