{"id":43500,"date":"2018-11-08T08:27:03","date_gmt":"2018-11-08T08:27:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=43500"},"modified":"2018-11-08T08:27:03","modified_gmt":"2018-11-08T08:27:03","slug":"why-did-it-take-the-tories-eight-years-to-realise-that-austerity-cannot-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2018\/11\/08\/why-did-it-take-the-tories-eight-years-to-realise-that-austerity-cannot-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Why did it take the Tories eight years to realise that austerity cannot work?"},"content":{"rendered":"

This comes from the TUC's blog<\/a>. It was written by Geoff Tily, their senior economics adviser, an old friend of mine and a very sound Keynesian:<\/p>\n

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Earlier this week, the Chancellor finally admitted what we\u2019ve been saying for years:\u00a0that the best way to repair the public finances is not to cut spending but to get the economy growing.<\/p>\n

Workers have put up with eight long years of austerity in the name of \u2018balancing the books\u2019 \u2014 a goal so sacrosanct that the coalition government tried to put it into law.<\/p>\n

But at this week\u2019s Treasury Committee, the Chancellor\u00a0confessed that<\/a>\u00a0the easiest way to get debt down as a percentage of GDP was to \u201cget the economy growing faster with higher trend productivity growth\u2026grow the GDP, strong real wage growth, rising living standards\u201d.<\/p>\n

You can watch the clip below:<\/p>\n