No pain, no gain?
Alliance launched their manifesto today, and in common with other local parties they were, surprise, surprise, in favour of cutting the local rate of corporation tax. However unlike some others they had tried to estimate what it might cost if the Executive has to make a compensating cut in its budget in order to comply with European rules.
Their best guess is that the local budget would lose out to the tune of £200 million. When I asked David Ford which areas he would cut to make this up, he couldn't tell me. However he argued that the short term pain would be more than compensated by the long term gain.
Interestingly the £200 million figure is exactly the same as the estimate the DUP has been putting on the local impact of David Cameron's £6 billion efficiency drive. Just yesterday Peter Robinson told MLAs that could amount to 2000 job cuts. The Conservatives and Unionists have responded by variously accusing the DUP of scaremongering and hypocrisy.
Some Conservative and Unionist sources claim that at the time of the Hatfield House talks in January the DUP was so keen to take the Tory whip that it offered a deal which would have given the new force Upper Bann and South Antrim on a plate. Oh, how times have changed!
Another section of the Alliance manifesto is entitled "NO to Cheap Populism". This makes it clear that Alliance is not convinced by the deferral of water charges. The manifesto says "Alliance has been straight with the people of Northern Ireland in recognising that the continued deferral of domestic water charges is not financially sustainable It currently creates a cost pressure of £200M per year, which is not met from th Block Grant ". Alliance say such populist measures "reduce the opportunity for investment into public services while neither helping businnesses nor households effectively nor rebalancing our economy".
But whilst Alliance was condemning this as populism, the DUP was publishing a leaflet listing Stormont's achievements. The 30 achievements include such populist measures as freezing the domestic regional rate, freezing busines rates and stopping a separate water charge.
The DUP leaflet also defends the party's decision to share power in March 2007, claiming "the alternative - pursuing an unachievable goal by bringing Stormont down and risking everything that has been achieved - would be madness".
Sinn Fein, meanwhile, launched their Irish language election leaflet in Belfast's Lower Ormeau. Gerry Adams was posing for photographs when a stack of metal chairs fell over with a crash, prompting the Sinn Fein President to quip "sounds like we've lost a couple of seats".
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