markg wrote:
I'm not a Tory but surely the only bit of that graph which might raise an eyebrow is that last bar. The rest shows the increase in debt levelling off as the deficit was reduced.
It was supposed to do a lot more than just about level off, though. Osborne in 2010:
Quote:
The formal mandate we set is that the structural current deficit should be in balance in the final year of the five-year forecast period, which is 2015-16 in this Budget. This mandate is: Structural – to give us flexibility to respond to external shocks; Current – to protect the most productive public investment; And credible – because the Office for Budget Responsibility, not the Chancellor, will decide on the output gap.
In order to place our fiscal credibility beyond doubt, this mandate will be supplemented by a fixed target for debt, which in this Parliament is to ensure that debt is falling as a share of GDP by 2015-16. I can confirm that, on the basis of the measures to be announced in this Budget, the judgement of the Office for Budget Responsibility published today, is that we are on track to meet these goals.
In order to place our fiscal credibility beyond doubt, this mandate will be supplemented by a fixed target for debt, which in this Parliament is to ensure that debt is falling as a share of GDP by 2015-16. I can confirm that, on the basis of the measures to be announced in this Budget, the judgement of the Office for Budget Responsibility published today, is that we are on track to meet these goals.
Year after year, we heard that the pain of austerity -- of welfare cuts, of limited public investment, of public sector pay freezes -- was justified by "paying back our credit card bills." Well, we got the downside, where is the upside?
I increasingly think this is going to turn into an electability crisis for the Tories. Look at this data from Sky. First: "who do you trust to run the economy" across all voters:
Now the same data, broken down by age demographic:
That's pretty dramatic, and I don't think it's a coincidence that those most badly affected by austerity have no confidence in Conservative governance -- combined with a crisis in housing which is entirely bi-partisan but the Conservatives just happen to be in power when the music is stopping so will cop most of the blame. It's quite a hole that Osborne has dug for the party.
