So much for a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Coal in stockings for the kids then!

Chuka Umunna

It inherited an economy that was recovering in May 2010...

It must have been difficult to write that and keep a straight face at the same time.

Can tax payers strike?

Don't give the enemy funds.

Can anyone explain why he's subsidising the bills of people who get supplied by South West Water? The company's profits went up 8% this year. If the price is too high shouldn't the regulator cap the price, and if it's not too high why are we subsidising it?

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And lovely though it is that he's limited the rise in bus fares in London (to a mere 6%), shouldn't those of us in the rest of the country also get our fares capped?

Poletia's just another poxy right wing think tank isn't it.

Hardly surprising that they think the Tories aren't being nasty enough.

On the upside, one of my elderly neighbours has just come back from her third holiday just in time for her fuel payment.

We get to see Politeia in their true form: "Even his critics know that in today's world the cost of borrowing punishes the feckless"

Charming.

I'd rather be part of the feckless huddled masses than a git.

Georgey Porgey, pudding and pie,
Touched the economy and caused it to die.
When the pigeons came home to roost,
Georgey Porgey retired to his baronial estates to take up several non-executive directorships at CIty banks.

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Robert Choate's just announced the taxpayer is taking over the Royal Mail pension scheme. Here comes privatisation.

A "well-balanced" panel then - all very critical. Quelle suprise Graun

Sheila Lawlor is a sad old Thatcherite dinosaur.

...a world where growth and low spending go together,

And also a low development base. Easy to grow from sod all.

Chukka

Clearly the eurozone will have an effect, but British businesses would have been in a far better position to withstand the storm blowing in from the continent if we had a stronger economy going into it – the government made a mess of that. It inherited an economy that was recovering in May 2010

Do you genuinely believe that the slightly slower cutting Labour party would have made a significant difference to the economy. A public sector driven growth spurt? Don't make me laugh.

No amount of George Osborne's spin, sneering and hubris in the House of Commons could cover up the fact that his plan A has failed miserably

Could there be a greater condemnation of Osborne?

"panel of discussion" indeed. Let's get 3 lefties together to agree that the Tories are evil.

In words of NUT : "Deferred success!"

Feckless eh? Well we we were all encouraged to borrow up to our arses before as recently as 2 or 3 years ago yet now our government is terrified that national debt may peak at a ghastly figure of 78%. I am sure 78% isn't bad. It is certainly lower than most of our competitors (apart from China) and as we are not being charged way too much for borrowing he could be less of a scrooge this year but with right wing think tanks wanting blood and the ratings agencies circling he has to be nasty as well as tough... can't disappoint messrs fitch, poor, standard and moody can we...

A hell of a lot of Tories having serious difficulty accepting facts.

This trainwreck has been hurtling towards us for some time, I'm sure even Osborne saw it coming, just that he was so besotted with the misery that Plan A was causing and it's about to get even worse - I despair.

But David, the conservative party is barely funded by people outside the City of London so why should they care how much your bus costs, or whether you even have one.

To sum up Osborne's statement, misery, more misery and even more misery, and a big boy did it and ran away.

"panel of discussion" indeed. Let's get 3 lefties together to agree that the Tories are evil.

If Sheila Lawlor and Danny Blanchflower are on your list of "lefties", your list of those on the right must be tiny. Probably just you and Thatcher. And you're not too sure about her.

I trust all directors will have their pay capped at 1%!! The 'Eton Mess' will look after their chums at our expense.

One of these days the economic terrorists infesting Tory madrassas like Politeia are going to find out what an armed majority looks like, up close and personal.

Did anyone SERIOUSLY expect anything other than incompetence? And blaming everyone bar himself.

But the Tories have form. They were still blaming the previous Labour government for the failings in the mid 1990s.

Mr Arseburne: 'I think I got away with it, Dave!'
Call-me-Dave: 'Brilliant! Reducing tax credits and holding down public sector pay and slashing their pensions, and then giving the money to big corporations to do infrastructure works is simply brilliant! Our rich friends will make billions, and they'll subcontract the hard work to poorly-paid self-employed labour, our natural constituency amongst the plebs!'
Mr Arseburne: 'Thank you Dave! I knew I could do it. Bit difficult keeping a straight face in the House though, when we know the joke's on them!'
Call-me-Dave: 'There's only one thing worrying me, Georgie, and that is: how are we going to boost demand now that we're taking even more money from the poor to give to the rich? Without boosting demand it doesn't matter how much we make life easier for businesses - if hardly anyone is buying the economy will tank even further. Any ideas?'
Mr Arseburne: 'Errrr......'

