Big cuts are based on a big lie

Remember this image? This was the Liberal Democrat poster used in the General Election campaign, warning against the planned Tory rise in VAT, a move that would hit the poorest hardest. In today’s budget statement, George Osborne, flanked by Liberal ministers, went ahead and dropped that VAT bombshell, putting the rate up to 20% from January 2011.

Peter Hain, Labour’s Shadow Welsh Secretary had this to say reacting to today’s budget.

“The scandal of this budget is that the poorest will be hit the worst. Increasing VAT to 20% will affect everyone, most of all pensioners and those in poverty. As the Financial Times has said, areas like Wales that rely most on the public sector will be hit hardest by the deep cuts announced to public spending.

“Worse still, these big cuts are based upon a big lie: that the public finances are so terrible, the cuts must be faster and deeper than Labour’s very tough deficit reduction plan which would have halved borrowing within four years. Cameron and Osborne have been deliberately scaring the public, with Clegg and Cable joining in.

“These brutal cuts are ideological not economic, the new ConDem Government is not cutting savagely because it needs to, it is cutting savagely because it wants to.”