Gordon Brown is apparently to list out the ‘non-financial’ state assets which he wants to sell off to help pay our debts.
I don’t have any ideological objection to this (indeed, I question why on earth the state owns such things as motorway service stations and the Tote) but what does worry me is whether these are being sold at the best time… remember when our gold was sold off?
I’m also concerned that he’s not selling the right assets – I would have assumed his priority would be to get taxpayers’ money out of the banks, no? Again it may not be the right time to do that, but we won’t actually know when is because so little information is available.
And I question whether selling things like the Channel Tunnel and the government’s stake (is it a controlling one?) in a uranium processing plant is wholly in the long-term national interest.
The end of the news report says that Brown is trying to create a clear dividing line between Labour who ‘won’t’ cut, and the Tories who will. As ever I suspect this is utter tripe – they will cut, we would cut, and it’s up to the electorate to decide who they trust to make the best of a very bad job. After all, unlike Yvette Cooper, I don’t want to hurt anyone and I expect that George Osborne will do his best to make sure that the cuts we would make are fair, proportionate and sensible.
Actually on reflection, I think the great success of our conference last week was to set out a programme of necessary cuts (admittedly only the first round, but a clear sense of direction and attitude) which a) Labour could not take advantage of by baying ‘baby-eating Tories’ and b) the voting public clearly recognise are required.
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Very good point. To us one example, the Tote is now value at about half the price that it was valued at a few years ago. Selling now would effectively be sacrificing potential future gains from a sale when the value has increased again. It seems very odd to be selling the family silver in a knee jerk way, when the family silver is valued at an all time low.
Of course. And perhaps more to the point – it’s only addressing a short-term problem, not the underlying issue. I heard this morning that this might raise £16 billion (if we’re lucky; knowing Brown it’ll be less) which is, I believe, just what we borrowed in August.
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