After the pomp and prestige of Washington, David Cameron flew into Heathrow at the end of last week and immediately sped straight to his Witney constituency’s monthly surgery, an altogether far less glamorous affair. But after a week grandstanding on the world stage, and even of boasting of becoming the first prime minister to fly on Air Force One (he wasn’t, John Major did in 1994), it’s back to British politics – and the most anticipated parliamentary event of the year. George Osborne is probably the first chancellor in modern history to take a two-day holiday a week before the budget. Quite why the man responsible for Britain’s economic interest was doing on a foreign visit designed primarily to discuss Iran, Afghanistan and extradition rulings is anyone’s guess. The fact that much of the media seemingly let this slide is also telling; it is doubtful they would have been quite so mute had Alistair Darling fancied a few days in the Ohioan sun in the depths of the 2008 crisis. But the budget this week will have much resting on it; not only for Cameron and Osborne, but for Miliband and Balls, the future of the Liberal Democrats and the nation as a whole.
The Labour party has spent much of the past year accusing the government of being keener on cutting the deficit than hastening economic recovery, deploring the plight of the ‘squeezed middle’ in passing. Sure enough, Osborne has bleak economic data to contend with. But the nation’s mood has hardened; they do not blame the Conservatives and their allies for their economic woes – they blame the Labour party. Osborne has already cast his economic dye for the parliamentary term. We are in an age of austerity.
Miliband will face surely one of the hardest challenges for any modern day politician when Osborne sits down just before 2pm. The leader of the opposition will have only minutes to digest a vast array of complex information and try to offer a quick, concise response. Throughout the chancellor’s statement Miliband will no doubt be receiving notes from Labour staffers analysing each and every announcement, and they will continue to arrive even after he has begun to respond – and he will have to build them into his speech as he arrives. Leave aside the politics – this is a hard trick for even the most adept Commons performer to pull off. Four days of debate on the contents of the budget then follow.
Expect the flagship announcement of Alistair Darling’s 2009 budget, the 50p tax rate, to be axed. How will a Conservative chancellor explain a measure relieving the burden on those earning more than £150,000 a year after raising VAT, introducing a sweeping new welfare regime, freezing public sector pay, and making spending cuts across the departments of Whitehall? In an era of austerity, of deplorable youth unemployment, of riots and social breakdown, how will Osborne justify this? The politics, and economics, are truly terrible.
Elsewhere, the Lords continue their totemic struggle against the government’s health and social care bill. Lady Royall and Lords Owen and Howe will try to stop, reform and push through the bill respectively, but there needs to be an acceptance from the Labour benches, in both houses, that their efforts have failed to stop this most destructive of legislation.
The ramifications of this week’s budget will be felt long beyond the Wednesday afternoon slot it occupies. It will determine the political fortune of the government, and whether the next election is fought in the teeth of recession or amid shoots of recovery. Miliband may lead the official opposition’s response, but the rhetoric will come from Balls. Labour’s fate depends deeply on how this axis operates this week, and the years beyond.
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David Talbot is a political consultant, tweets @_davetalbot and writes the weekly The Week Ahead column on Progress
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your spot on economy and health the 2 big ones this week,we can win the health outcomes/impact but we are losing the economic issues, far and fast not convincing,people except need for austerity means hardship,loss of jobs ,so we have to convince public via the media what we would do differently,our growth issue is good but not the how or when it will make a difference,keep demanding fairness,rich ,tax issues etc , balls has it all to do if cuts are inevitable and we are to blame then we must fix it, need a better mantra/catch all, headline as you say defining week. the tories are in charge so whats happens is the responsibility of the coalition.
well oh well oh well oh well oh wellie and more wellie and more until …. well until the country is well and truly divided .Careful Cameron we don’t want Syria re-created here, or any other fascist country. Put the percentage of Tax given to welfare on the Tax bill will you ; scaremonger the mids more and more over the scroungers will you ; lets just hold on and think for a moment . Poor people in receipt of benefits won’t have house price increases itemised on their dockets will they ? And what is it , £ 60 for every patient on doctors books
(some often long dead or gone from country) Money from benefits does circulate ,rent ,shopping,gambling etc etc . I don’t know the half of it but I know a man who does,and he’s in the Labour Party !