Oh and my pay rises frozen at 1% per year means a real income cut of 4% per year or more at my current rate of inflation and my chances of buying a home are now even less than zero. Thanks coalition.

Today proves to the peolpe of England this government's agenda was never about the deficit and all about reform

Yes as the deficit gets worse and worse and the debts just get higher and higher they are sticking to plan A - because it is not about financial stability and all about reform

Pension reform - immediately stole 2.5% from every single pension in Britian (both public and private) - that made investment bankers and markets rich by billions - all robbed from your pensions

Pension reform - cameron is going to enrol EVERY WORKER WITHOUT A PENSION into a pension where FOREIGN INVESTMENT BANKS are to be given 4% of your wages from October 2012 (he kept that quiet and deliberately provoked public sector workers to ensure his plans to raid your pockets were not known to you - and how will that help the English economy if Cameron is going to take a further 4% out of your pocket and give it to foreign banks)

Education Reform : it's not about education. It's about transferring ownership of state schools to private sector "education companies". Yes England no longer owns the schools they paid to build. It is the equivalent of you paying off your mortgage and then giving your house away free to your neighbour.

But to make it worse, as well as this transfer of ownership of billions of pounds of English assets - the government BORROWED £half a billion pound just to cover the legal fees as King Cameron decided English Taxpayers should pay the legal fees to transfer the ownership of their own assets to private companies

(Just look at the asset register of all these private sector education companies. As the black hole gets bigger in council accounts the asset register in these private sector companies is bulging by billions - your assets - not any more - enjoy paying the billions it will cost (with interest) for the legal fees alone people of England

And then their is the defence black hole created by Cameron chopping up planes you borrowed billions to make - with the bill made even higher as Cameron then immediately signed a contract with America to take American planes to replace the brand new planes he chopped up

Then there is Cameron giving away our fighter jets to America - to immediately sign a contract to buy American fighter jets

Yes Cameron is screwing every English man as they sit and watch their cricket and their football on SKY (kindly provided by that wonderman we can all trust Rupert Murdoch)

As Murdoch distracts Cameron attacks your pockets, your pensions, your education, your NHS, your jobs, your army navy and air force, your councils, your schools, your childrens chances of a university education.

And then we have all the FOREIGN BANKING DEBT Cameron is sneakily tranferring onto English tax payers.

£6billion Ireland, £29 billion IMF (every penny Cameron gives to the IMF - the IMF gives foreign debt back to replace it)

Yes Cameron is piling billions in debt onto English taxpayers at the same time as he is throwing Englishmen on the dole, putting British business into bankrupsy

By 2015 there will be no England - and will Englishmen actually do anything about it (or will they continue to be glued to SKY sports watching their cricket and their tennis and their F1 and their Darts and their Football

Yes will Murdoch distracts, Cameron Attacks

Fact is you growth deniers the economy was growing at 2.1% in 2010 when Labour left office. What a catastrophic mess the ConDems have created in a little over 18 months. Ed Balls said this would happen and he has been proved right today. For the proof see the Chancellors statement

No amount of Tory spin can hide the fact that Boy george has fucked up good & proper.

If he was working for a public company, his P45 would be getting written up as we speak.

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The scale of the breath taking and monumental failure of austerity is clear for all to see. Then Gideon, has the gall to make further predictions, which will all be wrong, and carry on doing the same.

Bloody lunancy.

The government thank God is not part the Euro, it is a sovereign, monopoly currency issuer. It should provide a job guarantee, for everybody that wants one, on a living wage.

The neo liberals have failed. It is time to apply Modern Money Theory and fix things.

What an excellent post Scottish Lady!

Even his critics know that in today's world the cost of borrowing punishes the feckless

We need to change "today's world" then.

The usual pitiful Tory lack of vision. How can these people be so well educated and yet so thick?

The evidence is that cutting overall spending to 40% or less as a proportion of GDP will bring growth, restore confidence and keep lending rates low.

What evidence? This is an assumption, and a risky one at that. The only 'evidence' here is the writer's wilfully misleading use of the word 'evidence'.

How can these people be so well educated and yet so thick?

How can these people go to crammers to pass pointless exams and remain so thick?

There! Fixed that for you.

Of course there's no evidence for that, how could there be. It flies in the face of common sense.

Economics, particularly at the capitalist lickspittle end of the spectrum, is just the art of pure, unadulterated bullshit.

