Britain's Tory Cameron government has been nothing if not resolute in rejecting criticism of its austerity fetish. To Cameron and his chancellor, George Osborne, it doesn't matter a whit that their slash and burn budgeting is harming the country. It is irrelevant that their policies are failing to generate the miracles they had promised. When rating agencies lower Britain's credit rating, it is of no matter.
Now it's the International Monetary Fund adding its voice to the choir. IMF chief economist, Olivier Blanchard, has accused chancellor Osborne of "playing with fire."
In Britain the economy was experiencing a mild recovery before the
coalition came to office. Stagnation since has seen the public deficit
start to rise when economic policy is purportedly aimed at lowering it.
The government's main response has been to prolong austerity to 2018.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the IMF's criticism is a case
of a rat leaving the sinking ship. No doubt other allies, such as the
Office for Budget Responsibility, will do the same.
The ideological back of this government is broken and there is now no prospect of the Tories winning
the 2015 election. In the main its representatives genuinely believe
that removing the state from the economy would allow the resurgent
private sector to take its place.
3 comments:
When the IMF proponents of extreme capitalism start to question your economic policies, then you should sit up and take notice. However, the village idiots currently running the Canadian government think that they know better.
Needless to say, we need to rid ourselves of both these odious groups.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?&v=wcXi-VYy_Yw#!
The promised miracles of austerity might be bassed on invalid data.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2013/04/microsoft-excel-the-ruiner-of-global-economies/
Cameron is a hard guy to fathom.
On the one hand, he kept the UK out of Europe's orwellian "stability and growth pact".
Keeping the UK out of that suicide pact is a huge, and underappreciated. (Especially by progressives. In Canada, and in Britain (lib-dems, for example), criticised Cameron at the time he made that decision.)
Even if Cameron has a stupid austerity policy, he, or the next government, has at the least the opportunity to change course. If he'd signed on to that pact, the UK's hands would be tied.
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