Another PBR, Please

Thursday, 10th December 2009

That would be a Pabst Blue Ribbon, of course, though another, better, Pre-Budget Report would be welcome too. As Fraser says, the public finances are ruined and will not be rebuilt for many years. Bill Jamieson's piece in the Scotsman framed the matter rather well and explained why the level of debt matters more than, I suspect, many people think it does:

But why should debt figures matter so much? This is why:
Next year, we will be paying £44.4bn in debt interest alone – never mind debt falling due for repayment.
That debt interest in 2010-11 will absorb the entire proceeds from capital gains tax, inheritance tax, stamp duty, tobacco duties, wine and spirits duties, beer and cider duties, betting and gaming duties, air passenger duty, the climate change levy, the aggregates levy and Customs and Excise levies – and still leave £1bn to find.
And this debt interest bill will rise sharply in future years, forcing further cuts in departmental spending limits as room has to be made for this cost.

Emphasis added. All too true, one fears. Still, this is how the matter should be framed since, quite reasonably, people find it hard to comprehend figures once they run into the hundreds of bllions or even trillions of pounds.

Filed under: Britain (678 more articles) , Brown (179 more articles) , Labour (2011 more articles) , Public spending (120 more articles)

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PAUL GILBOY

December 12th, 2009 7:09am Report this comment

You seem to have finally woken up to what the argument is about, fiscal stimulus in the short term is all very well but eventually the piper will have to be paid and, the cuts to public services will be deeper and more brutal than any Fabian think tank could imagine.

Labour will leave a legacy of unmitigated financial hardship to every family in the land and, the poorest will be hit the hardest simply because the put the interests of Mr Brown before everyone else’s.

Playing politics by soaking the rich may give a glow of satisfaction to die hard socialists but the only way we will climb out of this hole will be to trade our way out and anything that impedes that will condemn this nation to penury for decades to come.

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