Was Labour's spending irresponsible?

Chuck Unsworth

Depends what Miliband means by 'irresponsible' doesn't it? After all, the NuLab Lexicon is a truly wondrous thing.

Whether it bears any relationship to the Oxford English Dictionary is entirely open to conjecture.

Captain Chaos

Which also begs the question why Cameron and Osborne pledged to match Labour spending plans before Autumn 2008.

Liam Murray

I'm guessing by the tone you think the graph undermines Ed's claim? Can't see how...

Until the autumn '08 crash spending was rising but not relative to receipts. Borrowing looked stable and there is such a thing as a healthy deficit. All the problems occur post Aug '08 so for me Ed's point looks sound...?

Woodbine

3yrs of restraint
7yrs of hubris
3yrs of denial

Tim Hedges

Of course it's irresponsible: just look at the last two years!

However the most irresponsible part was failing to pay down the debt in the good times, as Gordon Brown had promised to do.

So in fact it is the modest deficits of the earlier years which are most damning.

Rhoda Klapp

OK Ed, there was overspending, and you are responsible.

Woodbine

If there is such a thing as a responsible deficit, that aint one. In the ten years preceding the crisis we overspent in seven and paid down debt in only three.

Hugh Janus

"However, the most irresponsible part was failing to pay down the debt in the good times, as Gordon Brown had promised to do."

Spot on, this is exactly where the crime was committed, and it's plain for all to see. However, these b-----ds still remain in denial, even now. They continue to remind us, as if any reminder were required, just how unfit they were for office, and why they should never, ever be let loose again on the British economy.

Dave B

Over the same period, Australia paid off their national debt.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2010/05/david-alexander-if-gordon-brown-had-followed-australias-example-the-british-economy-wouldnt-be-in-su.html

Stuart Seacole Smith

@Brownian boom 'n' bust eliminating economics guru Liam Murray 1.48: if you think that looks like responsible spending, I'd love to see what you would consider irresponsible!

Remind me, what was the UK debt per man/woman/child standing at last time you checked?

Chris lancashire

Some of the commenters seem to think it's OK to run a defecit. Well for one or two years in a deep recession - possibly. As a permanent feature of a nation's finances - definitely not. In this respect, nations are no different to companies or individuals - books must balance and Brown totally ignored that throughout his tenure. Going into a recession with a £40bn+ structural defecit wasn't irresponsible? Give it a rest Milliband.

Hugh Janus

And now, as predicted, the PFI chickens are coming home to roost too. How did our political system allow them to run up such apalling levels of debt, where a new hospital is costing six times as much as the cost of the equivalent borrowing? Who were the numbskulls who signed off such ridiculous contracts, and why aren't they now answering for the fact that this generation and the next will be saddled with these outrageous costs??

David Ossitt

Hugh Janus

“Who were the numbskulls who signed off such ridiculous contracts, and why aren't they now answering for the fact that this generation and the next will be saddled with these outrageous costs??”

Come on Hugh, you ask a question that you already know the answer to, it was that evil bastard that ruined the rest of the economy, that total waster Gordon Brown.

Neil Wilson

But only those that don't understand how money works.

The government spending that was irresponsible was when the private sector was booming - driving up asset prices beyond sustainability.

Now we need the government deficit to allow the private sector to net save and pay down their borrowings. Either that or the mother of all export booms.

Neil Wilson

It is OK to run a government deficit, because in Sterling accounting terms that is the other side of the balance sheet to private net savings. (Private net savings including the repayment of loans)

The private sector cannot save unless the government runs a deficit or exports are strong. That is a simple matter of accounting.

At the moment the private sector wants to save, so either the government must run a deficit, we must have a very large export boom, or we get a deflation.

Pick your poison.

The Man

Now do a graph with PFI added on to the goverment debt. Now that will show how reckless Labour were!!

Baron

there was no excuse whatever to borrow on top of the growing, mouth watering tax receipts between 2004-2008. That wasn’t only irresponsible, it was dead reckless. For this alone, Brown and the rest of the Labour mafia in charge should have been barred from standing for any public office again.

if Brown were to rein in spending by the amount of the additional borrowings in those years and shaved off still some more to bring down the national debt we wouldn’t be in the shite we’re in now.

Chris lamcashire @ 3.30 makes the point very well. Liam Murray @ 1.48 couldn’t be more wrong.

Naomi Muse

Maybe Miliband is living on borrowed time too and thinks perpetual overborrowing is a fine way to leave things. It would be interesting if his personal household finances were overborrowed too for then he would be consistent in his delusions.

Marcher Baron

Not just irresponsible, but inefficient, too. After all, they wasted all that money and still didn't manage to buy themselves another term of office.

Paddy

Another stupid article.

We don't need a graph to show we're in 'hock'.

JohnBUK

But surely it was "investment" wasn't it?

Simon Stephenson

Chuck Unsworth (1.38pm) says all that needs to be said, really. Modern Labour politicians do not live in a world where words have defined meanings. Rather they are followers of Humpty Dumpty, whose outlook on words was, you'll remember:-

"when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

This is a very good reason always to be well-provided with salt, so that a pinch of it can be taken every time a Labour politician makes a comment about anything.

Neil Turner

Was Labour's spending irresponsible?

Is the Pope Catholic ?

BenM

The answer to the question at the title of this thread is a resounding "No!" then given the evidence the writer has displayed in the graph.

As we can see, thanks to the private sector caused recession, tax receipts fell off a cliff and Labour rightly maintained the growth in spending to ensure the economy didn't disappear down the plughole - as it surely would have done had we had the misfortune to have had a Tory government at the time.