When Richard Burgon appeared on Channel 4 News last year to defend John McDonnell over his fiscal charter U-turn, the shadow City Minister struggled to make a good impression. On top of not knowing what the deficit was expected to be for 2015, he appeared to concede that he was yet to meet with anyone in the City.
So, it was a marked improvement on today’s Daily Politics when Burgon actually managed to name the current deficit amount. He then went on to say that his party was committed to getting the deficit down. So, how would they go about doing this?
RB: Through investment for long term growth
AN: But doesn’t that cost you more money?
RB: I’ll use flooding as an example, for every pound that the government has saved on flood defences it’s cost the economy eight pounds
AN: But doesn’t that mean at least in the short term that to pay for the flooding, to pay for the other investments that you’d want to do, to pay for that — at least in the next couple of years — the deficit would have to go up
RB: Borrowing to invest needs to occur.
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