An indebted nation

Roger Thornhill

Brown cannot be allowed to hide behind these times. Our debt is mostly due to his fiscal incontinence over the years.

We need to significantly cut spending, cut taxes and ensure the BoE is obliged to manage the value of Sterling, not prices.

maas101

These are the numbers that Cameron and co. should be shouting about. New Labour always was tax and spend old labour disguised by Blair's spin. GB was a disasterous chancellor and is an even worse PM. How the current cabinet have the gall to say that Gordon is the best person to lead us through this current crisis staggers me.

TrevorsDen

PFI debt has a finite time period - usually 30 years and is allocated to certain specific projects which provide a utility to the public - ie hospitals. It is also paid for out of income or budget allocation over that time unlike pother debt which just disappears for ever.

PFI payments also include for current costs - ie maintenance and servicing, not just debt. The project is handed over in grade 1 condition after the 30 years as well.

Criticise PFI if you want (maybe the programme is too big - if so prove it) but you have to offer an alternative way of giving the nation much needed capital facilities out of limited spending availability.

PFI was a conservative invention - designed to give efficiently procured and properly maintained buildings.

Surely the problem that should be exercising the Spectators juvenile scribblers is that despite 11 years of alleged growth we are not generating a corresponding tax income to fund the grand schemes of government - a stick surely big enough to beat Gordon Brown around the head with.

Liz Brown

Coming out of EUrope would immediately fund the £60 billion debt

In despair

The next government must pass emergency legislation so that their are no pay-offs for the legions of useless state workers Brown set up as his voting base buffer.

Hundreds of thousands of overpaid useless public sector staff must go, along with all the waste on foreign aid.

maas101

TrevorsDen.

You picked up on one peice of the overall picture PFI. I would question some of your assertions about it (I worked on a PFI project and "handed over in grade 1 condition" is dubious to say the least) however, ignoring PFI, an annual defecit of £70 billion and public debt of £600 billion during a period of sustained growth is terrible.

Call me a juvenile scribbler if you want to but try and defend the other numbers if you can.

Pete, Scotland

Same old Labour!

John Moss

At Q4 2007 national debt was £618bn up 42% from 1997. In total over £190bn of debt has been added in those years.

2008 looks like being a bit of a bumper year, so the total now is probably £650bn.

Can anybody explain to me where Gordon Brown's reputation for economic competence comes from, precisely?

Ken

"Hundreds of thousands of overpaid useless public sector staff must go,.." quite right In Despair, along with all benefit and other 'victim industry' handouts to suspected terrorists, medieval bigamists, and the third world's easy touch artists... (algebeeb was just interveiwing some of these hopefuls on a Libyan seashore waiting to be rowed over to Lampadusa en route to little ole UK)

Ron Wilson

For decades Brown and his fellow Unionist travellers have revelled in an alleged 'black hole' in Scotland's finances, presented as proof positive that any putative Scottish State was structurally bankrupt and bound to fail.
Now that Brown's own £70 billion black hole has beggared the English/Brit State, perhaps the time has come for Brown to forget his separatist delusions & sign up to a regional future within the European Union.
After all, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.

Teledu

Whatever the merits or not of PFI, if the cost has been "kept off the balance sheets " then that is a scandal that Brown should be brought to account for.
Somehow, the opposition don't seem to be able to bring Brown's false figures to the fore (except in the Telegraph and Spectator).
Does the average Sun or Daily Mirror reader (or BBC watcher) know the extent of the nation's debt and that Brown misleads them about it?

Pete, Scotland

I remember reading a while back that Brown only gave the BoE it's independence as part of a deal with Blair, who wanted to join the Euro and this was a condition.

I will second the question posed by John Moss:

"Can anybody explain to me where Gordon Brown's reputation for economic competence comes from, precisely?"

TGF UKIP

And just what are the Tory idols of this fanzine doing to make the British voter aware of this huge buden of debt he is being saddled with?

mart

Private Eye have been mentioning PFI in this type of context for years. No-one appears to have mentioned them here yet, so that's that fixed now.

Good on you for making a big splash with it, though. If only we had a Parliament that was effective - then they might have put a stop to all this.

Pete, Scotland

In my opinion, and experience, there are absolutely HUGE amounts of redundant time within the public sector.

It is a standing joke that if this was the private sector it would have gone bust years ago due to the fact that nobody actually does any productive work.

Pete, Scotland

Good point Teledu

Why aren't the red tops raising this issue?

Are there secret deals?

It's all there if anybody can be bothered delving into it.

John de Finchley

I like you, Liz Brown

John Miller

I am really fed up with socialists like TrevorsDen.

It is not possible for them to post something without dropping in the gratuitous insult. Why "juvenile scribblers"? Because someone disagrees with you? Carrying on the fine old Blair/Brown/Cambell tradition - don't attack the argument attack the person...

And anyway, the article didn't say PFI was a "bad thing" just that it was outrageous that it was kept off balance sheet. Ironically, if you are a company, HMRC will not allow you to use this Enron -style accounting method. Yet HMRC's masters do use it. Comment on that then.