Why Cameron must never say "deficit".

denverthen

Excellent post, Mr N. This is a vital distinction which speaks to the unravelling of the very fabric of the entire Brownite-Labour propaganda narrative, which, until now (thanks in no small part to you), had seemed to be indestructable.

Bring on the reality check.

teledu

Don't worry Fraser, Andrew Marrshmallow, the Today crew, Question Time chairman and the GM-TV sofa Labour luvvies will obviously grill Brown/Darling and government spokesmen specifically on this point, won't they?

Fees Office Clerk

It's lazy journalism. Just read out aloud, to the viewing public, the press release as issued by Downing Street

2trueblue

The BBC does not confuse the words, the use of the words is deliberate. The BBC are Liebores mouth piece and as such trot out phrases they are 'guided' to use.

You are right that the Tories must use the words 'overspend, and debt'. This will serve to focus the electorates mind on the real issues rather than abstract, meaningless clap trap that the BBC and Liebore trot out to mislead and confuse us.

They might also qualify it by translating it into everyday language...overdraft, unsecured loans, etc. That is very easy to understand.

TGF UKIP

You're right, Fraser. Two friends of mine, retired teachers, and one even a maths teacher, and both lifelong readers of broadsheets though admittedly the Guardian and Indie, did not really know that "deficit" was the difference between expenditure exceeding income.

Other conversations also indicate you were quite correct in a previous post when you said that most voters interpret "halving the deficit" as halving the debt. You were and are also correct in saying that the BBC routinely, and obviously deliberately, conflate the two, as did the 8 o'clock female newsreader on R4 who used "halving the deficit" and "halving the debt" in near consecutive sentences.

The trouble is your useless Tory mates are party to this as evidenced by Clarke in his performance with Byrne on the same edition of Today. They just don't get that DEBT, the poison of overhanging and gobsmacking debt is what strikes alarm and not, for God's sake, expressed in billions, or now trillions, but in burden per household i.e £1.4 trillion = £56,000 per household and propotionately far more for income tax paying households. If the boot was on the other foot Gordon and Mandy would have that message indelibly planted by now by transforming it into a mantra. Not your fucking useless Mekon or Essex Boy though.

Did ever an Opposition less deserve to win an election?

Fabian the Fabulous

Even when I blog about it, some CoffeeHousers say they don't know the difference
So if it's such a bugbear, why don't you explain it! Maybe because it would give you fewer opportunities to bemoan the ignorance of some people!

Rex Burr

The deficit creates and grows the debt.
When we cut spending to eliminate the deficit, then cut further to pay off the debt it will become clear to all that we are not a wealthy nation after all, and are likely to become less so.

paul holdstock

perhas it is rather too much to expect, but i would have thought that any journalist who wished to be respected,
would be most embarrassed if they were publicly shown up by all tory interviewees when they confused/misrepresented debt with deficit.
continued attack on this point might well force the relevant media people to use the correct terminology.
once they do so, browns' fiction will unravel before his eyes.

AAE

Nor "modern", "fair", "equality", "change", "progressive". There are many for whom these words seem vacuous platitudes, but their intent is to act like a masonic handshake to that great community of the Left who operate in malign secrecy. Isn't it time you shared the code Fraser?

toco

Fairly shortly the worryingly erratic Brown will meet himself face-to-face and it will not be a comfortable experience when he realises eventually how greatly he is mistrusted in everything he does or says.We all know his dodgy way with words and Chilcott was a prime example of his deceitful behaviour which in so deep seated in his inner self.

Moraymint

Yes, and the other way of saying the same thing is to point out (frequently) that for every £400 the government spends, it must borrow £100. Every day of the week the government must borrow one quarter of what it (over)spends.

It's like the guy earning the national average wage of (about) £24,000 and borrowing another £8,000 per year, every year, just to fund his regular outgoings. It's unsustainable madness.

pete-s

Liam Byrne: I am very grateful for your judgment, Mr. Speaker; I shall answer question 4 directly. The Chancellor will provide an update on the Government's fiscal position, including forecasts for public finance, at the Budget. The Fiscal Responsibility Act 2010 puts a legal obligation on the Government to more than halve the deficit over four years and have debt falling by 2015-16. -- Mar 16th Parliament.

Surely Byrne is using it incorrectly; if the deficit is only halved then the debt must still be rising in 2015; he says it will be falling.

Simon Smethurst-McIntyre

Very good point, the other issue is the reporting of debt as a percentage of GDP not as a percentage of government income. People look at it and go 60%, a bank will lend me 3x my salary for a mortgage (not realising that gov debt is unsecured).

