Sir Richard Branson gets it right on spending cuts 2

Matthew Sinclair Economics 101

The BBC reports that Sir Richard Branson has come out in favour of spending cuts to deal with the crisis in the public finances. He joins a number of senior economists who wrote a joint letter to the Sunday Times that I blogged about earlier this week. It's hard to disagree with any of this:

"Sir Richard, one of the UK's most high-profile businessmen, said he agreed with arguments that cuts must begin this year and politicians needed to give a "clear signal" over the issue.

"I believe the UK's record budget deficit does pose a serious risk to our recovery," he told the Evening Standard.

"It would be damaging if we lost the confidence of the markets through delayed action and saw interest rates have to go up steeply.

"The next government, whatever party that is, must set out a plan to reduce the bulk of the deficit over a Parliament by cutting wasteful spending and must not put off those tough decisions to next year."

Matthew Sinclair

Matthew is Director of the TaxPayers' Alliance, author of Let Them Eat Carbon and editor of How to Cut Public Spending (and still win an election)

Follow @mjhsinclair

Hardeep Singh

As usual it’s not the subject matter nor content but the celeb endorsement that puts the argument in to the social doamin. I welcome Sir Richard’s comments (he’s a fine example of UK corporatism) but surely we should have been having this debate much earlier than this. Nevertheless like his comments regarding his cabin crew’s moans that they deserved more….. well sure if that’s the lifestyle you’ve chosen to lead then you need to work elsewhere to fund it. Bravo!
Adam Wissen

Big business man comes out in favour of public spending cuts, whatever next? The Pope giving abstinence the thumbs up?