The power of the political cartoon

The cartoon above is by Steve Bell, whose cartoons appear in the "Guardian" newspaper. This particular visual assault is on UK Finance Minister George Osborne following his Budget presentation on March 23 2011. It is accompanied by a piece by that paper's Economics editor Larry Elliott. Elliott is heavily critical of Osborne for producing a budget of small bits and pieces, pandering to some short term political concerns but completely missing the point that the UK's structural economic imbalance will require massive and sustained investment in science and technology, high grade manufacturing and creative industries to reduce the disastrous dependence on banking and consumer spending.

Elliott says: "Let's be clear. The Chancellor is quite right to say that the economy's deep structural imbalances contributed to the length and severity of the recession. It is, perhaps, a bit late in the day for the party (Conservatives, led by Margaret Thatcher) that destroyed manufacturing in the 1980's, deregulated the financial markets and set the City on its road to dominance with the Big Bang reforms of 1986 to cuddle up to industry, but better late than never".
"Commending Osborne for identifying the challenge, however, is not the same as identifying the answers. The budget was far too timid for the free-marketeers. It was a do-nothing budget according to the Keynesians. It continued the approach, followed by all governments, of taking money from North Sea oil and blowing it on consumption rather than using it to offset the deep cutbacks on investment, caused by the budget cuts (and to catch up on the dire lack of investment in industry and technology of the last 30 years).
The real criticism of this budget is that it is not a budget for growth".

Columnist Andrew Clark, writing in the "Observer" newspaper of 27 March, comments: "But it's (the budget's) clever politics and rather impressive opportunism. Because with the exception of the windfall levy on oil companies, none of these groups of (rich) "victims" will contribute enough through Osborne's crackdowns to make even a modest wrinkle in the public finances' bottom line. They're there to divert attention from an otherwise low-action budget, which risked being memorable only for the miserable growth figures Osborne was obliged to read out from the Office for Budget Responsibility: an anaemic 1.7% rise in GDP this year, then 2.5% in 2012 - revised downwards from 2.1% and 2.6% respectively.
For all the government's blather about entrepreneurship, enterprise and philanthropy, the truth is we're in for a long, slow slog before Osborne's promised "march of the makers" even hoves into sight to manufacture us back to a generation of prosperity. And a half-hearted swipe at private jets, bankers and non-doms isn't going to make the slightest difference".

What's the message in the cartoon?

The commentators quoted and many economists agree that this budget was:

• Politically tricky, producing lots of little actions that gave the illusion of a big bold budget for growth
• Aimed at diverting attention from the grim growth figures, which may well get worse
• Pretending to hit the rich whilst actually making the poor even poorer

The cartoon cleverly mixes the images of a conjurer, creating illusions and pulling a rabbit from a hat. Only this is a dead rabbit. The second image comes from the fable of the Emperor's New Clothes, which turn out to be invisible, leaving the emperor naked in public. So we have two illusions in one: of an emperor wearing magnificent but illusory robes and a magician producing a (deceased) rabbit from a hat.
We know the figure of fun is George Osborne, UK finance minister, because Steve Bell the cartoonist has exaggerated the shape of his nose.
And a final cruel touch is the pig's tail - which I take as signifying the Conservative party's close affinities with big business and banks and the main impacts of the Coalition's policies, which have been to reduce public services for the vulnerable whilst doing little to make banks, top managers' and big industry contribute their fair share to Society. These people have been characterised as pigs with their noses in the trough.
Cartoons can hit harder than thousands of words.