Wait.
Gordon Brown has been repeating ad nauseam that the national debt has been reduced since the last peak which puts us in a position to publicly spend our way out of recession. His mantra has been based on the hair’s breadth between the GDP percentage on 1st May 1997 and today. Doesn’t admitting the “only” 1% blow this “fact” of Brown’s out of the water?
Stop lying Gordon. As the BBC have been reminding us, there are two halves to Keynesian economics: you have to put money aside during the good times in order to pump it around in the bad. After x years of boom, the public finances are just as bad as they were after the dark years of the Lawson/Major boom and bust.
I have been watching government spokespeople trot out this line with wild abandon. The other night Tory Justine Greening didn’t question this “fact” when parroted again and again. Why are the Tories accepting this line so supinely? Debt has not been paid down during the good years as the graph above shows (Hat Tip Mr DK)…
The government has been rinsing our cash and running up debt during the longest boom since the industrial revolution. Where there should have been surplus, there was deficit. Now they want to spend more? Where is it coming from? Who is going to lend us the money? Britain is bankrupt. Bring in the administrators.
Gordon: Don’t lie. Cameron: Don’t keep accepting the lie. Time to face up to unpleasant facts everyone.
Update 21/10/08: Read the ever thorough BOM on this issue.
but they will, that’s the system, that’s how it has always been, that’s why things will never change. So depressing.
If there was a genuine political party with the UK’s interests and future truly at the heart of policy and wasn’t stuffed full of lying, sleazy scumbags or mutant, knuckle dragging master racers, there may be some hope, they’d clean up but……………
Rail fares up 10% in the New Year? Brown considering adding 2p tax on petrol? They give with one hand and take, take, take with the other.
Gordon thinks that there are a sufficient number of stupid people out there who won’t blame him for another hike in prices. But most people aren’t that stupid.
Wouldn’t “Don’t lie” make a great narrative for the Conservatives?
Just imagine, if every time a NuLab politician trotted out something obviously untruthful, the Conservative replied, sinply, “Don’t lie”.
After all, if they’re alert and on the ball then an opportunity comes soon enough – as I have found.
The Conservatives have certainly rolled over too easily. There is plenty of ammunition out there, so why aren’t they using it?