As I noted earlier this morning, David Cameron’s declaration that “money is no object in this [flood] relief effort” rather undermines his government’s previous insistence that the UK is “nearly bankrupt” (hence the need for all those cuts). He said yesterday: “Money is no object in this relief effort. Whatever money is needed, we will spend it” and later added: “We are a wealthy country, we have a growing economy. If money is needed for clean-up, money will be made available.”
By contrast, in a speech on the economy last year, he remarked: “There are some people who think we don’t have to take all these tough decisions to deal with our debts. They say that our focus on deficit reduction is damaging growth. And what we need to do is to spend more and borrow more. It’s as if they think there’s some magic money tree. Well let me tell you a plain truth: there isn’t.” Yet a “magic money tree” was exactly what Cameron gave the impression of having discovered yesterday.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, ministers are already desperately trying to row back from the PM’s loose rhetoric. In interviews this morning, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin has insisted that there is no “blank cheque” from the government for flood relief. He said:
I don’t think it’s a blank cheque. I think what the Prime Minister was making very clear is that we’re going to use every resource of the government and that actually money is not the issue at the moment.
Confused? It looks like the the Treasury austerians have chopped down Mr Cameron’s magic money tree.
Content from our partners
Related
