A pledge to end rough sleeping. A minor reduction to the VAT rate on electricity, and now a £2 cap on bus fares. We can all debate whether it really amounts to the ‘biggest change in British politics in forty years’ and an ‘end to neoliberalism’ as the new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has promised. One point is clear, however. The amount of money at stake is starting to add up, and the money will have to come from somewhere. But can Burnham really cut spending?
As Mrs Thatcher once remarked, ‘the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.’ That was always going to be true in the medium term, but even she probably didn’t expect it to happen quite so quickly. At his first cabinet meeting yesterday, Burnham asked his ministers to take a ‘hard look’ at their budgets and come up with some savings. He is only one day into his premiership and already he is scrabbling around trying to find more money.
It is not hard to see why. Burnham has made three significant spending announcements already and clearly has a ‘giveaway grid’ to roll out over the summer. Ending rough sleeping will cost £340 million, the VAT cut another £850 million, and the bus fare subsidy £454 million. Admittedly, within a total government spending of £1.3 trillion, these are small sums. And yet, so far they have all been paid by fiddling with the numbers.