Debt is currently at 1.8x tax revenues so it's the equivalent of an average 22k a year private sector employee owing 39,873 on a credit card.

More details here http://stratfordconservative.blogspot.com/2010/03/public-sector-vs-consumer-debt.html

Tanuki

The Beeb really don't understand the difference between 'deficit' and 'debt'.

I sometimes don't think Brown/Darling understand the difference either. Nor does C\meron and his ilk.

Add up the total amount of Government debt. Add on the annually-accrued overspend, plus the ever-increasing interest-on-debt. *That's* the figure we need to frighten the electorate with.

denverthen

(...or even 'indestructible'. Oops!)

TomTom

In the grown-up past we used to speak of National Debt and PSBR with PSBR adding to the National Debt.

Brown talks of "Investment" because he tried to copy the German policy that PSBR should not increase in excess of Public Capital Investment in Fixed Assets - ie. Government should not borrow for current Spending.

Of course PFI fudged all that and Brown ended up with Current Expenditure being used to fund PFI off-sheet Investment

mongoose

What about that favourite of officialdom, the "borrowing requirement"? It isn't easily confused with debt. But nor is it an exact synonym for "deficit", and in that it is pernicious, because it allows the brownie that says we can reduce our deficit by selling some assets. So yes, "overspend" is the best word, being clear for clarity to a confused public, while avoiding cynical manipulation a la Brown.

Nick

There is a VERY SIMPLE solution.

Always refer to the "annual deficit".

That makes an easy distinction from the "total debt".

Chuck Unsworth

Too damn right. This is all Newspeak (or is it now Nuspeak?) - the disgusting dissembling and debasement of English solely for political gain.

John Moss

Ah, hmmm!

http://mossjohnblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/debts-and-deficits-overdrafts-and.html

Short the UK

The Tories aren't able to codify messages.

Two colossal weak points from the Tories:

~Soundbites are wishy washy. You have to deliver hard code to the voter and repeat it over and over again.

~Attack dog strategy is non-existent.

~Denial
~Anger
~Bargaining
~Depression
~Acceptance

I'm personally working through Depression & Acceptance.

The elite are veering between Denial & Bargaining.

The public are still mainly in Denial.

There is a long way to go in this "soft" depression.

DavoMax

Thanks Fraser. Hope DC & CCHQ are listening.

Snowman

Hate to spoil the party, but to expect the great unwashed to figure it is asking too much. Moreover, stressing the overspend aggressively may only frighten people who, as a result, may cut back even on stuff that could in the end stimulate the economic machine, or it may lead to a total loss of confidence to a point when people begin hording notes in mattresses. And another thing that’s often overlooked. It’s not only the overspend, and the addition of it to the sovereign debt that matters. It’s the servicing of it, too. Given that the quantitative easing cut the cost of repaying the accumulated debt burden by a full percentage point, the state of the country financing burden ain’t that awful, sorry. What’s more frightening is the Labour's solution how to cut it, but that’s another matter.

What infuriates more is the accepted treatment of the Government’s financial activity as if it was indeed the Government’s money that Brown and Darling are spending, investing or whatever. It isn’t. It’s the taxpayers money. Arguably, the only part of the Government’s budget that can be attributed to the Government itself are the borrowed billions, but this share too, and the interest on it, must be in the end be repaid by the taxpayer.

It may be a mouth-full if any reporting of Government spending, allocating, investing or whatever were to also say ‘of taxpayers money’, but I reckon that if the media were to stick to it people would eventually get the message.

toco

Around 80% of BBC's news media people rely on the Labour Government for their jobs and have no experience outside NuLabour politics and one can understand why they are scared to face another dimension.Painful but it is the real world and those who grab the opportunity will flourish.Gordon Brown,Charlie Whelan and the brothers from Unite are not the way forward for any of us.

Eric Hargreaves

It's quite simple:
(Budget) Deficit = Amount by which expenditure exceeds tax receipts.
Debt = Total amount owed by the government

...

Hugo van Randwyck

It isn't 'overspend', it is 'vote buying'. This is similar to the 2005 election where 'accidentally' £ billions were overpaid in tax credits.

How about scrapping the licence fee, and have the BBC directly funded by the government - as it is in other countries. Then allow the voters, annually by postal vote, to decide what the top pay can be in each department, BBC1, BBC2, radio 1 etc, from a choice: No upper limit, PM pay e.g. £200k, Deputy PM pay £120k, MP pay £60k, or average wage £24k! See how quickly the majority opinion gets a hearing! Maybe same for the other channels, finally power 'with' responsibility/accountability/feedback.

