Middle classes must not be singled out for cuts
THE most salient fact in British politics remains the one confessed to by Labour’s former Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liam Byrne: there is no money left.
David Cameron was right yesterday to pin the blame for impending cuts in public spending on Labour’s
outrageous profligacy. With interest payments on the national debt heading towards £70billion a year, action to reduce the deficit is long overdue.
Mr Cameron was also correct to emphasise that workers in the private sector have already been through years
of pay freezes and job cuts. Workers in the public sector cannot expect to avoid the kind of sacrifices that others
have already made.
The Prime Minister yesterday stressed that these unavoidable cuts will be imposed in a “fair” way. The
trouble is that not everybody has the same conception of fairness. Protecting the most “vulnerable”, as Mr Cameron
promised to, sounds commendable. But what if it means further penalising the hardest working?
And asking the public for suggestions about what should be cut is all very well. But in that case why have certain
areas, such as the NHS and the foreign aid budget, been fully exempted in advance?
Mr Cameron is right to seek to show that “we are all in this together”. But if the people making all the sacrifices are, as usual, the long-suffering middle classes the coalition’s honeymoon will prove short-lived.