Note Osborne's portrayal, in his "deficit deniers" roll call, of the trade unions - democratically organised employees on low and middle incomes - as "vested interests", as contrasted with his list of those who agree with him.

Yes, in the modest brain of the future Sir Gideon, heir to the wallpaper fortune, "the credit rating agencies, the bond markets, the Confederation of British Industry, the Institute of Directors, the British Chambers of Commerce, [and] most of British business" are not vested interests. Nor are the Lib-Con cabinet, 23 out of 26 of whom are millionaires.

And David Miliband agrees with Gideon now, does he? Is there even any point in trawling up all the quotes from Osborne during the election campaign condemning as deficit denialism the same official Labour policy stance which David Miliband adheres to, and which Osborne now claims as an endorsement of his own position?

The man is a clown

Government policies aren't entirely about economics, they're also about politics. And if they were solely about economics, then since tame economists can be found to support any view, you may as well quote Mystic Meg as one of your experts.

You're on a loser Mehdi. Until the deficit is eliminated, and that goal is not remotely in sight, government debt will continue to grow. Can you really believe that the huge interest burden is a good thing to carry? Or are your views all about politics, and not really about economics at all?

On the political context, I would guess there is a national majority of the view that there are far too many people living off the taxpayer. If I (and Osborne) are correct in that belief, the Labour party an its apologists such as yourself are dead in the water.

re: Irene / 12.55...
The truth ? from The New Statesman !

This must be a first for Hasan.

A comment not about the mohammedism creed !!

all good posts from Lou, David Wearing and David C.

The depressing thing is that seven of the ten major newspapers are parroting this same shit. On the upside those same newspapers failed to get the Tories their expected electoral landslide. It would appear that people get their news from a much wider range of sources these days and that can only be a good thing.

I did wonder one thing about the Child Benefit cut bruhaha - was it announced to take attention away from this story?

http://www.neweconomics.org/press-releases/banks-set-to-demand-fresh-bai...

Note the links to the major media outlets.

Yes that's right the Masters of the Universe need another £750 Billion. We are already liable for £1.2 trillion...

No amount of public sector cuts can pay for this - so why trash a million worker's lives? It's ideological warfare again. It's TINA (There Is No Alternative) part 2.

Thank you Phil and thanks for the link to, a very intersting read.

I can't believe it has slipped through the media net so easily considering the coverage it got with Bloomberg,The Indie et al. You'd have expected NS to have covered it or at least one of the political analysts on our mainstream news channels.

Osborne apparently said, according to Sky who aired all of 28 seconds about this story, "I am not expecting and have had no indication that any British bank needs any further support. The banking system in Britain is much more stable than the one in Ireland."

Funny how Sky's Jeff Randall can do a kowtowing to the tories interview with the President of the World bank and his favourable view on the cuts but a contradictory report gets 28 seconds.

As for the papers, I'd like to think that the public are more discerning and if they are not, well they will have a very rude awakening before much longer.

Hi Lou

The idea that the World Bank and the IMF are some kind of impartial arbiters on economic matters makes me shudder. Are people not aware of the disasterous effects of their 'advice' and 'support' to other countries?

The IMF and World Bank were set up by the Americans at the Bretton Woods conference in 1944. They are tools of US Foreign Policy ergo American Capitalism! That is not conspiracy theory.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Monetary_Fund

lol

The truth! from The New Statesman?

@RK

"These are the people who caused it"

* Adam Applegarth
* Fred Goodwin
* Dick Fuld
* Alan Greenspan
* Hank Paulson

On the side of deficit reduction is "Nassim Taleb" ....better than all the gang Mehdi mentioned.

You do not need an army of thinkers to defeat an idea, a thought would do.

On the other hand,

These are the people who caused it

* Ben Bernanke

* Tim Geithner

These are noble junkies

Barack Obama

* Paul Krugman

* Joseph Stiglitz

(The Economic Noble is a fraud by politicians, Peace Noble, well we know about it, dont we?)

-----------------
*George Soros

An interested party. We do not know his games and where he is in invested. It could be just to protect his own investments.

Most people Mehdi cite are the people who caused it, in first place.

Give me Fat Tony any day and I will swap full team of economic noble. Economics noble are like astrologers, they cannot make a penny for themselves (in the market) how are they going to make for you and me?

give me fat Karl anyday

R KO'd

Good post Mehdi.

What a silly little boy young Giddeon is. This part of his speech, took me back to the playground, when they would say 'my Dads' bigger than yours'. It really was at that level and inaccurate. What's new?

Osborne's mischaracterization on the cuts were poorly thought out, much like his child benefit reveal in the same speech. He's a child playing at grown ups and failing miserably.

David Cameron has just regaled the conference with a quip at Ed Balls for saying academy schools 'create winners' and shouldn't that be the desired outcome. Cue much laughter from Cabinet and audience.

Shame Cameron took only two words from the speech, not even the right ones, as Ed actually said - in response to Toby Young outlining his plans to set up an independent, free school on Newsnight - 'The trouble with that approach is that there will be winners in this' and he meant that the academies win out at the expense of existing schools.

According to Gove Cameron has said what the country has been waiting to hear. He didn't elaborate which country though.