Leading City journalist Anthony Hilton has said the government needs to "move on from tough talk about cuts", and concentrate on restoring economic growth.
Leading City journalist Anthony Hilton has said the government needs to “move on from tough talk about cuts”, and concentrate on restoring economic growth. Writing in tonight’s Standard, he counters the debt hysteria of George Osborne and co, he points out that “every generation of taxpayers has had to pay the bills of its predecessors”, says the chancellor’s rigid stance “could prove counter-productive” and calls for a “Plan B” for the economy.
He writes:
“Listen to Chancellor George Osborne and you could easily believe government debt was invented by Gordon Brown.
“In fact, he made a pretty big reduction in the debt levels he inherited from his Conservative predecessor John Major – fixing the roof while the sun was shining, to coin a phrase – until he was knocked hopelessly off course by the financial crisis and the need to bail out banks.
“There are many things to criticise Brown over but debt management before the crisis is not really one of them. It does rather underline the pettiness behind the refusal of Osborne and David Cameron to put Brown forward as a potential head of the International Monetary Fund.
“But that’s another story.”
Looking further back, he writes:
“Even today, though Napoleon has been taken care of, the Kaiser hasn’t. Today’s taxpayers may neither know nor care but a small slice of what they hand over to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs every year goes to pay the interest on a couple of billion pounds of debt run up to pay for the First World War and still outstanding.
“Have a look some time at the Government securities section on a stock market prices page and locate War Loan. Launched in 1916 it is still going strong. And it is you who is paying the interest. We did rather better with the Second World War. The last of the millions lent by the US was paid off in 2006.”
And on growth, he writes:
“Nor will debt necessarily stifle economic growth. Throughout the Victorian age, hailed as the golden age of British power economically, militarily and politically, debt did not drop below 100 per cent of GDP until just before the First World War when, of course, it immediately shot back up again.
“It would be wrong to say debt does not matter but we need a sense of proportion – and having made the point, the Government must move on.”
Though Hilton is spot on regarding the government’s attitude to debt, they’re not completely anti-debt – they just believe in privatising it.
To reach hundreds of thousands of new readers and to make the biggest impact we can in the next general election, we need to grow our donor base substantially.
That's why in 2024, we are seeking to generate 150 additional regular donors to support Left Foot Forward's work.
We still need another 124 people to donate to hit the target. You can help. Donate today.
21 Responses to “Top City journalist: Osborne needs to move on from cuts and restore growth”
DJE
Top City journalist: Osborne needs to move on from cuts and restore growth: http://bit.ly/mdK0a2 reports @ShamikDas
Elaine S
RT @TheRightArticle Top City journalist:#Osborne needs to move on from cuts and restore growth – http://bit.ly/keyIP2 #politics #Labour RT
Νέα Νέμεσις Εργασίας
More than a year on, @leftfootfwd still preaching deficit denial to any Fabian or trade-unionist who will listen http://bit.ly/jrV7cO
Jas
More than a year on, @leftfootfwd still preaching deficit denial to any Fabian or trade-unionist who will listen http://bit.ly/jrV7cO
13eastie
The delusional piffle is utterly risible, Shamik!
“…he made a pretty big reduction in the debt levels he inherited from his Conservative predecessor John Major [sic] – fixing the roof while the sun was shining, to coin a phrase – until he was knocked hopelessly off course by the financial crisis and the need to bail out banks.”
This was in a parallel universe to the one in which LFF produced this chart, presumably? https://www.leftfootforward.org/2011/05/tax-and-spending-under-new-labour-and-mrs-thatcher/
That anyone could conceive of such drivel (or, for that matter, cite it) should be a cause of hilarity to all!
In 1997, Brown inherited a healthily growing economy with cyclical spending on the wane – a trend that soon led to a budget surplus with no action taken by Labour at all.
Brown blathered on about the economic crock of his “Golden Rule” and the “End of Boom and Bust” while at once setting out to construct a millstone of a structural deficit which he operated continuously from 2002 to 2010.
For six whole years before the banking crisis that he allowed to take place on his watch (which he was 11 years into by then), Gordon spent like a lunatic, dishing new benefits out to all and sundry, throwing money at every problem he could invent, and cooking the books with over-priced, off-balance-sheet PFI projects.
Whatever http://v.gd/MichaelCarroll could do, Gordon could do better it seemed…
The truth is that, while the sun shone continuously for a decade, Gordon simply sat in a deck chair peering at it through the holes in the roof of his dacha, and through which he was ever hopeful of money spiders plummeting.
Indeed, despite:
– Asset prices generating unprecedented tax revenues
– Pensions being routinely confiscated
– Utilities being robbed at gunpoint
– Spending being hidden by PFI’s
– Innumerable stealth tax increases
– “Un-pree-cee-dented” sustained growth…
…GORDON *STILL* RAN A STRUCTURAL DEFICIT!
If this is your counsel on roof maintenance, Shamik, I’d move to a warmer, sunnier country and buy a leasehold if I were you.