Superb poster by the Tories which makes debt into a real, human issue (just as Coffee House urged him to in November) – a picture of a baby with the words “Dad’s nose, Mum’s eyes, Gordon Brown’s debt”. It calculates that a baby born today will owe £17,000 – and there is no exaggeration here. Brown repeatedly claims to have reduced debt, such a whopper that he’s seldom contradicted by interviewers. The truth: in 1996-97 the UK debt was £347bn. By the end of the boom in 2007-08 it had soared to £527bn and is forecast to hit £1.02 trillion in 2012-13. And this is using Brown’s method: ie, not including the nationalised banks or the debt hidden in PFI contracts. Brown has so far got away with this because debt is viewed as a technical matter, an accounting thing. Yet the effect will be that the next generation will pay higher taxes for worse public services. Loading up the next generation with debt to pay for political soft options is not just an economic failure, but a moral failure – a point this poster powerfully gets across. We at Coffee House tried to make this point with a video – for those of you who didnt see it, it’s below….
Comments