(not satire – it’s the UK today)
Here’s a graph which shows the genius of George Osborne.
Despite cutting money for schools, hospitals, fire services, policing, armed forces, legal aid, housing, disability benefits etc, he has still managed to borrow a huge amount more than Labour ever did:
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The question is – what the f*ck is George doing with all that money he’s borrowed?
Because he sure as hell isn’t spending it on schools and hospitals.
Although to be fair, I suppose all those tax breaks for the rich have to come out of somewhere.
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Please feel free to comment. And share. Thanks:
Pride's Purge 
election was may 2010. The arrow should be one to the right. I’m no fan of George Osborne but fair’s fair.
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Pingback: The graph you won’t see in the Mail. Or the Times. Or the Sun | Alternative News Network
ive been wanting an answer for that question since they came to power.
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Reblogged this on Today's News Reviewed and commented:
Some more home truths
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Innit’ though?
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The real question Labour have to answer is why are they continuing the “Deficit Lie,” the Banks crashed the economy?
There is absolutely no need for more Austerity, unless they have learned nothing over the last thirty years.
Professor Steve Keen is an Australian economist that actually predicted the crash before it happened, this Hard Talk video is several years old which allows one to judge whether he was right even after the crash. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGkmgnprrIU
There is another Financial crash on the way for the very same reasons as in 2008.
The housing bubble is another ponzi scheme. Government growth is a myth built on Ponzi Schemes.
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I haven’t checked it (lazy me) but I’ve assumed from the start that, since the deficit is the difference between tax receipts and public spending then we’re bound to have a larger deficit. The additional costs of the market in the NHS, the extra cost of housing benefit as people are pushed out of affordable rent council homes into higher rent private ones, the wasted cost of IT and all the vanity schemes IDS has launched and crashed has surely boosted, not reduced our public spending. And tax receipts must have dropped – less VAT from the decrease in spending as household disposal income drops, unemployment and under-employment means less income tax, tax thresholds have been increased, rates cut, less corporate tax collected….result? Deficit!
Is anyone in the mood to check those assumptions?
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Oh…and silly me, public spending includes all our corporate subsidies too, the amount we pay, in gratitude, to subside the workers for the corporations who bless our shores with their presence, the massive subsidies we pay them just for setting up their businesses, the ever growing subsidies to the rail network so that the private operators can show a ‘profit’….oh, dear, the list goes on and on….
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If you read the explanation the ONS provide the picture is not as simple as Tom portrays and in fact it can be truthfully said that since they came to power the Lib Dems have brought public spending down year on year (although we can still blame them for selling off Royal mail too cheaply):
“PSNB ex peaked in 2009/10 as the effects of the economic downturn impacted on the public finances (reducing tax receipts while expenditure continued to increase). PSNB ex has reduced since then, although 2013/14 net borrowing remains higher than before 2007/08 and the 2007 global financial market shock. PSNB ex in 2012/13 was higher than PSNB ex in 2011/12. One of the drivers behind this is the recording in April 2012 of an £8.9 billion payable capital grant in recognition that the liabilities transferred from the Royal Mail Pension Plan exceeded the assets transferred”
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I guess quite a lot is going to pay the interest on the vast amount of money that the last labour government borrowed, and the crippling costs to the health service among others of labour’s PFI contracts.
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you forgot to point out that these beknighted corporations, while happy to underpay UK residents (and benefit from there generally state funded education) knowing that the state will pick up the shortfall, while using public infrastructure to get there goods out, are more than happy to move their profits offshore so that the state sees nothing. And of course the great Gideon reduced the corporate tax burden too, so receipts from those who pay will be down.
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The great deal of what was borrowed was given over to our lightly touched banking sector, as that graph rather clearly shows. If only we could borrow to invest in the other areas of the economy with anything like that largesse!
PFI was (and is) a racket, which is why it’s surprising that the coaltion government still enters into these agreements. PFI is still crippling the NHS (along with the budget cuts and the moeny wasted in promoting competition), and TTIP will be the nail in the coffin. You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone.
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Tom – This is just more Labour propaganda on your part, and I’m VERY disappointed in you.
You can look at exactly the same graph and draw a completely different conclusion…… borrowing increased by more than £100bn under Labour, and has decreased by about £50bn under the Tories.
You can make some VERY serious moral criticisms about how the Tories are achieving this, but please make those arguments rather than try to spin the data. I thought you were better than that.
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pissflaps.
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This is not a correct interpretation of this graph. This graph displays the total deficit (think of it as the country’s debt). The debt was inherited in 2010 and has seen a general downward trend displayed by your graph.
You’re using evidence that directly contradicts the point you are trying to make. I’m left wing, so I’d rather we made better arguments than this one against the conservatives.
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The deficit isn’t the debt. The deficit is the difference between tax receipts and public sector spending. The debt is the cumulative figure year on year. Except it isn’t a ‘debt’, it’s just an increase in the money supply. If you run a ‘surplus’ it isn’t a surplus either, it’s a withdrawal of money from the economy and should only happen in boom times when inflation is rampant and the economy needs cooling down – hardly a description of our current situation!
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Dan – A year-by-year deficit is NOT the same as the national debt, and the graph illustrates the former. However, your second paragraph is correct.
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Reblogged this on glynismillward189 and commented:
Nuff said!
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Errrr…… so why did you say more?
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Why is PFI regularly attributed to Labour? Anyone would think they invented it, and not the previous Conservative Government.
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redangelas – You’re right, but I think it’s the Labour hypocrisy which causes so much anger. They attacked PFI when John Major introduced it, then as soon as they got into power they massively increased it… and I don’t hear Miliband proposing anything different now.
Would any of you Labour propagandists like to disagree…… Tom?
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