George Osborne speech

From inside the conference hall via an iPhone:

1200: The speech may well include another big announcement. Our guess: something on council tax.

1206: Great video summarizing Tory policies before GO speaks.  Will upload later on to PlayPolitical.

1208: GO promises to defend capitalism during this time.

1209: Not every problem can be blamed on Labour but Brown sat in Downing Street when regulation failed and debt soared. 

1210: Brown borrowed more than households and hid more borrowing off balance sheet than the banks.

1211: The party is over.

1214: Ultimately the bankers are responsible for these problems. I am not an ideologue who thinks that the market can do no wrong. Bankers will be held to account if they pay themselves big dividends when they should be rebuilding their balance sheets.

1216: Unlike Labour we are not bedazzled by big money. We were the first to propose tax on non doms. We don't oppose restrictions on short selling. It was the Conservatives who three years ago published a major report on debt.

1218: We will fight next Election on reducing borrowing.

1220: The cupboard is bare. Tax revenues have collapsed. Unemployment is rising again. Labour have done it again.

1223: Gordon Brown is spending like there is no tomorrow. For him there may be no tomorrow. The only Golden Rule is that you can't trust Labour with the public finances.

1227: No upfront tax cuts paid for by even more borrowing.

1228: Conservatives will freeze council tax for two years if local councils cooperate on making savings.

4pm: Authorised text of speech.

Comments

[GB£.com]

"We were the first to propose tax on non doms."

Uh-oh. Osborne still thinks he can raise 3.5bn a year from non-doms then.

Is there anyone but Osborne who believes he can raise this sum?

[Norm Brainer]

I didn't like his headline grabber of council tax freeze, seemed to be too many caveats and would like to see how that pans out.... but the rest of the speech was good.

[passing leftie]

I loved his little smirk when he said that our debts were large - he was obscured throughout with a cloud of smug rising from the stage.

He wants to set up a quango to do his job. I don't blame him.

A ridiculous imposition of budget freezing on local councils while central government benefits. How does this reflect local circumstances? This is a terrible, terrible idea. People should be able to vote for the council they want, whether they want to increase or decrease council taxes.

[plus ca change]

So now those in control of the party have a new argument against cutting taxes.

The economic circumstances may change, but the policy remains the same.

[David (One of many)]

A couple of newbies posting already, what a surprise. No doubt Mr. Draper had you poised over your keyboards.

Good speech - council tax announcement is great, and the earlier points about fuel tax and the other types that can eat into the wallet were most encouraging.

[Deborah]

Good speech.

"Unlike Labour we are not bedazzled by big money".

A clever counter to the "rich boy" accusations which conjurs up images of Labour ministers scrabbling around trying to ingratiate themselves and get their "fair share" of the pickings.

[ET]

Dear Derek Draper,

you suck

[Edison Smith]

Good speech, good announcement - but it'll be bumped to the lifestyle sections due to the B&B nationalisation.

[Adam]

And if local councils do not cooperate then we don't have any reduction!!

We are skirting around the edges while the economy burns. 40 billion debt is being landed on the taxpayer this morning with the bradford and bingley fiasco and Osborne talks about potential council tax reductions. Why not say we will freeze government spending otherwise we face going bust!

[David (One of many)]

Adam, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he say that the councils should aim to match government reduction? In other words, he wants to reduce government spending over time...

[Barry Williams]

Yes it does look as if NuLab's 'Rapid Rebuttal Unit' is at work... No-one will be fooled by them.

I liked the passage when he turned the 'novice' attack onto Brown, very neatly done.

The speech was delivered in a very sober and serious way, in tune with the mood and all together very sound.

[Cleethorpes Rock]

We need to be cutting public spending and paying off some debts. A corporation tax cut would boost business and actually increase tax revenue.

Council tax cuts will be welcome, but how long before Labour start telling voters we'll be tipping old people out of their wheelchairs, closing schools and turning down the thermostats in care homes in order to pay for it?

[M Dowding]

I like the fellow posters' awareness of The Draper input. It also tars other negative posters with the same brush and disarms those sometimes reasonable critiques.
So typical Labour, Brown and Co., get evermore dirty and nasty and the wind direction changes and blows it all right back in your faces. Toffs aren't afraid of big money because they don't need it personally, unlike Harman et al.
A very good speech and justified attack on Labours' usual destructive ways. Election please, NOW.
Dollie Draper as Snottie's campaign manager!

[Adam]

David (One of many)@ 13.15

Osborne wants to reduce spending and cut tax sometime in the future but there are no specifics. 'A two year freeze on government spending across the board will be matched by a two year freeze in council tax rise' would have been far better. He doesn't have to give exact details of how much the freeze in spending would be but surely this is a better way of telling the electorate that we are responsible and will sort out the current mess.

[ToryJim]

1216: Unlike Labour we are not bedazzled by big money. We were the first to propose tax on non doms.

