[Tezcatlipoca]

I don't like Gordon, but I think this is more important than the "bigot story" which has dominated today...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk...s-1956149.html

Originally Posted by The Independent

Main parties are blamed for conspiracy of silence on cuts

Institute for Fiscal Studies condemns failure to tell voters the truth about spending plans

By Sean O'Grady, Economics Editor

A damning indictment of the failure of all three political parties to tell the public the truth about the painful spending cuts that must follow the election has been issued by the nation's leading think-tank on the public finances, the Institute for Fiscal Studies.

The IFS, which is independent of political influence, says that the as-yet unspecified cuts in spending amount to some £52.5bn in the case of the Conservatives, £44.1bn for Labour and £34.4bn for the Liberal Democrats – which are the sums each party will have to find if they are to meet their stated aims for deficit reduction.

They imply deep cuts in almost every public service. The Conservative Party figure is larger than those for the other two parties because it has said it wants to cut public borrowing sooner and faster, and that it would put less emphasis on tax rises.

The IFS indicated that even now, a week before polling, the public is not being prepared for the age of austerity that will follow the election, which will involve the largest spending cuts since the Second World War if the Tories win, or since the 1970s in the case of Labour and the Liberal Democrats.

The institute's director, Robert Chote, condemned all the parties for being "strikingly reticent" about their true intentions and for their failure to come clean on precisely where cuts would be made. Mr Chote added: "The opposition parties have not even set out fiscal targets clearly, and all three are particularly vague on their plans for public spending. The blame for that lies with the Government for refusing to hold a spending review before the election."

(snip)