S: economic collapse in government

The opposition is not happy with the new government platform presented yesterday by Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and deputy Prime Minister Lene Espersen.

The platform suggests upping taxes on beer and spirits, improving conditions for the homeless, and increasing efforts to teach children to read. In the same breath, it slashes public sector budgets by DKK 13.5 billion over the coming three years.

The great collapse
Opposition politicians are underwhelmed, to say the least. Helle Thorning-Schmidt and Villy Søvndal, party leaders of Socialdemokratiet and SF respectively, held a joint press conference in Parliament, and they had harsh words for the government policy.

- Today is a big day in many ways. Today, we witness the great collapse of the government's economic policy. Today, it is clearly demonstrated that we were right when we have been saying that it is not possible to have both unfunded tax cuts and increased quality of service, says Helle Thorning-Schmidt, leader of Socialdemokratiet.

Defrauding voters
SF are no happier with the government proposal. Party leader Villy Søvndal thinks that we are in the middle of one of the largest operations to defraud the electorate in Danish history:

- Not long ago, at the time of the last elections, welfare was the great concern of the liberal-conservative government and Dansk Folkeparti. If we break it down - with no exaggeration - we are now looking at the most severe cutbacks we've seen in many, many years, he says.

Translated by Martin Lamberth