Sorry, but is there anyone here who actually thinks a tax on Non Doms is a good idea... or that it will actually raise the amounts promised?

[Saltmaker]

Passing leftie, the Lyons Review recommended that council tax caps be abolished – giving councils the spending freedom you clearly approve of. Unfortunately for you, your Great Leader dumped the review. The junior minister left holding the can explained "government was duty bound to protect households from soaring bills".

As for smirking and smugness, I think that’s in the eye of the beholder. I'm just plain worried about the debt Gordon’s got us into. He's been hiding the credit card statements and, with all the stealth debt, nobody knows the true figure we’re in for. That can never be allowed to happen again.

[passing leftie]

Unlike Labour we are not bedazzled by big money...

"...because, we've already go it..."

[Paul D]

'Unlike Labour we are not bedazzled by big money...

"...because, we've already go it..." '

Are you saying that coming from a privilidged background should disqualify someone from government?

Thank you for further debunking the myth of the inclusive and tolerent left

[grumpy old man]

ToryJim | September 29, 2008 at 13:41.

Bingo!\o/ Non-doms are just that. All that will happen if a political party uses them as scapegoats ( as International Jewry is now off limits) is that the cash-flow leaving the UK with the onset of ill-thought out, (but populist) financial restrictions will further increase.
The super-rich can always change countries if life becomes too onerous in the UK. Turning the hard-working and successful into public hate -figures is invariably self-defeating.

[Cleethorpes Rock]

"...because, we've already go it..." '

I hope passing leftie ran his comments past Geoffrey Robinson, Shaun Woodward, Mrs Jack Dromey, Lord Levy, JK Rowling, the Blairs, Bernie Ecclestone, Lakshmi Mittal and Polly Toynbee.

[passing leftie]

'Unlike Labour we are not bedazzled by big money...

"...because, we've already go it..." '

Are you saying that coming from a privilidged background should disqualify someone from government?

No, anymore than it qualifies you for it.

It was a joke from an easy feed line.

[Bertie Bassett]

It was a joke from an easy feed line.

Except you fluffed the punch line and, even if you hadn't, it wasn't funny.

Anyway, I thought Labour drones were serious these days.

[John W]

The speech was excellent, it is a shame that it wont get as much airtime as it might due to the balls up with the B&B - I do wonder whether there is more than coincidence to the timing of this thing.

[Conserva-tory]

From what I saw of GO's speach, I thought there were some good ideas but his delivery was disappointing.

[Edward Huxley]

We all know how council tax has rocketed under Labour. Just promising a conditional freeze for 2 years, using taxpayers` (our) money doesn`t amount to much. What we want is a REDUCTION in spending by local and county councils. Hammersmith has managed to do it. Why can`t others?

[johnC]

'I do wonder whether there is more than coincidence to the timing of this thing.'

I think it is beyond even the Machiavellian machinations of New Labour to engineer a Building Society collapse to coincide with the Conservative party conference.

However, I do wonder why the BBC in its conference coverage apparently finds it impossible to screen the videos which are being watched by the delegates, preferring to show them as going on in the distant background of the hall. Surely it's not too technically demanding to have a camera focussed on the screen ?

[spare us a penny then]

What the 18th Baronet Osborne of Ballintaylor couldn't through a few pennies in lower taxes in our direction?

Things haven't changed much since the 1st Baronet in Charles I's reign, have they?

[passing leftie]

There's nothing wrong with people having money, as long as they pay their fair share of taxes. JK Rowling is a great example of this; the tax-shy Ashcroft is an example of the opposite.

[Neil Reddin]

Council tax freeze:

I like the sound of this, but it does raise many questions. How will the mechanics of the scheme work? Will the extra money necessary be added to the formula grant – if so, then Councils on the grant floor may not see it. Where will the money come from in any case? Will the “freeze” relate to the headline council tax, including precepts, or just the borough/district/county’s own portion of the council tax? What happens then if, say, my borough (Bromley) were to “sign up” but the GLA was not? What strings will come attached?

So far so good, though.

(Blogged.)

[Angelo Basu]

Has anyone ever voted to increase council taxes? Ooh yes, give it to me, my public services are so fantastic that I know you couldn't do them for less and so I trust you to do even more things for much more money, in fact, you're not being fair to yourselves, how dare you make your council tax so low and cheap for those super services, you deserve a tip.

[Richard North]

Text of full speech is up - link here.

[Angelo Basu]

'Unlike Labour we are not bedazzled by big money...

"...because, we've already go it..." '

Actually, this shows how plausible the claim is. Those who have come from privileged backgrounds aren't dazzled by wealth. Those of us from more humble backgrounds believe that we can achieve through our own endeavours so aren't dazzled by other people's wealth. We've been to university with the guys who went into banking and while we might boggle at how much they got in bonuses, we remember them in their jeans and t-shirt days in scruffy student digs so know that they don't need to be simpered to.

