Friday, January 31, 2014
A question of economic competence
Labour's attempt to convince people that they can be trusted with the economy took a big knock yesterday when Chief Secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander suggested that if they got back into power then they would still be borrowing billions, at a time when the public
finances would be back in balance under coalition plans.
The BBC say that overall, according to the Treasury analysis put forward by Danny Alexander, Labour would borrow £166.2bn more than the coalition between 2016-17 and 2020-1:
It calculates that Labour would still be borrowing £41bn in 2019-20 and £32bn in 2020-1, by when the coalition plans to have eliminated the deficit.
Mr Alexander said: "This Treasury analysis shows that Labour have learnt nothing from the past and can't be trusted by the British people on the economy.
"Their new borrowing bombshell will pile another £166bn of extra borrowing onto the debt mountain left by their catastrophic mismanagement of the UK economy."
So, we have a situation whereby Ed Balls is promising simultaneously to keep to Coalition spending plans, which presumably means maintaining their austerity programme, getting government books into balance, which involves further public spending cuts, whilst borrowing more.
Confused? You are not the only one.
The BBC say that overall, according to the Treasury analysis put forward by Danny Alexander, Labour would borrow £166.2bn more than the coalition between 2016-17 and 2020-1:
It calculates that Labour would still be borrowing £41bn in 2019-20 and £32bn in 2020-1, by when the coalition plans to have eliminated the deficit.
Mr Alexander said: "This Treasury analysis shows that Labour have learnt nothing from the past and can't be trusted by the British people on the economy.
"Their new borrowing bombshell will pile another £166bn of extra borrowing onto the debt mountain left by their catastrophic mismanagement of the UK economy."
So, we have a situation whereby Ed Balls is promising simultaneously to keep to Coalition spending plans, which presumably means maintaining their austerity programme, getting government books into balance, which involves further public spending cuts, whilst borrowing more.
Confused? You are not the only one.