Noa Zrk

TFG UKIP
"If the boot was on the other foot Gordon and Mandy would have that message indelibly planted by now by transforming it into a mantra. Not your fucking useless Mekon or Essex Boy though".

I was shocked to see the Spectator publishing such abuse in these august columns. I have several friends who are from Essex.

Tim W

I disagree on this one. Budget Deficit is what it is. Or the Public Sector Net Cash Requirement (I think). Plus Cameron has already had a poster with his face next to the word deficit.

However I take the point about language in general.
We should change Labour's "guarantees" into "centralised targets" for thats what they are. "Investment" is usually "spending" as you say.

Jim

Forget any words such as debt/deficit/overspend. Use an analogy that everyone understands only too well - the credit card statement.

The Tories need to repeat ad nauseam the mantra that Labour/Gordon Brown have maxed out the national credit card, and the time has arrived to try and pay some of it back, otherwise even the minimum payment (aka debt interest) will become too much for us to afford.

It may not be a perfect economic analogy, but its one that will resonate with anyone who has ever had a credit card debt to pay off, and is easily understood by all, especially those whose eyes glaze over at the mention of economics and statistics.

Frank P

AAE

Two more for your list:
'Redistribution of wealth.'
'Social Justice'.

Anyway; what's the point of fretting? We are small fry in the Geopolitical Scheme of Things now. On Sunday Uncle Sam will get the thin end of the wedge of totalitarian government rammed up his jacksey disguised as the US NHS. The American people have colluded in the destruction of their own Republic and the war to preserve Western Freedom is lost. They voted a communist into their highest office of political power 15 months ago. He seals the deal on Sunday.

The ceremony of the unconditional surrender of Western Civilisation to the New World Order will take place in Washington on Sunday with much gloating and self-congratulation from that clinically insane bitch Pelosi and the sinister Harry Reid. The scam is even bigger than the AGW stunt.

Obama is the most dangerous man that has existed on our planet in my lifetime of 76 years. External threat from such monsters as Hitler, Stalin, Mao and Saddam Hussein was always bound to fail. But the enemy within has succeeded and we have surrendered with hardly a whimper.

Mark in indelible ink 22nd March 2010 in your diary my friends. It will go down in the annals of infamy.

Some of us have tried for almost two years to raise the alarm about the end game of the Long March. Indeed some of us have been warning of its staged progress for over 50 years. We have failed - miserably. So it goes.

I note with utter disgust that the events of the last few weeks in America have gone unreported by the Obamafied Spectator bloggers with the exception of Melanie, who of course, as always, gets it!

Austin Barry

The Tory party must liberate itself from the mind-numbing tyranny of Brown-speak.

As Orwell, the pathologist of political bullshit, wrote:

"A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity."

I think though that 'overspend' is a feeble, enervated word. Cameron and Osborne should just keep asserting that, "the Government has maxed-out our credit card - the taxpayers' credit card. We and our children are going to have to make the repayments for years and years to come."

That should do it.

J H Holloway

This is easy.

The deficit should be (correctly) re-named the national 'overdraft' and the national debt re-named the national 'mortgage'.

We can all understand that.

Hysteria

@ Tim W.

this is politics. It doesn't matter what the correct technical definition is. The point being made is what will resonate with the sheeple.

People can pretty much understand simple language - Fraser is on to something.

Billy Blofeld

Fraser,

You, unlike us, can probably pick up a phone and get yourself invited onto TV interviews.

........ so what is stopping you from getting the truth out there?

Beer Moth

Which reminds me: who was it who said, 'Defeat is OK' ?

lola

It's not just the Newspeak use of 'investment'. The whole New Labour 'project' is based on the techniques laid out in the party manual - '1984'.

Chuck Unsworth

@ Noa Zrk

"I have several friends who are from Essex."

Is this something you'd really wish to publicise?

GDT

Debt is owning the bank money.
Deficit is earning £100 a week and spending £200 a week.
So when Brown saying reduce the deficit by half he means we'll be spending £150 a week, even though our income is only £100 still.
So, under Gordon Brown our debt will increase - until we can no longer borrow money and the proverbial hits the fan.

Tim Carpenter LPUK

Quite correct, Fraiser. I have been on about this too.

Unless you use the correct names for everything, you will not succeed. Incorrect use of names and the twisting of meaning must be confronted, challenged and reversed.

It might be a good idea to also ditch from the lexicon "deprived" (for who is preventing?), "State Education", "National Insurance" (it is The National Ponzi Scheme), Government Spending (no, it is spending of taxpayers money) and others.

