2+2=5

Like the equation above, Tory economics just don’t add up. They say that their planned National Insurance giveaway will be financed by mythical ‘efficiency savings’. As I’ve said before on this blog the concept of cost or efficiency saving is very much an exercise in smoke and mirrors. It is no more than economic alchemy.

I heard Stuart Rose of M&S on the radio this morning ‘bigging up’ the Tory policy. He was essentially saying that if the private sector can make cost savings then so can government. I work in the private sector, for a large multinational group of companies and I’ve seen cost savings in action. I can tell you exactly what happens wages are frozen or cut, new or replacement equipment is just not bought, suppliers have to wait longer to be paid, positions remain vacant and people are made redundant. This in the short term saves money. Long term it probably doesn’t, as it will start to make an organisation inefficient. The impact of any money saved is diminished by the absolute shed-load of man-hours spent on meetings about cost savings, conference calls about cost savings, presentations about cost savings, measuring the cost savings made, publicising what a jolly good job everybody has done and how much has been saved. What everybody fails to see is the amount of time wasted on ‘cost saving’ and even more seriously how the ‘eye is taken off the ball’ on normal day to day procurement issues which again raises costs. The old adage that you don’t get something for nothing is so true. “There is no such thing as a free lunch!”

I was amazed at how well the government handled the economy when we when into the worst recession in living memory. Compared with the shoddy way that the Tories handled things in the Eighties and Nineties Labour have been exemplary custodians. In a recession the Tory answer is always to use mass unemployment as their blunt instrument of choice. Tories love the Yosser Hughes style economy as it’s their way of keeping the majority in their place. Tory economics are heartless, uncompassionate and designed to reward their paymasters. Their wealthier supporters will gain from ‘efficiency savings’ as this article affirms.

A vote for the Conservatives is a vote for blatant cronyism, economic mismanagement, mass unemployment and fat cat heaven.