Picture poor old Vince Cable shuffling home to his Twickenham semi after another hard slog in Whitehall, looking forward to a glass of bitter shandy and a glimpse of the evening's play at Wimbledon.
Perhaps he sits in silent company with his wife, unable to express his anguish of what he finds himself carrying out in Government. He should be totally sickened as his progressive and redistributive instincts are confronted with the daily menu of vicious cuts in welfare and public services.
George Osborne and his work trainee Danny Alexander presented a vile, despicable budget on Tuesday. The message came through clearly: the recklessness of the banks will be paid for by the struggling majority. The slashing of welfare payments by £11bn was certainly breathtaking and back to the old Tories of the early 80s which Cameron kidded us had been consigned to history. "We're all in this together," said Osborne, the millionaire son of a Baronet, on slashing housing benefits and so guaranteeing big rises in homelessness.
George Osborne and his work trainee Danny Alexander presented a vile, despicable budget on Tuesday. The message came through clearly: the recklessness of the banks will be paid for by the struggling majority. The slashing of welfare payments by £11bn was certainly breathtaking and back to the old Tories of the early 80s which Cameron kidded us had been consigned to history. "We're all in this together," said Osborne, the millionaire son of a Baronet, on slashing housing benefits and so guaranteeing big rises in homelessness.
Compounding Vince’s misery must be the biggest economic questions about whether £40bn worth of fiscal savagery, at a time where recovery is so fragile, risks knocking Britain back into recession. There is also the small matter of regressive measure of putting VAT up to 20 percent which Vince railed against throughout the election. That just can't be spun.
The Departmental cuts of a quarter or a third look, er, impossible to implement. Some Ministries like Transport can put a moratorium on all building projects and save a few billion but take a Department like the Home Office where the commitment to community safety could not be viewed as luxurious indulgence. Cuts that deep will mean we have decide if we no longer monitor sex offenders, discontinue providing home security to the elderly or make do with 50,000 less police officers.
Cameron said to Andrew Marr a few days before the election, “Any Cabinet minister, if we win the election, who comes to me and says 'here are my plans and they involve front line reductions' will be sent back to their department to go away and think again." That claptrap was about as convincing as George Bush senior when he promised, “no new taxes.”
Vince is central to this odious deceit, kidding the country the severe hardship and steeply rising unemployment and poverty is “unavoidable”. But ultimately he’s kidding himself his heart is in it at all.
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