Ship steady, now wind for the sails
Aug 18 2010 by Andrew Hebden, The Journal
OF the many amusing sketches I witnessed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe last week, the News Revue parody of the TV show Glee featuring cameo appearances from Nick Clegg and George Osborne was a stand-out moment.
With Clegg depicted as a small puppet whose head occasionally poked around the side of the stage, and the actor playing Osborne sporting devil’s horns, it characterised one view of the first 100 days of the coalition Government. And it was not a kind portrait.
The view from the various business organisations who have today had their say on the Government’s achievements to date is unquestionably more positive.
Clearly the cuts agenda has dominated the 100-day period and, in general, the business community has welcomed the willingness of the Government to tackle the deficit with vigour.
Unfortunately, in making these cuts in great haste, some decisions appear to have been given little thought. The immediate axing of all but essential marketing spending, for example, might seem an easy win, but does it make sense to axe a campaign such as Passionate People, Passionate Places which has proved good value and a boon to the North East tourism industry? Yes, we all need to share the pain, but that doesn’t necessarily mean making cuts without giving some thought to the consequences first.
Conscious of the way the cost- cutting has come to characterise the new administration, Mr Osborne was keen to talk up the economic uplift that could result from the cuts in his speech last night. The Government is, he insists, promoting a pro-growth agenda.
In the sense that a failure to tackle the deficit quickly could have spooked international confidence in the UK economy, it might be argued that the cuts have given the economy a short-term boost. But beyond that, it is hard to see where the pro-growth agenda stems from.
Ripping up business support, scrapping regional development agencies regardless of their success and scaling back on support for new, low-carbon industries hardly encourages growth. And while there has been lots of good talk about the need to boost exporting and re-balance the economy, there has still been negligible action to make this happen.
The business community has made it clear today that it has confidence in the new Government’s ability to make things happen. The ship has been steadied. Now we want to know how it’s going to get some wind back in the sails.
