Harman's debt calculator is broken

paul holdstock

labours' command of arithmetic, is only exceeded by their ability to lie/dissemble/cheat/spin.
don't these labour idiots realise that after the next election, they will be held to account for their dishonesty, without having the protection of being part of the governing party?

Fred

Dimbleby takes Harman seriously.

It now only takes a few seconds to watch how New Labour, in the person of Harriet Harman, manipulate the BBC, in the person of David Dimbleby; clearly telling him to stop Ian Duncan-Smith from making a certain point.

BBC New Labour are one and the same 0001
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sttc3FAPTkc

John Moss

You will find if you look at Nat Stats web site, that Brown stopped "paying down debt in FY 2000-01.

Every year since, he ran deficit budgets, adding £202bn to the National Debt by the end of FY 2007-08, ie before the recession really got started.

Question for next PMQs - The Leader of the House last week said, "we have been paying down debt". Can the Prime Minister please confirm in which financial year his Government last, "paid down debt"?"

Wait for fish impression.

Absorb bluster, strike back!

TGF Brussels

Hearing more of these comments, i'm starting to believe that those MP's who said they simply didn't notice they'd claimed for mortgages were being honest.

Clearly rather than dishonest, they are just absolutely economically illiterate.

Sir Graphus

She did also offer the bizaare opinion that "thinking about economics, that is doing nothing"

George Laird

Dear Fraser

Do they do a module on 'lying your head off' at St Paul's?

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

Tankus

But no point of order to the chair for misleading .

Moronic answer pitched to a moronic audience perhaps ?

Praguetory

She also suggested that unemployment isn't rising. Labour appear to be reduced to making up facts.

Chris

By the looks of it, they did technically pay down a bit of debt in 99/00.

Oor Wullie

Looks like they "paid down debt" in 2000-01 and then it went up again constantly.
But Harperson believes she is correct and that's good enough for the oafs behind her on the Labour benches.
Fraser --noticed you getting squeezed out of the love-in between Neil and Salmond on the DP today. What's that all about?

Geoff Wyatt

Nice graph, but what are the units of measurement - per person or per family or total national debt in £billions? Whatever the units, I take it to be UK assets acquired by foreigners, i.e. government + private debt.

tenpin

I think the graph from 1997 onwards says it all really. I think a previous commentor proposed that you should work the UK debt out per person, that is how much they will have to pay for this over their lifetime...problem with this is the debt is going up on a daily basis...I think you need a debt couter on your website. C4 news had the bank bail out down alone at £892 BILLION...the banks only earned (through tax receipts) £250 Billion over 10 years...just to put that into context...depressing...and worryingly this lame duck government doesn't seemto care.

john miller

OVERDRAFT! This is an MP, an aristo and a "government" minister! Harmperson doesn't know what debt is, hence her confusion.

Don

Stupid or liar?

john miller

On a more serious note, this is just another example of Harmperson lying to Parliament.

Last PMQs she also lied and announced a "correction" immediately afterward. Now, in the same creeping manner as Labour legislation, we have the lie, but without the correction.

A bit of an achievement for her really, as all Labour ministers go through a phase where the only explanations for their statements are that they are incompetent (the usual excuse) or liars (never an excuse). Either way, as a liar or an incompetent, one is not really fit for office.

So, it's a bit of a tricky period that lasts for most of their careers. But they do seem to struggle through, don't they?

TomTom

"Mad Hattie" Harman is Daddy's Girl and probably never had to think about money......it just emerged from Harley Street.

She is a "Princess" and above the mundane chores of real life; and where else in Britain does fantasy reign supreme more than in the Houses of Parliament ?

Colin

That's the problem with toffs, they're useless with money.

Unlike her constituents, she's probably never had to think about it, ever...

colin

DC's first question next week should be:

"Last week the Leader of the House mistakenly stated that the government was paying down debt. Will the Prime Minister take this opportunity to put the record straight and confirm that net debt is increasing and has done so consistently since Labour took office?"

BCS

The Norman Conquest? Really? The Stuarts? The Napoleonic Wars?

