No Reputable Economic Theory Justifies This Bleeding...

The New York Times, no leftie rag, has this condemnation of George Osborne's budget. Scathing is hardly the word...

After praising the Tory government;

"We’ve found a lot to like in the first two months of Britain’s new coalition government"

and praising David Cameron for his planned review of alleged torture by British agaents and on his reaction to the Bloody Sunday Inquiry, it gets a bit more blunt about Boy George's budget....

First it addresses the Tory lie that our economy is as bad as Greece's...

"Britain isn’t Greece. Recovery would eventually have wiped out much of that red ink"

And the size and speed of Osborne's cuts...

"The ...... cuts Labour had planned would have done the rest, leaving a respectable full employment deficit of only 1.6 percent of gross domestic product by 2015"

It gets very blunt....

"No reputable economic theory justifies this bleeding"

And it reaches a conclusion many of us reached the day after the budget was revealed...

"The coalition budget reflects Conservative Party ideology"

Too bloody true it does...

The New York Times and the vast majority of reputable economists are agreed on this analysis of the budget, and Sir Alan Budd has effectivel admitted it's truth by chucking in his job at the OBR.

You can understand Tories sticking obstinately to their Thatcherite religion, but you have to ask: what on Earth are the LibDems doing suporting this openly ideological and damaging budget?

Whatever happened to their claim to be  a party of the left? Or even the centre...? By tying themselves to the Conservatives openly Thatcherite economic philosophy they are ditching their liberal credentials and damaging their future electoral prospects....... what wonderful and mysterious benefits are they getting in return for this Faustian bargain?

I don't know, but I hope, for their sake and the country's sake, that it's worth the pain...