Labour can only push austerity for as long as MPs hold the line - and voters believe them
It’s always interesting when a political tagline suddenly falls out of use. For years, “austerity is an ideological choice” was a trusty go-to for the then opposition, hammering the coalition and its Tory successors.
We can already see this, inside and outside the state. Means testing winter fuel payments is an early example of a Labour austerity measure applied to cut the costs of state activity. Meanwhile, tax rises like extending VAT to education, and new taxes on oil and gas businesses impose austerity externally, on individuals and businesses.
Those who used to chorus “austerity is an ideological choice” have fallen silent now they must make the books balance. Any former minister, of any party, can tell you that this is more difficult to do in practice than to discuss in theory.an ideological choice. That’s what the rhetoric about “black holes”, just-discovered problems, and economic under-performance all amounts to.that supplants her party’s opposition poetry. That isn’t comfortable for anyone to do.
Even that wasn’t long enough. Despite those efforts, the political pressures to water down their austerity plan began almost as soon as they entered Downing Street.Individual measures were fought tooth and nail by myriad vested interests, and – more troublingly – plenty of their own MPs wavered before long, rather than hold the line to get the job done.
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