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.
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
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.