Tory yarns on economy carry grave risks for UK | Letters

George Osborne said in 2010 that he would eliminate the structural deficit by 2015; it now stands at 92bn. His latest yarn (Let the cuts begin, 21 May) is that he will eliminate it by 2017-18. Fat chance. According to the Treasury red book accompanying his April 2015 budget (p22), the deficit reduced from 97.3bn in 2013-14 by just 7bn to an expected 90.2bn in 2014-15. According to the same table, Osborne now expects/hopes/wishes the deficit to reduce by 15bn this year, 36bn the next year, 27bn the year after that, and a further 17bn in the year after that. Is that remotely credible or just another yarn to keep people quiescent while the deficit threshing machine cranks up into top gear?

Osborne has kicked off with an immediate 30bn cuts target. Maybe he can get away with 13bn cuts to policing, the courts, the military and prisons, but there is a serious and rising risk of explosive consequences all round. His proposed 12bn welfare cuts to carers' allowances, disability benefits, child benefit, industrial injury benefits and tax credits will hit some of the most sensitive sections of British society, including millions in in-work poverty, and like Thatcher's poll tax will eventually trigger a grassroots rebellion. His 5bn savings on tax avoidance is fantasy: he's never achieved that in five years of telling us he's been cracking down on this.

Before the second world war there was an orthodoxy of balanced budgets, sound money, the gold standard and free trade

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