Flemingcrag

The graph is quite clear once Gordon Brown abandoned the previous Conservative Government's spending plans National debt has steadily risen year on year.
2000/2001 was the last time debt was paid down, this was the moment when Gordon desperate that we did not notice the dot.com stock market crash opened the floodgates on public spending and has never ever turned the taps off.
To finance this cover-up he encouraged the financial sector to ever greater risk taking. The result was crazy lending and the promotion of a housing bubble. The trick worked people were fooled into forgetting about their equity and pension losses as the value of their homes soared.
The rest as they say is history, in less than a year Labour can return to doing what they do best; carping from the opposition benches about heartless Tories as they set about implememting all the tough decisions necessary to rectify another Labour mess and save the Country.

Moraymint

Are we surprised that Harman talks s**t?

Our political elite (ha!) has evolved to the point that its members don't give a toss what they say to each other, to the news media, to the citizens of this country. We are all deemed to be either disinterested or stupid or both.

Indeed, generally, our political elite just don't give a toss; full stop.

The national debt soars; our education standards plummet; our politicians lie to each other and to us; our soldiers die in Afghanistan's dust with crap equipment.

I could weep.

Jim

You need to add in the energy decline figures, helpfully provided by todays Telegraph:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/5779908/UK-facing-energy-crunch-as-North-Sea-oil-and-gas-cash-dries-up.html

So North Sea oil provides 13 billion, or 30% of all corporation tax receipts. Exploration has declined by 57% this year, it is expected North Sea will only supply 40% of our energy needs by 2012, if memory serves we became a net oil importer last year.
So a new hole opens up in our balance sheet oil will only provide about 5% of corporation tax by 2012, plus the budget deficit will grow more because of import costs. We are more doomed than before.

Investor

The "we paid down debt" is an old briefing line put out by central office: they refer to the years '00-02 (tick) (followed Tory spending plans) and also the debt divided by gdp % (a dangerous measure if used on its own).

Designed to confuse the public who are not very numerate (and getting less so under Brown / Balls leadership - "it suits us").

TrevorsDen

"But no point of order to the chair for misleading " -- That I believe does not qualify for a point of order.
The problem is form the questioner that they run the danger of getting bogged down into detail the public find boring. harman has to stand by her misleading answer and having put it into the public domain it is for the media (like Nelson, to expose it). Don't wait for the BBC to comment though...

BCS - come on, I think Mr Nelson means that this govt has increased debt by all the other govts put together since the time of the Norman Conquest.

Hysteria

Fred - the youtube post was indeed fascinating - but great to see IDS stick to his guns

JohnAnt

See her overdraft? Why, has she put in on expenses?
Nothing would surprise me.

Old Pauline

Not sure how she got into St Paul's...perhaps the standards were not as rigorous in her day as they are now

One of Browns 10% ers

The Leader of the House typifies everything that makes up this government in that she clearly is lacking in what is going on whilst the front benchers and the back benchers who are awake nod away and give a few hear hears obviously misunderstanding what she is actually saying.
She repeats parrot fashion what GB and his spin team have laid down and she does as GB also does,miss leads the house whenever it suits her purpouse.

Angry of SE1

This sort of thing goes on right across Governmement.Alistair Darling told Emily Matlis last night that Labour were creating 250,000 jobs every month!

Creating - yes - jobs - no!!

Mark M

Well, technically they did 'pay down debt' but as your graph shows, it was a tiny repayment before it starts to climb massively.

It's akin to someone caught speeding arguing their innocence on the grounds that at some point during the course of their journey they were below the limit.

Penfold

What does one expect of NuLab.

Her maths goes hand in hand and head in hand with Tessa's understanding of mortgages.

Marvellous, that at long last, the spin, lies, deceit and absolute mendacity of NuLab are being exposed or rather are becoming unravelled

NotaSheep

It's subtle but in a way she is right "we have paid down debt" - indeed they have but now they are increasing it. As is often the case, it's not what they say, but what they don't say... That's the benefit of a St Paul's education!