Here, then, is the success touted by New Labour. The evidence that Gordon and Alistair were right all along, and that the Tories were wrong, wrong, wrong. Labour's management of the economy has meant that our net debt in 2014 will "only" be £1.4trn instead of the £1.45trn or so that we feared it might be.
That's a national debt of £1,400,000,000,000.00. Try saying it to yourself: a £1,400,000,000,000.00 debt, good news. Good news, a debt of only £1,400,000,000,000.00. No, I can't either.
As I tweeted to @sshrpe earlier today, things are indeed good, because our nightmares about how bad it might be in the future have just got mildly less bad. Because that is truly the measure of things "going well" under Labour - that today's prediction as to how disastrous things will turn out to be is very slightly not-as-bad as the prediction we made a few months ago.
The truth is, of course, that we face this huge debt because Gordon led us to a point where we had to choose between the devil of economic collapse and the deep blue sea of debt. As we drown in the sea of debt, he stands there proudly proclaiming that the sea is marginally less deep than was originally thought. (OK, we're still way out of our depth and drowning fast, but the unreachable sea floor is a little closer than we thought)
Does it occur to no-one that perhaps we should not have been led onto that cliff-edge in the first place?
Labour is like someone who gets their credit card bill and its £4,990 on a £5,000 limit and they are pleased because they've got a tenner.
ReplyDelete:-D Good simile, Bill... I like it!
ReplyDeletePart of me wants Labour to win the election, so that they can clean up their own mess; it would be a no-win situation for the Tories.
ReplyDeleteThe other part of me is sensible and realises that Labour would only make things worse. As a country, we're on the floor - another Labour Govt would, no doubt, drill a borehole for us to continue the fall.
Pam - that is exactly the problem with the "make the clear up their mess" argument - that they won't!
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