Their premise is that Britain is broke, burdened by debt, and that we will have to face a decade of savage and brutal cuts on all sector of the economy. Especially the ones that affect the poor, although this is presumably just an unfortunate coincidence. This is pretty much the received wisdom of all 3 main parties in the UK.
I looked into this debt thing, and britain is not really worse off than the US. Or its European partners, like France and Germany. So why all the hysteria? Is the same kind of debate going on in the US?
I also stumbled upon this article, which I thought was quite good:
Quote:
We thought the fever of this autumn was going to be swine flu, but we were wrong. It has turned out to be National Debt Hysteria. Our entire political class has taken to their beds with this fever, crying for nurse to bring cuts, cuts, cuts. The symptoms are simple: the sufferer becomes convinced that debt levels lower than almost all other wealthy nations, and lower than almost all of modern British history, are "a disaster", and so we must immediately slash our spending. They keep up this wail even though the most qualified doctors, like the winner of this year's Nobel Prize for Economics, Professor Paul Krugman, stand by their beds and tell them this will bring our real sickness, the recession, back with a vengeance.
The hysteria will reach a Cameroonian crescendo today when the Tory leader delivers his party conference speech promising Austerity For All. (Except for millionaires like himself, of course, who will receive a massive inheritance tax cut.) So let's calmly study the patient – and see how this National Debt Hysteria is going to do us far more harm that the real national debt ever could.
Let's start with a few facts that have been forgotten. Britain went into this recession with one of the lowest debt levels in the developed world. According to the International Monetary Fund, Japan's debt in 2008 was 198 per cent of national GDP, Italy's was 104 per cent, Germany's was 76 per cent, France's was 65 per cent, the US's was 61 per cent, and Britain's was 43 per cent. All countries have rapidly increased borrowing during this recession – for very good reasons we'll get to in a second – and Britain has nudged closer to the middle of the league table. But to claim, as Cameron does, that Gordon Brown had "racked up debts in the good times" so we "can't afford more" is simply untrue.
The hysteria will reach a Cameroonian crescendo today when the Tory leader delivers his party conference speech promising Austerity For All. (Except for millionaires like himself, of course, who will receive a massive inheritance tax cut.) So let's calmly study the patient – and see how this National Debt Hysteria is going to do us far more harm that the real national debt ever could.
Let's start with a few facts that have been forgotten. Britain went into this recession with one of the lowest debt levels in the developed world. According to the International Monetary Fund, Japan's debt in 2008 was 198 per cent of national GDP, Italy's was 104 per cent, Germany's was 76 per cent, France's was 65 per cent, the US's was 61 per cent, and Britain's was 43 per cent. All countries have rapidly increased borrowing during this recession – for very good reasons we'll get to in a second – and Britain has nudged closer to the middle of the league table. But to claim, as Cameron does, that Gordon Brown had "racked up debts in the good times" so we "can't afford more" is simply untrue.
I don't know about you, but it seems to me as though the next 4-8 years in the UK are going to be unnecessarily harsh. Especially on poor people, but also on society in general. It's almost like, dare I say it, a return to the Thatcher years...
Thoughts?
Edit: not in the title, thanks.
Edited, Oct 11th 2009 10:33am by Darqflame
