Letter to Liam Byrne, about his "afraid there is no money" note.
After the 2010 General Election, the incoming Chief Secretary to the Treasury found a note on his desk from his predecessor, Liam Byrne, saying "Dear Chief Secretary, I'm afraid there is no money. Kind regards - and good luck! Liam". After it has been used unceasingly for the last five years as witness to the dire state of the British public finances, Byrne has now revealed that he has burnt with shame every day since writing it. However, while surprising in its candour, I feel he did a great public service in shaking the public into understanding the seriousness of their country's plight, so I wrote to tell him so, and that could even have helped his party rebuild trust had they grasped the opportunity. (Copied, of course, to the Labour Front Bench team,)
Dear Liam Byrne
I read your regret about the infamous note. I just want to say that whatever your own regrets and party's inconvenience, I think it was a great help to the public in understanding the true gravity of the situation, the imperative of austerity.
Before the 2010 election, your own party said it would legislate to half the deficit within 1 parliament, following which it voted against every austerity measure, Ed Balls announcing he would spend his way out of recession. This is what compounded the Labour party's deficit in trust for spending their way recklessly through the good years.
Your party leader, the week before the election said that he didn't regret overspending because it had paid for hospitals and schools. The dreadful truth is that it hadn't even done that... the PPPs for hospitals lumber the country and the NHS with astronomical payments for decades in the future.
The country needed a wake-up call to highlight the severity of the situation, and your note was a genuine public service, whatever it's motivation.
Your party lost the "long campaign" in 5 years of denial and promoting reckless policies, compounding its earlier culpability, and that's why I couldn't vote Labour and why your party was massacred in the polls. Had it been plain about its own mistakes, attempted to proportionalise it with debt caused by the banking crisis, showed the country the truth about the debt instead of joining the multi-party conspiracy to confuse it in the public's mind with the current account deficit, your note could conceivably have helped Labour too.
I hope the coming five years will be characterised by honesty and transparency on public finances, rather than taking the public for mugs. Only that will help me to believe that Labour may be trusted, has a credible plan, believe it can be afforded, and perhaps persuade me to vote Labour in 2020.
By the way, in 2015 I didn't vote at all. I couldn't vote for Labour because of economic incompetence. I couldn't vote Tory because we risk exiting the EU under their lead. And I was fully intending voting LibDem right up to the point where Nick Clegg announced his red lines and I was stunned to find refusing to support an in/out referendum was not among them. It was at that point when I revisited whether anything could persuade me that Labour may be responsible with the economy, and heard Miliband affirm he had no regrets over overspending.
I hope these observations are useful.
Kind regards
Dear Liam Byrne
I read your regret about the infamous note. I just want to say that whatever your own regrets and party's inconvenience, I think it was a great help to the public in understanding the true gravity of the situation, the imperative of austerity.
Before the 2010 election, your own party said it would legislate to half the deficit within 1 parliament, following which it voted against every austerity measure, Ed Balls announcing he would spend his way out of recession. This is what compounded the Labour party's deficit in trust for spending their way recklessly through the good years.
Your party leader, the week before the election said that he didn't regret overspending because it had paid for hospitals and schools. The dreadful truth is that it hadn't even done that... the PPPs for hospitals lumber the country and the NHS with astronomical payments for decades in the future.
The country needed a wake-up call to highlight the severity of the situation, and your note was a genuine public service, whatever it's motivation.
Your party lost the "long campaign" in 5 years of denial and promoting reckless policies, compounding its earlier culpability, and that's why I couldn't vote Labour and why your party was massacred in the polls. Had it been plain about its own mistakes, attempted to proportionalise it with debt caused by the banking crisis, showed the country the truth about the debt instead of joining the multi-party conspiracy to confuse it in the public's mind with the current account deficit, your note could conceivably have helped Labour too.
I hope the coming five years will be characterised by honesty and transparency on public finances, rather than taking the public for mugs. Only that will help me to believe that Labour may be trusted, has a credible plan, believe it can be afforded, and perhaps persuade me to vote Labour in 2020.
By the way, in 2015 I didn't vote at all. I couldn't vote for Labour because of economic incompetence. I couldn't vote Tory because we risk exiting the EU under their lead. And I was fully intending voting LibDem right up to the point where Nick Clegg announced his red lines and I was stunned to find refusing to support an in/out referendum was not among them. It was at that point when I revisited whether anything could persuade me that Labour may be responsible with the economy, and heard Miliband affirm he had no regrets over overspending.
I hope these observations are useful.
Kind regards
posted by Tsuchan at 6:59 am
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