At last Tuesday’s Hertfordshire Council meeting, Nick Hollinghurst, County Councillor for Tring and the Villages, hit out at the Tory Government’s inconsistencies on public spending and the economy. The Hertfordshire Tories had announced further budget cuts and once again trotted out Geoge Osborne’s excuse that – now 7 years after the banking crash – the UK’s economic situation was still so bad that further spending cuts were both urgent and unavoidable.
But Cllr Hollinghurst hit back. The government’s credibility, he maintained, was undermined by the inconsistencies of its own statement. He himself, he said, was “totally sceptical about the need for both the pace and the depth of these cuts”.
“The Tory government cannot have things both ways”, he said. “On the one hand, they are preaching economic gloom and doom to the domestic audience, while, on the other hand they, are crowing to the Chinese President Xi Jinping and the Indian Premier Narendra Modi about how strong our economy is and what a great place the UK is to do business.”
“On the one hand they are cancelling or delaying infrastructure projects right across the country, but, on the other hand, they are indulging in vanity projects like HS2.”
“On the one hand cuts are threatening local authorities’ abilities to deliver services like care for the elderly, childrens centres, capacity in our schools, but, on the other hand the Chancellor has a declared intention to squirrel away tax payers’ money just to build up balances for some theoretical problem that might occur in the future.”
“Tories are quick to criticise other parties for what they might call ‘tax and spend policies’ – but what is the justification for ‘tax but spend’? Taking our money and spending it on either investment or services?”
“This behaviour on behalf of the Tory government is either insincere or ill-thought out – either way I am totally sceptical about Tory economics in Whitehall and Tory budgetting in Hertford.”