Article for the North Devon Journal

Over the past few weeks a remarkable political consensus has emerged.

Over the past few weeks a remarkable political consensus has emerged. The main parties now agree what the Conservatives have long argued, that severe reductions in public expenditure are required to rescue the economy from the vertiginous precipice of debt on which it is teetering.

For unless dramatic steps are taken to tackle the debt, the consequences for the economy will be far worse. Britain is in the midst of a bad recession, by some measurements the worst we have faced since the great depression, and we are mired much deeper than any other western economy. If we do not brace ourselves to the task of restoring international confidence in the management of our economy, we risk the perils of inflation and high interest rates at a time when the opposite is needed, and there exists a stark possibility that the government will not be able to raise the money it requires to pay for public services.

Therefore, the problem is urgent. Here in Devon, we will have to be prepared for many good and worthwhile projects, that in better times would have deserved support, to be postponed or to cease. Substantial savings must be made; regional quangos and tiers of bureaucracy must go, along with many expensive and grotesquely wasteful government IT and other projects and schemes, and it is vital that the core services of education, health and the care of the elderly and vulnerable are protected as much as possible. To some extent, here, this will be helped by a fairer allocation of government resources that properly reflects the needs of rural areas.

A new government must stop the disproportionate siphoning of money away from the countryside to the large conurbations in the North that has openly taken place under Labour. However, there will be unavoidable and painful adjustments, and in making them it will be essential that whoever is in government is open and honest about what is necessary. Recent weeks, in which he consistently denied that budgets would have to be cut, have shown that Gordon Brown cannot be trusted to be straight with the British people on these subjects, and that a political change is sorely needed.