Tuesday, 19 October 2010

Tomorrow, let us see the opportunity and not the difficulty


Cuts, cuts, cuts. Deep, savage - whatever their description, the cuts are coming and they’re going to be damn right nasty. That is all I seem to hear at the moment.

Well, tomorrow the long wait is finally over, and we shall at last see where the government’s nasty cuts will fall. It has undoubtedly been one hell of a job, not least because of the absurd ring fencing of health expenditure and overseas aid. The Tories might well consider that not to ring-fence these two areas would be to break a core manifesto promise. Given that many of their manifesto commitments have been put to one side in the ‘national interest’ of forming the coalition (as is quite understandable) it is a wonder why they cannot also ditch this under the same reasoning. Why on earth should these areas be considered untouchable in the current climate? We will continue to provide aid to foreign countries while policeman and serviceman lose their jobs here. That is a crazy net result of this policy. But of course, the Tories chose these areas specifically as crucial to the strategy of detoxifying the brand- attempting to make people believe that the Tories are the caring and compassionate sort.

Rather than be downcast and cynical on the eve of what will surely be a day of relatively bad news, let us try and see the positives of what will come from tomorrow’s spending review. What grates when the government talks of the cuts is their insistence that these cuts are not ideological. They argue that these cuts are simply necessary because of the current appalling state of the public finances. They say this because it much more palatable for the coalition, while also appealing to the ‘modern conservative’ strategy of dissociating itself with the Tory party of the eighties. In fairness, it is also because it is an easier message to deliver. It conveys the message that ‘I am only doing this because I have to, not because I want to’. The trouble is that this misses a key opportunity to present the cuts in a more positive light. The refusal to accept anything ideological about the cuts is a tacit admission that if they did not have to cut, they would carry on with the spending binge of Labour over the last 13 years. How can that be right? Surely the reality is that these cuts are ideologically the right thing as well as a necessity?

The state is too big, we are taxed too much, the public sector is highly inefficient, bloated and consists of countless layers of utter waste. The argument should be put forward that the cuts, while painful, are the right thing to do. They will reduce the size of the state and the inflated public sector, which in the long run will reduce our tax burden, make our public services more efficient, responsive and local, and ultimately improve our society. This argument needs to be made and reinforced at every opportunity. It needs to achieve the substantial task of drowning out the relentless, one-dimensional media coverage of the cuts - that being, that cuts are bad, simple as that.

To paraphrase the words of Winston Churchill: tomorrow , let’s need not be the pessimist that sees difficulty in every opportunity, but rather the optimist that sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

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