One could even convert "Debt" to "future taxation". We have £750bln of future taxation. Gordon is increasing future taxation as we speak. This is a powerful way to crystallise what has and is going on.

Beer Moth

Aah yes, Nelson Mandela's chiropodist.

TomTom

An "investment" would be to put £1 billion of taxpayers’ money into an Emerging Markets fund, and hope it grows.

NO it would not. That would be Speculation.

Buying a nuclear submarine is INVESTMENT because it is not CONSUMPTION

Y = C + I - you either Consume or Invest. Traditionally Capital Goods have been Investment and part of Gross Fixed Capital Formation with Consumption being ongoing expenditure for current periods.

Confusing Savings invested in Funds with Investment is facile journalism and makes too many assumptions about Y = C + S and the razor's edge problem of equilibrating I and S.

It would be really good if journalists in Britain had a grasp anywhere near as good as Jeff Randall; or if political journalists simply kept quiet about Economics rather than exposing their facile comprehension

oldtimer

Why not use one of Labour`s favourite terms of abuse and call the deficit a black hole?

Gawain

He should take a leaf out of Thatcher's book and explain it in terms of family finance.

Gordon Brown has maxed out on all his credit card limits. Now he is paying more on the credit card interest than he is on getting the kids to school or keeping the home safe.

And that's before you get to his mortgage. That just keeps on getting higher; yes, can you believe it, he is still letting his mortgage rise at the same time as he has all the interest to pay off on his cards ! He's paying off so much interest on the cards he can't afford to pay down any principal.

Labour are debt junkies and the red bills are starting to arrive.

Simon Stephenson

I admire your sentiment, Fraser, but really the only way to thwart the Statists, and their Newspeak, is to have an education system that makes people aware that their brains can, and should, be used for thinking with.

Simple, isn't it, but it requires a major reversal of the authority-supporting system constructed over the last 50 years, in which "Question Nothing" has been the mission statement.

Why is adult authority so fearful of its appeal that it seeks to indoctrinate the young that it is the only option, rather than giving them the chance to conclude that, however imperfect, it is the best of what's available?

TGF UKIP

Frank P, hear, hear hear! Every single word agreed especially your condemnation of the Speccie for staying silent on the Marxist takeover. Don't forget, though, that their dearly beloved Cam has his tongue up Obama's arse nearly as far as they have theirs up Dave's.

TGF UKIP

Noa Zrk, take no notice of snooty N. London Chuck Unsworth, and I'm sure your mates would do a far better job than Coulson in reaching the parts Home Counties toffery cannot reach.

Noa Zrk

For the avoidance of doubt I wish to make it clear that, as with the Essex Boy lobby, I fully respect and acknowledge the diversity, ethnicity, minority and transgender aspirations of the Mekon community.

I just don't want my taxes to pay for those noble ambitions.

Paul Owen

You could call it an overdraught. That's what it is. It's an overdraught that Gordon keeps consolidating into a loan every year for the last decade and for the next 5 years too. People could understand that. The Tories could Carol Vorderman to explain it too.

Herbert Thornton

I should have thought that if Cameron is to beat Brown at his own game, he must also break his silence on other topics and use more understandable and honest language about them too -

"Quantitative Easing is not enough. We, the Tories, will print FAR more money than that."

"Multiculturalism? Absurd. We support Omniculturalism: everybody must be encouraged to move to Britain!"

"WE denounce the Lisbon Treaty because it's inadequate. It must be expanded to make the entire Islamic world an integral component of Europe!"

Etc.

Chuck Unsworth

TGF UKIP

Wrong side of the river - and wrong on every other count, too. North London? Which particular London?

Still, that might account for your moniker.

Andrew S

Couldn't agree more - I am now an expat in Australia.

The new conservative leader of the opposition over here has had tremendous cut through by using straight forward langauge. How to knock down a Carbon Pollution Reduction Sceheme - simply repeat over and over again "Labor's Great Big New Tax on Everything". Even the ABC (equivalent of the BBC in many respects) can't avoid airing the phrase.

hadrian

Perhaps because I am a former teacher of English, of the old school style, where precision mattered and parsing and sentence analysis along with some rudimentary logic were hammered home - perhaps, I say, this abuse of the word 'deficit' did not for a single moment deceive me. A deficit is defined in my dictinary as 'a shortfall in revenue'. Hence it has nothing to do with our outstanding debt but is as you properly say, simply 'overspend'. Labour clearly mean to keep on overspending. Does the world, where millions elsewhere exist in dire poverty, OWE US a living? We are in the hands of improvident fools.