Tory borrowing since 2010 has been as follows:
That is £86 billion a year on average.
Compare this to Labour borrowing from 1997 to 2010:
That is £38 billion a year on average and just £20 billion a year if the crash period was excluded. The pattern was utterly different. And note that Labour actually repaid debt for a period, something the Tories have almost never done.
Total borrowing has grown like this under the Tories:
That's steady growth.
My point is not whether this is right or wrong: stronger borrowing would, in my opinion, have paid handsome dividends throughout much of this period. My point is that Sajid Javid says that labour should not borrow £100 billion a year now. But allow for inflation and that's what the Tories have done whilst in office. And their attempts to reduce that borrowing whilst giving tax cuts to the rich have imposed misery, austerity and failure on the UK, for no gain at all.
There is only one fantasy here, and it is the Tory fantasy that balancing the books has any impact on well-being, at all. It has none whatsoever. And we've all paid the price for that delusion. We cannot afford its perpetuation now.
Source data is from the House of Commons Library, here.
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Is the large increase of the deficit in ’07-’10 due to a shrinking GDP or through large spending increases in the final years of Labour?
No, the collapse in tax revenues due to banks trashing the economy
Could someone please tell Ian Austin?
Today, I had a suspicion confirmed once again that too many who identify themselves as Left in this country are happy to eke out their political lives trying to make ideas and systems that hurt people just a smidgen fairer – or just taking the edge off the cruelty – rather that what really needs doing in going about effecting and fundamental radical change. I’d rather have the latter for £80K a year plus expenses from our MPs.
This is what the democrats in the U.S have been doing for far too long.
Austin – and what Tom Watson seems to have done is just inexcusable. The country needs relieving from the Tory mis-governance. We need an air lift of radical, sensible ideas, and investment. That is the priority. The BBC was banging on about debt – not investment which the planned expenditure actually is.
And all the likes of Austin and Watson are doing is just sighted prettiness. Get me out of here someone!
As a man who sold Collateralised Debt Obligations for Deutsche Bank Sajid Javid should be much better versed in fantasy economics than he seems to be…
Odd to compare deficits during a boom to after a financial crash.. either the Conservatives have been spendthrifts or austere…can’t be both…!
Have you noticed the Tory narrative?
Debt is frequently quoted in terms of %GDP as it seems to put it more favourably than gross borrowing; are there any tricks that are employed to massage the GDP figures that make it unreliable to compare with historic levels?
As a parallel, inflation is quoted to be a certain percentage figure, however this rarely reflects reality as it includes some bizarre elements (“UK inflation rose above the Bank of England’s 2 per cent target in July as prices of video games and toys increased sharply”) – surely video games don’t form part of the regular shopping basket for the majority of the population!?
My query is that if this method is employed with GDP, then it is even less reliable than it appears.
I quoted numbers
Could someone please tell Alex Brummer of the Daily Mail?
Someone please tell Alex Brummer of the Daily Mail.
Whilst I know you’re right in the broad sense, I’d argue that the Tory fantasy about balancing the books has indeed had a massive impact on well-being, none of it remotely positive.