On the other hand, NewLabour has always been the party of Mandelsonian "starfuckers" who have been fixated with envy and the desire to have what they have and if denied or incapable, the burning wish to knock them down.

[Edison Smith]

From what I saw of GO's speach, I thought there were some good ideas but his delivery was disappointing.

Better than having great delivery and no ideas...

[Edison Smith]

However, I do wonder why the BBC in its conference coverage apparently finds it impossible to screen the videos which are being watched by the delegates, preferring to show them as going on in the distant background of the hall. Surely it's not too technically demanding to have a camera focussed on the screen

In fairness - and I dislike the BBC more than most - the cameras always panned away during the Lib Dem/Labour videos and there's probably some copyright/electoral fairness restrictions about showing them on live television.

[Norm Brainer]

However, I do wonder why the BBC in its conference coverage apparently finds it impossible to screen the videos which are being watched by the delegates, preferring to show them as going on in the distant background of the hall. Surely it's not too technically demanding to have a camera focussed on the screen ?

They don't show them on purpose, at any of the conferences - not totally sure why.
I think if they were to show them it would count as a party political broadcast or somesuch.

[Ken Stevens]

Presumably the council tax bit meant that an individual council's expenditure savings would be matched pound for pound by a central government donation in addition to whatever central government was going to apportion to that council even had it not achieved such savings?

[Patsy Sergeant]

What YOU mean 'passing leftie' is that Lord Ashcroft should be donating funds to YOUR party.

Indeed 'people should be able to vote for the council that they want' - many, many in your favoured areas!!

A vaery interesting article in a newspaper in the last couple of days, stating that the number of people migrating from North to South (from those areas YOUR friends have been pouring money for ten years) - prople from North to South has increased enormously. So WHERE did all that taxpayers money end up oop north, NOT where it was supposed to go.

Milk of Magnesia is very good to cure the acidity of bile. And I am impervious to counter insults!

[Oscar Miller]

Grave as the situation is at B&B I have no doubt the nationalisation was timed to coincide with conference. The BBC has taken to attaching the epiphet "swift and decisive" action obviously to overcome Brown's reputation for 'dithering', but in this case a bit more consideration would not have come amiss. Strange how spurred to action Brown can be when motivated by grandstanding during the Conservative's conference. This of course is a much more developed and sophisticated approach than flying out to Baghdad but it is essentially the same tactic.

[Jill, London]

Some of the posters here display the politics of envy that pervade the DNA of the Labour Party. Yet they are such arch hypocrites – why didn’t they complain when B-Liar became their leader? He went to the Eton of the North [Fettes College, Edinburgh] which is a ‘privileged’ education – and they despise that.

And why the silence from the Left over B-Liar, and his wife who are “bedazzled by big money”, and are trying to ‘line their pockets’ at every opportunity? More Lefty double-standards.

[squillionaire]

So will peasant tithes be going up or down?

True blue Boris has said freeze council tax but increase fare prices, so up. What about Baron Gideon Osborne? Council tax freeze but no promise of tax cuts and a refusal to rule out tax increases. Having all those millions certainly comes in handy.

[Jill, London]

“Squillionaire” obviously belongs to “Dolly” Draper’s rebuttal unit!

Perhaps “Squillionaire” can explain why the Left [Comrade Livingstone being a great exponent of 'if it moves, tax it'] are so wedded to what “Squillionare” calls “peasant tithes”?

[Cleethorpes Rock]

What do politicians mean when they say we "can't afford a tax cut"?

I can afford to have my taxes cut. Can anyone here who can't afford to pay lower taxes please let me know. Please tell me if paying less tax would just be too much of a strain on the family budget.

[tax cutter]

If you have Osborne's kind of money, then tax cuts are not an issue. You just wouldn't notice them, let alone need them.

[Joe James B]

I have to confess, Cleethorpes Rock has a very good point.
Can we afford not to cut taxes?

However, I think the crunch issue for any serious opposition [i.e. one which may actually have to be the government] is it can't increase the already vastly increasing PSBR on day 1 without being slaughtered by the city and the markets.

But we have to get to them as soon as we can later in the Parliament, and some have been announced.

In the 1980s, tax cuts brought more tax in - in every case.

[Jill, London]

Why doesn’t “tax cutter” go on Labour Home and challenge the culprits – the government of all the Comrades whose drunken sailor spending habits have created this fiscal ‘car crash’

[Conserva-tory]

From what I saw of GO's speach, I thought there were some good ideas but his delivery was disappointing.

Better than having great delivery and no ideas...

Posted by: Edison Smith | September 29, 2008 at 15:56

Agreed but last year I seem to remember him having both!

[passing leftie]

Milk of Magnesia is very good to cure the acidity of bile. And I am impervious to counter insults!

