National Debt

An article with accompanying graphs here on the Office for National Statistics website should be required reading for anyone who imagines that any other government, Labour or otherwise, would have been able to avoid making painful cuts.

If your debts go through the roof, you soon have to make cuts or raise taxes, not to pay the money back, but to pay the interest on your debts.

Because under the Gordon Brown the government was spending four pounds for every three they raised in tax, the deficit and borrwing were hitting the roof. The cost in interest of government debt had reached £25 billion a year - more than the country spends on schools.

If someone tries to tell you that whoever had been in power after the 2010 election could have avoided hugely painful cuts, tax rises, or both, they are a liar or a fool.

Comments

Tim said…
Is it dishonest or foolish to suggest you read the latest briefings from the Taxpayers' Alliance that asserts that our membership of the EU may cost £112 billion per year ?
Chris Whiteside said…
It's neither to encourage people to read those briefings if you think there is anything to be learned from them.

However, the Taxpayer's alliance do not suggest that pulling out of the EU could reduce the government deficit by £112 billion a year - their website quotes the net cost of the EU to the exchequer at £8.3 billion this year rising to £10.3 billion by 2014-15.

The current government deficit is vastly larger than that. So even if Britain pulled out of the EU tomorrow, and even if that amount came straight off the government's bottom line without any counterbalancing adverse effects, there would still have to be painful cuts or tax rises to bring the economy into balance.
Tim said…
Ah, smoke and mirrors. A saving is a saving is a saving. If our membership is costing us up to £112 billion per annum then withdrawal would appear to be a very good option. What you pay in order to be a member of a club is one thing, what it then costs you in terms of lost trading opportunities, expenses etc is quite another. But hey ! let's not get you started on the EU, much better to insert your head into the sand and enjoy the spectacle of millions of Britons suffering on the altar of the failed ideologies of the LibLabCon.

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