The Miliband deception

Torontory

In fact it only went down while Brown/Labour government kept their promise to keep to the Conservative spending plans; after that mayhem!

toco

Even the BBC,Peston,Flanders et al can't erase Red Ed's deception regarding debt.He is merely a clone of his old master when it comes to manipulating numbers and telling porky pies.

Forlornehope

The other major factor was that the deficit would have been much bigger if it were not for inflated tax receipts from a housing bubble and "greedy bankers" paying themselves huge bonuses.

TrevorsDen

He clearly paid tribute to Brown so he could use one of his 'brownies'.
Should we call it an 'eddie'? But will anyone who interview him do the honest thing and accuse him of lying.

TrevorsDen

PS
And then there is the PFI debt. I am not anti PFI but the plain fact is there are a lot of them and a decent component of the repayments is borrowing for capital expenditure.

HJ

It is the debt level as a percentage of GDP that matters, not the absolute monetary value.

The debt as a percentage of GDP did fall in the early New Labour years as the deficit continued on the downward trajectory (and turned into a surplus) that was firmly established by the previous Tory government. The problem was the huge growth in spending from 2002 onwards, which was not matched by tax revenue

Pete Hoskin

HJ: I mentioned the debt/GDP ratio in a P.S. above. True, Labour did get it down quite significantly in the three years after they took power (to about 30 percent). But from around 2000-01 onwards, it has risen continuously. It was around 36-37 percent of GDP in 2006.

To my mind, this still makes MiliE's claim that "our government paid down the debt before the crisis hit" rather misleading.

Hugh Janus

"Remember, our government paid down the debt before the crisis hit."

Really? Strange that no one else was aware of this and that the figures actually point in the opposite direction.

This fool takes us for fools.

Hugh Janus

TD:
I am most certainly against PFI, on any count. McBust knew that he could hide the figures, but only for so long. And future generations end up paying the most enormous sums for the next 25-30 years, when it would have been far cheaper to borrow the money in the normal way. Value for money it certainly isn't. We also have the crazy situation where, for instance, a PFI hospital building is no longer required - but we are obliged to go on making inflation-proof payments until the end of the term. It's just crazy. The economics of McBust's madhouse.

Peter From Maidstone

PH, why don't you say what it really is. It is a lie. Please do not use various euphemisms. That is to play along with Labour. What we need is serious journalists willing to actually call politicians to account. Milliband is a liar. Please just say it and keep saying it whenever it is the truth.

TrevorsDen

No its not 'misleading' its a 'lie'.

And measuring debt as a % of GDP is 'misleading' as well. Debt is money; increased debt is more money and it needs to be replayed.

Owen Morgan

Peter Hoskin, very good piece and, please, don't be deterred by HJ's preposterous Broonite interjections.

emil

And Labour continue to rewrite history as shamelessly in opposition as they did in government.

Victor Southern

This lie is not new. It has been used by both Brown and Balls.

salieri

Sorry to be awkward, but what the hell does it mean to 'pay down' something? It doesn't mean pay off or pay back but is obviously intended to spark off some such association among brain-dead camp-followers, commentators and headline-grabbers. It's not just facile: it is dangerous claptrap, and we unwittingly elevate its significance by not questioning this odious debasement of language.

TrevorsDen

salieri - its just a phrase, and it does mean to repay part of an outstanding loan.

From my previous post 'replayed' -- oh dear. Wrong on 2 counts.

toni

Interesting article you linked to Mr. Hoskin, did you by any chance scroll down to related articles where this one caught my eye:
"Govt unclear over social rent 'lottery'"

Holly ......

Listened to this prat,prattling on while I washed up.
What did he say?
I heard seals,clapping for more fish.
Maybe when he's fed up with being the leader
of the miserable,useless,loser party Palin will set him on.If only to make her look more plausable.

leonvestey

We can expect nothing but lies from Liebore. If they told the truth about what they did to Britain, their own mothers would kill them.
This is all just part of a campaign to get the sheeple to trust them again and vote them in so they can finish the job of wrecking our country.

Nicholas

Yes, yes. But he won't be called on it will he. If Cameron had said something like this we would never hear the end of it. There would be a direct media challenge, plenty of BBC-sponsored whipping-up, a rapid scramble for response and an inevitable back-pedal.

With "Brownies", and now "Ed-its", the lies are irrelevant as lies because they are bought into wholesale by the Labour Love Tribe and everyone connected to the media narrative - or else just ignored. Control of the dreaded "consensus" is key. And currently it is controlled by the Left with no sign that the Coalition even understand the ideological propaganda challenges facing them - or want to. They naively believe that responding to lies, vested interests and connived at propaganda with calm reason is going to work. Cameron has the infuriating habit of positioning himself at the left-centre or even left, so as not to scare the horses (in his view), when the rest of the world experience suggests he should be confronting the left with its own contradictions from the plain-speaking right. Yes, the media will launch against him if he does - but the public won't.