Posted by: Patsy Sergeant | September 29, 2008 at 16:04

You've obviously haven't taken enough of it, Patsy!

I mentioned Ashcroft because he pledged to become domiciled in the UK and pay UK tax, but reneged on that. Where I come from, that makes him a liar. He's not paying his taxes like the rest of us. Are you happy with that?

To be clear, the problem with the Shadow Cabinet is not that it has people from public school backgrounds or people with wealth - it's that those people are massively and disproportionately represented. They simply don't understand the problems faced by the average person.

They've already suggested a tax which will save them, personally, millions of pounds (IHT). I expect to see more of this.

Your arguments that wealthy people don't need to worry about acquiring money ignores an important factor - there are just as many greedy wealthy people as there are poor people.

If they weren't so self-serving, hypocritical and lacking in any depth of conviction at all, it wouldn't even be an issue.

[Joe James B]

Passing leftie,
why then put a tax on the Pension Funds worth around £5billion a year from 1998 onwards, which has depleted the value of hte funds for "ordinary people"?

Not to mention 10p.

[Malcolm Dunn]

I thought the speech alright. I had hoped thar George would give some indications of where he proposed to cut spending in order to reduce our absurd borrowing requirement but I guess political considerations took precedent. Unlike other posters I'm quite glad that he didn't succumb to the temptation to propose unfunded tax cuts. Like other posters I'm curious to know how he proposes to freeze council tax for two years particularly as Pickles appeared to promise the reinstatement of weekly collections which is very expensive.
Poor Passing Leftie is in a difficult position Patsy. He supports a bankrupt party which is also bankrupt of ideas. All he's got left is the thought to make unprovable allegations against our donors.He can be safely ignored.

[Patsy Sergeant]

:-O, :-O, :-O - 'passing leftie'!

[David Sergeant]

"1220: The cupboard is bare. Tax revenues have collapsed. Unemployment is rising again. Labour have done it again."

I would have thought this is the big message that needs saying again and again.

As for those who want specific spending cuts and specific tax cuts 20 months off being a government when the world changes day by day (makes Clegg's silly promise look downright mad now), if that is all you can moan about it must have been a hell of a good speech.

[johnC]

The beauty of the Council Tax proposal is that it provides Councils with an incentive to control their own spending - something Mrs Thatcher tried to do via the Poll Tax when she recognised that tight central government spending controls were being undermined by local authority profligacy. I shall certainly be urging the District Council of which I am a member to participate in this proposal - but what happens if we make the necessary savings but the County Council (who get most of the Council Tax we collect) doesn't ?

[Jill, London]

Passing leftie thinks Conservative shadow cabinet members: “simply don't understand the problems faced by the average person.” Funny how those views weren’t shared by “average persons” in the former Labour ‘safe seat’ of Crewe and Nantwich when Conservative Edward Timpson was elected. [And this was also not the view of “average persons” in the Glasgow East by-election when another Labour ‘safe seat’ fell to the SNP – and Glenrothes looks as if it’s going to fall to the SNP too.]

As for lies – it was Gordon Brown who promised “no more boom and bust” – yet we are in the midst of a fiscal car crash created by him.

As for non-doms, perhaps Passing leftie could clarify why Labour donor Lakshmi Mittal, and Labour Party Treasurer Sir Ronald Cohen are classified as “non doms”?

[passing leftie]

Passing leftie thinks Conservative shadow cabinet members: “simply don't understand the problems faced by the average person.” Funny how those views weren’t shared by “average persons” in the former Labour ‘safe seat’ of Crewe and Nantwich when Conservative Edward Timpson was elected.
As for lies – it was Gordon Brown who promised “no more boom and bust” – yet we are in the midst of a fiscal car crash created by him.

People are pissed off with the goverment. They aren't in love with the Tories. This is a non-argument.

As for non-doms, perhaps Passing leftie could clarify why Labour donor Lakshmi Mittal, and Labour Party Treasurer Sir Ronald Cohen are classified as “non doms”?

I think all non-doms should pay proper tax, regardless of which party they belong to, or donate to.

My problem with Ashcroft is primarily that he promised to return to the UK and pay income tax if he was granted a peerage.

In 1999 his peerage was rejected, and William Hague wrote to Downing St saying "This decision will cost him (and benefit the Treasury) tens of millions a year in tax, yet he considers it worthwhile." In 2004, he was still registered in Belize.

In my view, he lied, or made others liars, to get a peerage. For more details see

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/nov/09/uk.conservatives2

[Patsy Sergeant]

Why don't you 'pass-on' left passing leftie, and go to LabourHome, they would really appreciate yours comments. Of course that would not be so satisfying for you would it. What you really like doing is stirring people up, and annoying them.

I hope you are watching BBC2 right now, that is sure to annoy you!