Chancellor? I could do that

If I hadn’t just put “Anything-onomics” on the Banned List, it would be Mailonomics. The Daily Mail has turned against George Osborne, but the policy it proposes instead is pure nonsensonomics:

Sweep away red tape, slash taxes to stimulate spending, get serious about slimming a bloated state – and get those infrastructure projects moving.

So, slim the bloated state by borrowing more and spending more on big construction projects that usually take several years to get started. Brilliant. And so simple. Why didn’t the Chancellor think of that?

The only person who could do the Chancellor’s job better than Paul Dacre, of course, is the Mail’s erstwhile hero, Vince Cable. He modestly told Newsnight last night that he could do a good job at the Treasury, not that he was “pushing for” the job.

Every time we are tempted by the boastful charms of the next leader of the Continuity Lib Dems, we should recall his desire to take the Department of Business back to the Seventies’ policy of “picking winners”.

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• http://twitter.com/sufc21 SUFC

  Stephaonomics. Me drooling over Ms Flanders. Oh yes.

• greggf

  How about slimming the bloated state but leaving out the infrastructure projects – would that be sensonomics?

• Junius

  If a Lib Dem is to become Chancellor, I would far rather it were David Laws than Vince Cable. Admittedly, Mr Laws ran into a little trouble with his expenses, but the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards was apparently of the view there was no evidence Mr Laws made claims with the intention of benefiting himself or anyone else. And Mr Laws has earned a crust in the financial world, which is more than can be said of almost anyone on either of the front benches.

  Interestingly, your colleague Hamish McRae takes a far more sanguine view of the country’s financial situation than the overwhelming majority of doom-mongering hacks, citing the latest CBI quarterly industrial trends survey’s cautious optimism. Mr McRae also argues that in the three months to end-April the private sector added a net 205,000 jobs, the second-highest rate of job creation ever and hardly a situation consistent with a shrinking economy.

  Certainly, in the checkout queue in Morrisons this morning, talk was all of the glorious weather and the prospect of a marvellous Olympic games with nary the faintest whine of a Jeremiah to be heard. Although I would not mind betting the Telegraph blogs are chock-a-block with them.

• Kugelschreiber

  It’s not the STATE which is “bloated” – it’s the obscenely rich.

  THAT is the problem

• http://twitter.com/francessmith frances smith

  that’s interesting, in the checkout queue i was in today most of the talk was of how the self service machine doesn’t work.

  david laws as chancellor would probably bring about the end of the coalition, but seeing as he was a supporter of cutting too fast, it would be apt for him to be at the helm with it sinks.

  so replace osborne with david laws, now, david cameron, if you are reading this.

  put an expenses fiddling ex banker in charge of the economy, and see what happens.

• Junius

  If you were in Morrisons, my past experience was that I only encountered problems with the self service machines when I used my own bag. There was a glitch in the software, which by now should have been fixed, I would have thought. Anyhow, to be on the safe side when using the self service machines I do not use my own bag.

  As the checkout operators are such a friendly bunch, and unless the store is very busy, I normally opt to queue, just for the pleasure of swapping a joke with them. My, how we laugh.

  On balance I would prefer the economy run by a Treasury team of expenses-fiddlers who did a good job, rather than the Labour bunglers who inherited a sound economy and messed up big-time, and whose Chief Secretary left a note warning his successor that there was no money left while having the audacity to trouser a severance payment of £19,589.

• Kugelschreiber

  I often wonder why some people seem to worship the Environment.

  After all, look at the creatures that live in it. How do many of them live?

  By EATING each other.

  No one knows why the World was made like this. Some Christians say that it is the influence of SATAN in our World.

  This is one of the reasons why (apart from loving meat) that I would not bother to become a VEGETARIAN……..what’s the point? While I was eating my Quorn, somewhere out there a TIGER is eating its prey.

  And MAN has EXTENDED this “eating each other ” way of doing things, haven’t we?

  I’m thinking for example of things like SUB-PRIME MORTGAGES (mortgages granted to people with a poor credit record, thus high interest payments).

  And these SUB PRIIME mortgages were often SOLD ON as INVESTMENT PACKAGES to other people.

  Thus we continue to LIVE by EATING EACH OTHER.

  Warped, no?

  If I was the CHANCELLOR, I think I would try to find a DIFFERENT way by which people could live together happily

• I_See_Dead_Truth

  “So, slim the bloated state by borrowing more and spending more on big
  construction projects that usually take several years to get started.
  Brilliant. And so simple. Why didn’t the Chancellor think of that?”

  He didn’t think of that because he is a child of the “but I want it now and I won’t wait 5 seconds” generation. That and the fact that he knows full well that he will be out of the job by the time the benefits start to show and poor lil baby won’t get the credit for it so he would prefer to pout and do nothing but play party politics rather than actually do something to help everyday people.

• I_See_Dead_Truth

  PS: Nigel Lawson did a decent job as Chancellor…maybe Nigella could take over as our next chancellor and help…”cushion” the blow of these hard times. In anycase, she would sure as heck be a trillion times easier on the eye than Osborne.

  Nigella for PM!