Politician alert! More lunacy from Philip Hammond

Over the weekend, the Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury told the Sunday Telegraph:

"If we get into office and we deliver the efficiencies and we put the money in the bank, we put it by and then we go back to the electorate and we say not, 'we would like you to believe that we will find these savings, that we will eliminate this waste', but 'we have actually done it, we've made the savings, we've got this money in the bank, now we are going to tell you how we will use that to cut your taxes in a way that is prudent and sustainable'.... It will be the great bonus of the second election. You go into government with a set of fully funded promises and during that first term of office, by delivering an efficiency programme, we will pile up the headroom to be able to offer reductions in taxation... When the money's piled up in the pot, then you give it away in tax cuts."

It's worth pointing out that Hammond also said in the same interview:

"Families were looking for some relief [in the Budget] and what they got was another hit. If you ask families the question, 'do you feel your tax burden is too high or too low?', I suspect invariably the answer will be too high."

So Hammond's answer to the following questions would presumably be: Do you think taxes are too high? "Yes". So will you cut them? "No, well, maybe in 2014".

What utter rubbish!

Comments

[Ruth]

Which planet does the Conservative High Command inhabit? If we are not going to get more efficient and therefore cost-saving government from the Conservatives; if we are going to get Brown-lite then we might as well have Brown. Ordinary people are fed up with this nannying, prying, interfering government. They have ruined the Country with mass immigration while failing to get a grip on the welfare scroungers and delinquent youths. It is unbelievable that the police are powerless to prevent respectable citizens being terrorised in their own homes. People living in the country or with big families need large, reliable vehicles; we have no public transport and in any case would not use it, especially late at night. All this green nonsense is just that - just a way to extract more money from us. They cannot forecast the weather 2 days ahead with any accuracy so why should we believe the forecast for 50 years hence? Another case of 'The Emperor has no clothes'. I have worked for 51 years and am still paying tax on my paltry pension. Our state pension is the worst in Europe, but no more money for us. More money for feckless families, money for Polish children in Poland - need I go on? If the Conservatives are not going to do what we want them to do then they can jolly well stuff their own envelopes and tramp the streets themselves canvassing for the party, because the people they are aiming their policies at will never vote for them, while people like me who have supported them for 50 years will sit at home with our feet on the Aga - there is no point doing otherwise.

[W.S.Becket]

Last year I asked a Welsh Assembly Conservative MP (AM) to investigate a matter of wide local concern and for my pains received - I kid you not - an earful of verbal abuse. My subsequent complaint to Conservative Central Office was not even followed up.
Vote for them? You must be joking.