Political Observer comments on the Institute for Fiscal Studies link.
Freddy is probably not a reporter, nor a stringer, but a person who complies and edits the work of other, the less important contributors – he is the Oxbridger buffer that filters that ‘raw data’ into usable propaganda!
Of the many links that he offered was this:
Headline: Election 2024
Sub-Headline: General Election 2024: IFS manifesto analysis
IFS researchers and Director Paul Johnson will deliver their analysis of the parties’ manifestos at a live-streamed press briefing.
These raw facts are largely ignored by the two main parties in their manifestos. That huge decisions over the size and shape of the state will need to be taken, that those decisions will, in all likelihood, mean either higher taxes or worse public services, you would not guess from reading their prospectuses or listening to their promises. They have singularly failed even to acknowledge some of the most important issues and choices to have faced us for a very long time. As the population ages these choices will become harder, not easier. We cannot wish them away.
Low growth, high debt and high interest payments mean we need to do something quite rare just to stop debt spiralling ever upwards: we need to run primary surpluses. That means the government collecting more in tax and other revenues than it spends on everything apart from debt interest. Not necessarily a recipe for a happy electorate.
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Editor: Low Growth remains the fly in the ointment of the Free Marketeers!
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Editor: Mr. Paul Johnson profession of Faith:
I am an optimist about the capacity of good policy to drive growth. The UK needs effective public investment, more private investment, planning reform, tax reform, removal of barriers to trade – notably non-tariff barriers with our nearest and richest neighbour, the European Union – and education and training policies to deliver a workforce with the right skills.
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Editor: An uninspired conclusion steeped in well worn clichés !
We need more efficient and effective public services. We need a government laser-focused on improving our economic performance. It’s good to see those facts acknowledged. But on the big issues over which governments have direct control – on how they will change tax, welfare, public spending – the manifestos of the main parties provide thin gruel indeed. On 4 July we will be voting in a knowledge vacuum.
If – as is likely – growth forecasts are not revised up this autumn, we do not know whether the new government would stick roughly to the day-to-day and investment spending totals set out in the March Budget, or whether they would borrow more or tax more to top them up. If they were to stick to spending plans we do not know what would be cut. If taxes are to go up, we do not know which ones. We certainly don’t know how they would respond if things were to get worse.
The choices in front of us are hard. High taxes, high debt, struggling public services, make them so. Pressures from health, defence, welfare, ageing will not make them easier. That is not a reason to hide the choices or to duck them. Quite the reverse. Yet hidden and ducked they have been.
In recent weeks political parties have started to announce their policy platforms for the forthcoming general election. Numerous organisations, including the Progressive Economy Forum (PEF), will be offering expert assessments of these policies and manifestos.
On its donations page, the IFS describes its purpose as follows:
“During an election campaign, objective analysis of economic policy is more important than ever…Our commentary on party manifestos and campaign promises leads the public debate, providing individuals with the tools to understand and evaluate complex decisions. What’s more, the IFS is entirely independent of political parties, companies and pressure groups, allowing us to hold politicians of all stripes to account when their numbers don’t add up or their policies are poorly designed.”
The key components here are 1) a commitment to “objective analysis”, 2) providing “the tools to understand and evaluate complex decisions”, and 3) independence from political parties that allows the IFS to hold politicians to account. Its guiding purpose is to show when “numbers don’t add up” and when policies are “poorly designed”.
The meaning of words is quite important here. One can claim “objective analysis” by applying the same assessment criterion to each proposal and still be biased. It is possible for a policy to be “well designed”, with numbers that “add up”, while also imposing devastating social costs. The IFS’s narrow criteria implicitly (or in some cases explicitly) ignores these social costs. This judgment reflects a clear bias in favour of accounting balance over social outcome.
Similarly, the claim of “independence” explicitly refers to no links to political groups. Crucially, however, this does not prevent political bias.
Editor: this essay is worth the time and attention of The Reader! Let me quote the final paragraphs of John Weeks revelatory essay!
Independence and bias
The IFS is regularly called a “watchdog” for politicians’ policy proposals. But it would be more accurate to describe it as an expert in the bean-counter approach to policy assessment.
The basic problem lies not in the political bias or orientation of the IFS. I directed a small research organization for 20 years, which was, as the IFS claims, objective, independent and unaffiliated to political parties or interest groups. Our analytical orientation was clear and well-known. Our studies tended to be critical of mainstream analysis, and organisations came to us with that outcome in mind.
The issue is not that the conclusions of the IFS’s studies are predictable and easily anticipated; it is that its studies are not always as objective as they claim. They often apply the wrong tools, and treat macroeconomic issues as if they were microeconomic. As Robert Chote, the former director of the IFS admitted: “they don’t do macro”.
By ignoring social, political and macroeconomic effects, IFS studies do not tell us whether a policy is a good idea, only whether “the numbers add up”.
Rootless cosmopolitan,down at heels intellectual;would be writer.
'Polemic is a discourse of conflict, whose effect depends on a delicate balance between the requirements of truth and the enticements of anger, the duty to argue and the zest to inflame. Its rhetoric allows, even enforces, a certain figurative licence. Like epitaphs in Johnson’s adage, it is not under oath.'
https://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n20/perry-anderson/diary
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