Irrelevant

Much fuss, sorry I mean analysis, I’m sure will be made of Osborne’s pre-budget report today or the Autumn Statement as it’s now known because the Tories promised to abolish the PBR. Promises, promises eh? Oh and the Tories also pledged to report to Parliament first not leak stuff beforehand, something they criticised Labour for. That’ll be yet another promise broken then.

Anyway, some are referring to it as Brown’s 13th budget, which indicates not only the lack of substance – tinkering about the edges – but deliberately making it more confusing: such as flipping between using Office for Budget Responsibility figures on growth and debt but using Treasury figures on the deficit. Witterings from Witney has also come to similar conclusions – labelling Osborne as an economic prat. I must say I can’t disagree.

Yet it doesn’t matter what the forecasts are – they’ve been wrong four times in the last 18 months already – the continuing eurozone crisis renders any such predictions as null and void.

Interestingly though Ed Balls, in response to the Chancellor’s statement gave a great demonstration of a political dog whistle:

“If we are all in it together, why is it families, women and children always pay the most?”

See what he did there? The vast majority of men have families too, in some form or another, including the multi-millionaires: Osborne, Clegg and Cameron. So the statement is factually correct and logically he’s referring to almost everyone in the country but the implication Balls’ wants to give is entirely different.

Talking of agendas, out of all the ‘announcements’ made by Osborne see what the BBC has gone with just before tomorrow’s strike:

PBR reveals UK net contributions to EU will soar

I’ve just had a quick perusal of the PBR, and as highlighted by the Telegraph, the UK’s net contribution to the EU is set to rise from £4.8billion in 2009/10 to £6billion in 2010/11 – page 190, footnote 3.

This is an increase of £1.2 billion and means that Britain’s contributions have doubled in just three years.

Truly astonishing, at a time when the UK’s finances are in a mess we contribute even more – predominantly as a result of the ‘deal’ Tony Blair struck in 2005 to attempt to reform the CAP.

Incidentally I’m still waiting for CAP reform, so it’s demonstrated yet again that far more was given away than won by the UK Government, now where have I heard that before?

PreBudget Report

I didn’t really pay much attention to the charade that was the PBR yesterday for three reasons;

1. The budget will be an overwhelmingly political one which will utterly fail to respond to the urgent economic crisis that Britain faces.
2. As always with Brown Darling budgets, the emphasis will be on the next day media headlines, with lots of the important policies hidden away, via a sleight of the hand.
3. The Treasury economic forecasts will be a nonsense.

Brown’s ‘clever’ budgets often take some time to unravel, although the unraveling time seems to be obeying the law of diminishing returns – this one has already started.

Going by this morning’s overwhelmingly hostile headlines, it would appear that the PBR’s other aim has failed as well – I particularly like the Sun’s headline this morning:

The most notable point for me about the PBR now is the timing of the General Election.

I’ve tended to be in the ‘May 6th’ camp; it’s the last possible best date for Labour. Labour has to call an election before June 3rd (although Brown could technically extend this) but they would not want the likely disastrous local elections on May 6th to over shadow any GE campaign.

May 6th would also allow Brown to have another one of his set-pieces – the Budget – but after today’s poor reactions to the PBR I’m beginning to change my mind.

Can Brown risk another round of negative reactions so near to an election? Coupled with the fact that Labour MP’s appear to have largely given up – the Labour benches emptied straight after Darling’s speech – and that the expenses saga is still rumbling on, I’m now inclined to agree with Iain Martin, the election is looking more likely to be March 25th.

Update: ToryBear has an interesting post that indicates that March 25th could be a likely option.