Published: Daily Mirror, 15 June 2010
The forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility is not what the ConDems have been trying to scare us with since taking office.
The amount the country is going to borrow in the next year is lower than the pessimists thought.
The OBR did say that the economy won't grow as fast in 2011 as Alastair Darling predicted when he was Chancellor. Well, it certainly won't if George Osborne weilds the axe in his emergency Budget.
We're in danger of a self-fulfilling prophecy. The OBR warns that growth won't be as good as we hoped. This gives the coalition cover to make deep cuts — and that in turn leads to lower growth.
So the coalition makes more cuts — biting ever deeper into essential public services.
Lower borrowing, but bigger cuts. How does that add up? Don't buy the rhetoric of David Cameron and Nick Clegg about the need for austerity which will "change our way of life".
It won't change theirs — or the lives of anyone who can afford to escape the worst cuts in services. Last week, in the House of Commons, the new Local Government Minister, the Conservatives' Bob Neill, told me: "Those in greatest need ultimately bear the burden of paying off the debt".
It was a blunt and shocking admission that the poorest individuals, the least well-off families, the most vulnerable communities, stand to lose under this coalition.
People who voted Lib Dem have been betrayed. Up until election day, they were campaigning against draconian cuts. But after a whiff of power, they have bought the Tory agenda hook, line and sinker.
So much for their claim of being "progressive".
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