Two articles on 'the Tory CUTS'

I'm off today so here's a few linked articles about the Tory CUTS that I think you should read.

Tom Montgomerie at Conservative Home wonders

'If the BBC employed a few more Conservatives, it might occasionally run stories that examined the wastefulness and inefficiency of the bloated state'

Here's an extract:

'If the BBC employed more people who thought as taxpayers, rather than as public sector employees, this is the kind of question they would ask...

* "Where are the BBC investigations into why health outcomes in Scotland are no better than at hospitals in England and Wales, even though the Scottish NHS gets more money?
* Where is the report on the Ten O'clock News that tries to understand why French suppliers get more profit out of their contracts with the British state than they receive from their own government?
* Where are the Newsnight interviews that explore why some local authorities are able to deliver exactly the same, or even better, public services at a much lower cost than others?
* Where is the Today programme outrage at the fact that public sector workers are now better paid than their private sector counterparts, and have retained greater job security, more generous pensions and shorter working hours?
* Where is the Five Live survey into why businesses and entrepreneurs are leaving the UK because the taxes necessary to pay for the wasteful state are making Britain internationally uncompetitive?"'

Meanwhile Jeff Randall in The Telegraph writes

'The unions are squealing, but the so-called spending cuts are nothing of the sort... Think back to the spring of 2005 – just five years ago. Britain's social infrastructure did not seem so bad then. I do not remember the place falling apart. In Mr Brown's election-winning budget of that year, he promised to spend £519 billion, boasting of the triumphs all that lovely lolly would deliver.

In those days, debt interest was £26 billion a year, so there was a net spend of £493 billion. Was that an example of Mr Brown penny-pinching? He did not think so.

Now fast-forward to Mr Osborne's June Budget and his spending forecast of £696 billion for 2010-11. Deduct £44 billion debt interest, and that leaves a net outlay of £652 billion.

Lots of tricky numbers, I know, but stick with me, because this is a horror story worthy of a Victorian "penny dreadful".

Let's compare £652 billion in 2010 money with £493 billion in 2005 money. That is, adjust the former for five years of inflation. Which is bigger?

According to my friends in the economics team at Deutsche Bank, £652 billion today would have been worth about £561 billion in 2005.

You get the drift. The Coalition is spending more in real terms than Mr Brown, the darling of Labour's tax-and-waste brigade, did in an election year.

How is it that we managed to cope nicely then, but are now, according to TUC doom-mongers, facing a public services apocalypse?

First, because the NHS and foreign aid have been ring-fenced from cuts by the Coalition, the pain of retrenchment will fall disproportionately elsewhere.

Second, it's remarkable how, when it comes to government spending, the maximum quickly becomes the norm – and then the minimum. For recipients of government largesse, yesterday's luxuries are quickly redefined as today's necessities.

Third, the welfare bill has jumped sharply in nominal and real terms.

And finally, bereft of ideas for responsible budgeting, Labour and its union paymasters are reduced to the politics of fraud. '

Jeff Randall's words not mine.

Jeff Randall is not alone in pointing out this cuts fallacy and it is one that I remember from the early 1980s as well.