{"id":51730,"date":"2020-07-21T13:39:23","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T12:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=51730"},"modified":"2020-07-21T13:39:23","modified_gmt":"2020-07-21T12:39:23","slug":"the-ft-and-just-about-every-media-outlet-as-well-as-the-office-for-national-statistics-get-the-uk-borrowing-data-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2020\/07\/21\/the-ft-and-just-about-every-media-outlet-as-well-as-the-office-for-national-statistics-get-the-uk-borrowing-data-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"The FT, and just about every media outlet as well as the Office for National Statistics get the UK borrowing data wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FT has splashed with this headline<\/a> today:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And it added this chart:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before saying:<\/p>\n

A collapse in receipts flowing into the exchequer and a surge in spending led to the \u00a3174bn borrowing, which pushed public debt to 99.6 per cent of gross domestic product.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And the claim is wrong.<\/p>\n

This entire deficit was covered by QE from the Bank of England, meaning that borrowing did not go up at all and that national debt is below 70% of GDP and not as claimed - because the government cannot owe itself, and central bank reserves are not part of the national debt.<\/p>\n

When, oh when, will I have to stop saying this?<\/p>\n

It's tedious to have to point out time and again deliberate economic misrepresentation designed to provide cover for a forthcoming round of austerity, which Rishi Sunak has signalled today<\/a>, none of which is necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The FT has splashed with this headline today: And it added this chart: Before saying: A collapse in receipts flowing into the exchequer and a
 Read the full article…<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,174,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-51730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-modern-monetary-theory","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51730","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51730\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}