The Left have absolute mastery over the use of language, repeating it to embed it in the public consciousness and of keeping to a tightly scripted message. Intimidating to silence any dissent over disagreeable realities with media-generated PC. It is not the truth of these messages that matter but their impact. "Paying down the debt" is going to become another established leftist myth in the building blocks of the war against "The Cuts". Part of the same body of myth which has rooted itself in a majority of people too young to have known the reality - or truth. So Thatcher as Bogeywoman is more powerfully resonant amongst the young than the truly dire years of Labour rule that preceded her.

And if I know my history, Labour will be in the fortunate position of benefiting from the economic growth and stability resulting from "The Cuts" whilst at the same time condemning and disowning them. All ready to give us another hefty dose of state over-funded fascism post-2015.

If I were a Conservative - or even LibDem wonk - I would be hard at work on this narrative and it will take more than just pointing lamely at the last government and saying "It was them, guv". The media either know it and are in the same ideological camp, don't care, can't see it or are as incompetent in seizing the public narrative through language as the Coalition.

Britain desperately needs a credible party of the popular right, one that is not pretending to be centre-left, or loaded with the racist baggage of the BNP, or infuriatingly single-issue like UKIP. This vacuum is going to have dire consequences for Britain as Labour resurgent, the Socialist EU, a brainwashed or immigrant generation and electoral reform fatally inject the DNA of the Left. They are like the Borg and we will be assimilated.

Dimoto

Wow ! What a splendid rant Nicholas, most of which I heartily agree with (not sure about the last para).

May I add an addendum ?
The Tories should become much more robust with the LibDem "mood music".
Everyone, from Clegg through Cable to Hughes, thinks it is perfectly acceptable to talk as though the Tory coalition partners were something they brought in on their shoe, but which they have to work with now (for a while) - the subliminal message is that Labour of course, are these nice fluffy chaps who just need a bit of time to 'sort themselves'.
We know where Cable is coming from, but Clegg ? making a point of saying on Desert Island Discs (?!) that Cameron is NOT his friend ?

I have yet to hear a Tory cast aspertions on the LibDems in public (and boy, do they have the material !) Cameron should make it clear to Clegg that next time one of these 'freewheelers' talks out of turn, it will be a public rebuke and possibly a demotion. Time for the toe-rags to learn some manners ?

The LibDems are very fragile, but only the Tories are worried about the stability of the apple cart ? How does that work ?

Peter From Maidstone

Nicholas, I agree with your post. What do you think is the reason that the Spectator never chooses to call a lie a lie but always uses 'in crowd' euphemisms?

Paddy

Nicholas: A very good post. I agree with everything you say.

I think the media are incompetent.

HJ

Pete Hoskin: Prior to the recession. the national debt as a percentage of GDP (ignoring PFI and pension obligations) was at a lower level than Labour inherited - in the sense, Ed Milband is correct.

However, he is also being disingenuous, because Labour inherited a rapidly falling deficit (heading towards surplus) but they changed this into a growing deficit and debt increasing as a % of GDP. The deceit is in not comparing what happened in the same stage of the cycle under the previous Tory government - the Tories had reduced the debt levelvery significantly before the early 90s recession

Shubaoi

National debt is usually considered as the debt/GDP ratio, since this helps indicate ability to service the debt.

The Office for National Statistics gives net debt/GDP excluding Northern Rock as 41.7% in 1997, and 37.2% in 2007.

Surely Mr Miliband can reasonably describe this as "paying down the debt before the crisis hit"? Mr Hoskin isn't in a good position to make accusations of "deception" or telling a "Brownie".

Simon Stephenson

Shubaoi : 3.53pm

"Surely Mr Miliband can reasonably describe this as "paying down the debt before the crisis hit"?"

Certainly, if he's careful to specify exactly how he is measuring the debt. He'd also be expected to comment upon the movements over the same period in public debt levels not included in this measurement of national debt - for example the part of PFI liabilities that relate to capital financing.

You see, Shubaoi, he's seeking to establish that Labour 1997-2010 behaved prudently and responsibly with the public finances, and I'm sure, honourable politician that he is, that he'd be devastated if he felt he'd led his audience to conclude this on the basis of misleading and/or incomplete information. Is this how you see it?

HJ

Owen Morgan -

I do wish you'd read what I wrote before referring to my supposed "preposterous broonite interjections".

I do not seek to defend Brown or Labour in any way - they were highly fiscally irresponsible and I have nothing but contempt for Brown.

My point was simply that Miliband's wording was chosen carefully and he can claim it to be literally true. My point is that it is also highly misleading - and deliberately so