Of course Labour are attacking the Lib Dems. They are the opposition and the Lib Dems are in government. The Lib Dems are an easier mark, because, as HH quite rightly pointed out yesterday, the Tories might bleat about inevitability but they want to do this stuff anyway. One would hope that many Lib Dems are at least feeling the pain of being in office and having to make unpopular decisions.
The fact is, a lot of the budget is nasty and not inevitable. For example, it is nasty and not inevitable to reduce the period of backdating of tax credits from one month to three months. It's especially nasty given the administrative chaos that the Tax Credit Office seems to revel in most of the time. Real people will lose out on money they should have had. It is nasty and not inevitable to punish Jobseeker's Allowance claimants with a 10% reduction in their benefits if they haven't found work after a year. It's especially nasty given that it's very difficult for many people to find a job at the moment, and that JSA is a breadline benefit in the first place. It is nasty and not inevitable to change benefit uprating from the RPI to the CPI. They know that this will mean a drop in the real value of benefits over time as research has shown that the things which the poorest people buy rise in price faster than the CPI. And don't get me started on VAT ... some hope of economic growth recovering if this is the solution.
And Labour have said what they'd do instead. They would make cuts next year when the benefits of growth would make the cuts less savage. Of course they can't say exactly what would be cut and how, no more than the Tories would before they got elected and had had a chance to look at the books.
Besides, when the local Lib Dems here stop sending me leaflets attacking the Labour party for not forming a coalition and being a little over jubilant beating Labout into third place (it's mentioned three times in the latest missive) I'll get interested in Labour negativity. Dunno when they're going to work out the election is over and they won. :-)
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momijizukamori
no subject
Date: 2010-Jun-23, Wednesday 14:06 (UTC)The fact is, a lot of the budget is nasty and not inevitable. For example, it is nasty and not inevitable to reduce the period of backdating of tax credits from one month to three months. It's especially nasty given the administrative chaos that the Tax Credit Office seems to revel in most of the time. Real people will lose out on money they should have had. It is nasty and not inevitable to punish Jobseeker's Allowance claimants with a 10% reduction in their benefits if they haven't found work after a year. It's especially nasty given that it's very difficult for many people to find a job at the moment, and that JSA is a breadline benefit in the first place. It is nasty and not inevitable to change benefit uprating from the RPI to the CPI. They know that this will mean a drop in the real value of benefits over time as research has shown that the things which the poorest people buy rise in price faster than the CPI. And don't get me started on VAT ... some hope of economic growth recovering if this is the solution.
And Labour have said what they'd do instead. They would make cuts next year when the benefits of growth would make the cuts less savage. Of course they can't say exactly what would be cut and how, no more than the Tories would before they got elected and had had a chance to look at the books.
Besides, when the local Lib Dems here stop sending me leaflets attacking the Labour party for not forming a coalition and being a little over jubilant beating Labout into third place (it's mentioned three times in the latest missive) I'll get interested in Labour negativity. Dunno when they're going to work out the election is over and they won. :-)