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Austerity blow to new govt. popularity

Thursday, 07 May 2015 4:04 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 07 May 2015 4:44 PM ]

Britain holds a general election on May 7, 2015. ©AFP

As millions of Britons go to the polls in the UK’s most unpredictable general elections in a generation, a London-based political analyst believes that no matter who wins the elections, the next UK government will be a weak and unpopular one.

In an exclusive interview with Press TV’s Nargess Mobaleghi, Chris Bambery said the new British government would be “weak and unpopular” given both Conservative and Labour parties’ commitment to austerity measures.

“The conservative for definite and also Labour are committed to austerity politics to reducing the debt the British government has accumulated. Both have said we have to cut expenditure on government and that is going to be unpopular,” the member of the International Socialist Group reiterated.

Major political parties have pledged to contain the UK budget deficit via taking further austerity measures.

The UK government's austerity program is a series of sustained reductions in public spending, intended to reduce the budget deficit. The program was initiated in 2010 by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government. Its original stated goal was to, "achieve cyclically-adjusted current balance by the end of the rolling, five-year forecast period." At Budget 2010, the end of the forecast period was 2015-16. However, in 2014 the Treasury extended the proposed austerity period until at least 2018.

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