There is vast empirical evidence of growth v spending%GDP covering the globe and over decades. Just because you are ignorant doesn't make it invisible. Educate yourself you have a pc?

You mean they are wrong to do that.

Yes and next time we have a massive recession we will have a big GDP number on recovery, it is a basic feature of busts. Exagerated by an increase in the deficit of 100 million, so it came at a cost? Deficit doesn't contain any bailouts but was caused by the crash which was going to happen some day anyway. Banning recessions was laughable

Not going to read the article but I guess where the blame is being focused.

Tories are to blame - labour are brilliant - its the tories fault - labour are brilliant - tories are scum - labour are brilliant.

Am I a million miles off?

This is a matter of fact not opinion, anyone can go back and check the economic indicators. The Tories have stalled the recovery, just as many commentators in this newspaper, both above and below the line predicted they would over a year ago. They are well under way to sending us into a double dip recession, again largely as predicted by anyone without Tory Friedmanite blinkers on.

... £156 billion shortfall in tax intake, hence £111 billion more to be borrowed ... that is the bottom line of Osbornomics ... except that the ConDems are not concerned about the economy but rather a revolution in how Britain is governed ... for the few and not for the many ...

... and incidentally ... how depressing that CiF has had to disable comment after Cathcart's article ... we are 'free' to comment on everything EXCEPT on the actions of the Daily Mail or the Times ...

Osborne - what you have given us today is basically pie in the sky and wishful thinking. The trouble is by the time you lot leave the whole country will be sold off to the lowest bidder if the recent RBS nonsense is anything to go by. I could see no real hope in anything said today.

Can we please have a new government? One with some integrity i.e. who doesn't blatently lie to us would be a good start. It would be better if they had a little economic 'nunce' and werent just leading us up and down the same sorry path. Oh and a little ambition and hope for the future for all of the people not just your business/banker friends would be the icing on the cake. What we have now is dross.

You haven't read this, have you? Read the second contribution and explain how it is left wing.

I propose a new CiF rule. Whenever it is self-evident that someone has commented without reading the article in question, the comment should be deleted.

Premature ejaculations of lazy prejudice contribute zero value to these threads. I see no reason why they should be allowed.

Do you actually think Osborne's plans have been good? We're about to enter a second recession despite him confidently claiming his plans wouldn't lead to such a thing.

To give him credit he has blamed an impressively wide range of things for this state of affairs. The Royal wedding was an especially good move. Inspired even.

Most people here do indeed think the Tories are scum but don't think Labour are much better. Mainly because they followed the Tories plans in the 90's.

So not only do you not read the article you don't bother to read the comments either.

Keep up!

Well it seems that too many people like KetamineJustSayNeigh seem to have swallowed the tired lie that it was all Labour's fault.

The economy was actually recovering until these cruel, dim and self serving twits took over.

I think economic history will look much more favourably on Brown than Osborne or that total hypocrite, Cable. Mr Bean indeed!? What does that make Cable? Coco the Clown?

As usual it's a case of Soak the Poor (and the squeezed middle)

It doesn't seem like "Plan B" at all - the strategy is to squeeze the public sector more (e.g. nearly double projected job losses by OBR) and a pay cut on top of the pension fiasco.

The crumbs of "additional" expenditure, for example on child care (remember SureStart?) and social housing, still represent a cut in real terms from the projection in 2009/10. Has BIS done (or commissioned) any research (with Department of Education) on the projected impact of the ending of Education Maintenance Allowances?

If the Opposition can't continue the anti-Governmen t trend in the polls, then they should be ashamed of themselves.

It inherited an economy that was recovering in May 2010, but confidence nosedived following its spending review in October last year and we've seen little growth since

Lets just tick off the events that have occurred since May 2010 shall we? (i) real fears of unmanaged Greek default, (ii) contagion of Euro crisis to Italy, Spain and even some Northern European countires, (iii) political logjam in Europe and the absence of any kind of political will to tackle the crisis, (iv) American political logjam that came within a week or so of default and (iv) downgrade to Chinese growth forecasts.

These are just a handful of the malign factors that have influenced the UK economy, to simplistically point to austerity as the reason growth is going to be flat over the next 12 months is either idiotic or dishonest. Lets face it, if the OBR had predicted modest 0.5% quarter on quarter growth the cries would have still been for less austerity and more spending.

Look at the spreads on bonds, look at what we are paying in interest compared to our neighbours and then look at the respective growth projections. No comparable country is predicting racy growth, the only difference is that some countries are facing bond strikes pretty damn soon and that will make Osborne’s austerity look like Brown’s spending splurge.