THE ECONOMY is Jackie Doyle-Price’s strong point. Throughout the whole of the election, Jackie stressed that the economy needed a Conservative government to save the country from “going bust”. It was one of the major ideological battles. Now Jackie has an opportunity to see her ideas out into practise.
The austerity budget may see a lot of pain for the people of Thurrock. Some say up to 20% of the public sector jobs may go at Thurrock Council. Jackie doesn’t think it will come to that.
Jackie wants to see the private sector going again, borrowing to decrease and a sharper focus to the economy with a big push to get more people off benefits and into work.
Before Jackie attended an award ceremony at the Thurrock Community College, we spoke to Jackie about how she viewed the budget.
It is interesting that Jackie now seems to be indicating that we might be heading back into recession (with her statement about the double dip recession). This was precisely the thing the labour party were trying to avoid and they were following IMF advice and research that shows the best way of avoiding a double dip recession and the fastest way of getting out of a recession is to maintain public spending. If this happens it will support the view that the conservatives are simply using the recession as an excuse to push through their policies and these have nothing to do with the interests of most people.