Can The UK Treasury Deal With A Regime Of Spending Cuts
Suppose it is the case that the UK’s financial position is far, far, worse than is currently being discussed in the newspapers, what should be the effect on Conservative policy: make the deeper facts more widely known and be accused of talking down the economy?
Wait till victory and then make the classic “we had no idea how bad the books were till we saw them” statement?
The Shadow Cabinet have presumably agreed to follow the latter line, though Ken Clarke’s statement today that a Labour victory will bring on a full-scale financial crisis, beyond anything we have seen so far, is a gesture in the former direction and has been predictably condemned by the Government as unpatriotic.
Consider two pieces of evidence, which can be found in Colin Thain’s admirable discussion of Treasury culture and what it has become under Brown.
First, PFI spending is going to come home to roost in the next five years: one estimate Thain has given is that 80% of the Treasury’s own running costs will be absorbed in the ballooning payments on its own new building.
What will the consequences of that be for its ability to pay any staff at a time when it most needs them? Secondly, Thain shows how Brown has eviscerated any experience in the Treasury of behaving like a finance ministry and controlling costs in a traditional manner-let alone cutting them.
It has become a politically driven and expansionist spending department whose own objectives include:
- Halve the number of children in poverty by 2010-11, on the way to eradicating child poverty by 2020
- Lead the global effort to avoid dangerous climate change
- Reduce poverty in poorer countries through quicker progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (HM Treasury Group Departmental Strategic Objectives 2008-2011)
Sweden and Canada have both cut back in the last two decades from crisis overspending levels much like our own and without disastrous consequences.
However, the Treasury has no experience at all in looking at what other countries do which, combined with the loss of financial management skills, suggests a prognosis far worse than what is being discussed at the moment in public.
It seems that Brown has corrupted not only our constitution, our liberties, our education system, our defence, our financial regulation system, but even our Treasury-based system of budget management as well.
Topics: Canada, child poverty, climate change, conservatives, constitution, Defence, economic recovery, Economy, education system, financial crisis, financial management, financial position, financial regulation system, HM Treasury Group Departmental Strategic Objectives 2008-2011, Ken Clarke, Labour, liberties, Millennium Development Goals, overspending, politics, poor contries, poverty, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, recession, Shadow Cabinet, Sweden, treasury
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