Off Topic Politics Thread
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You're confusing deficit and debt. in 2015 they wanted to eliminate the deficit by 2018. quick google shows their debt projection was 80% then so that much seems accurate(considering 2016 is only a year later).
also a quick google seems to show in 2010 they were aiming for the deficit to be gone by 2015 and the debt then to be increased to just 70% which theyve failed miserably to keep to, but thats still an increase so makes whats in the article a blatant lie and that mp even more of an idiot.
Its the conservatives in another missed targets shocker but hardly a secret.
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Yes, I watched a very articulate and empassioned speech by SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon in the Scottish Parliament, against the clause. The clause was thereafter defended by Ruth Davidson from the Conservatives, who clearly didn't like what she was having to do.
That's probably because the Tories have never, ever, ever criticised Labour for being poor money handlers.
I have heard it said, many times, that the amount borrowed over the last seven (?) years, by the Tory government, is greater than the combined borrowing of ALL Labour governments.
Way to go.
You are right that Labour should be shouting it from the tree tops, but with so many newspapers being Tory supporters, it probably wouldn't get reported.
Labour have promised to borrow to invest, as opposed to depriving a struggling economy of oxygon and watching it suffocate, which has been the consequence of George Osbourne's austerity programme.
This is the man who will be doing the negotiations for Brexit for the EU absolutely slaughtering Hungary. Good luck UK!
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And? You still can't criticise the government for borrowing too much while simultaneously promising to borrow more than them.
You can, but that would require initiating an economic discourse which is just a bit too complex to lend itself to soundbites.
Keynsean economic theory is counter-intuitive; the idea that advanced economies need to relax spending constraints during a recession/depression is a difficult sell because it runs counter to most people's experience. Far easier to liken a nation's economy to a household's, which is what Margeret Thatcher did in 1979 and George Osbourne in 2010. Both prolonged recessions by doing so, in Osbourne's case choking off a nascent recovery. To his credit he did recognise (though not acknowledge) his mistake, which was why he began investing in capital projects like Crossrail and HS2.
He still went full steam ahead with austerity though, in part because it suited Conservative dogma, in terms of rolling back the state. The full impact is only just beginning to be be felt in the effective collapse of adult social care, library closures etc.
There is a clear, coherent economic argument to be put for increased public spending in a recession. It's what Roosevelt's administration did in the 1930's, & makes economic as well as moral sense for govt to intervene to create well paid, secure jobs aimed at addressing the needs of the struggling masses (or the JAMs if you prefer Theresa May's term).
A party who's original plan involved borowing has every right to criticise a party who's plan was to stop borrowing and failed.
Also borrowing isn't necessarily bad depending on what it's invested in.
Just my take on it, but Labour always need to put right the damage caused by Tory cut backs, hence the need to borrow.
let's be clear here, unless you are a millionaire trying to protect your money, you should be voting Labour. If you flip flop from party to party looking to gain a few quid a year you'll get what you deserve (including Brexit)
UK politics in a nutshell there. In fact, the history of postwar Britain.
Last time they promised to borrow to invest they left us with a massive PFI problem which is contributing to the borrowing the Tories have had to make!!! People need to stop thinking like this. Blair's policies are still crippling the country. They borrowed to invest? Invest in what? They invested in handouts. They didn;t invest in hospitals and schools like they keep saying they did. They did that via PFI which was buy now pay later at Brighthouse prices.
There is a reason that a large chunk of those PFI contracts have been sold on at double what they paid for them. Because the payback from the government is huge.
It is ridiculous that Labour keep trotting out these lines of "we borrowed to invest" and " The Tories have borrowed more than we ever did."
1 - Most of Blair's reign was in the very very good times and he still borrowed!!!
2 - Most of the Tories reign has been in a stagnant era after those Blair times so don;t have much lee-way.
3 - Labour's last time in before Blair government was in 1978 when £10 was only £2.
4 - A lot of Blair's policies are there still needing to be paid for.
Same in the US. People love Bill Clinton and say he did so much good. However he gave the US their own version of PFI in PPP and these contracts do not end the day the government/President changes. Was Bush/Obama to blame for the massive paybacks on PPP? Is Cameron to blame for PFI still being paid? We have another decade+ of paying that lot back.
I guarantee if Labour or the Dems got into government in 2022 the blame for all this would be on the Tories because its always the Tories.
And please stop using cumulative amounts. Inflation plays a big part here!
You use a lot of words to talk a lot of nonsense sometimes Imps. So the national debt is all down to PFI? What an absurd distortion.
The hole in the public finances Gordon Brown bequeathed to the incoming coalition was almost entirely down to his governments timely intervention to underwrite RBS and Lloyds, at a cost to the exchequer of £612 Billion. Had he followed the urgings of George Osbourne and failed to act, the consequences for the economy would have been catastrophic.
Brown was however, also able to bequeath the incoming govt an economy that had returned to growth, but Osbourne choked that off with his first "omnishambles" austerity heavy budget.
So buy this theory, when things are going well we should not have been spending all our money being generated and instead save it for a rainy day... so vote labour during a recession and tories during a growth?