What Osborne didn’t tell you before the Election, No. 71
And when he said up he meant down
but it didn’t mean a thing
and now he’ll take the finger
and then ram it up your ring
Big hat-tip to Slogger Clive for spotting this fascinating article using McKinsey data on the absolutely fantastic and unblemished outlook for the UK. The piece is chock-full of eye-rolling charts, but this one below in particular caught Clive’s eye. So let’s just give Draper Osborne a poke in his somewhat jaundiced eye with it:
What it shows is the level of growth required by indebted countries to start deleveraging Sovereign debt.
The United Kingdom is now second only to Spain in the acceleration of growth it needs to reduce the National Debt.
In better shape than us by miles are the likes of Greece, Japan, Italy and Belgium. Ireland stands out as a brave country that has put itself into a realistic position…by simply flat growth being enough to keep things under control. And bear in mind, Ireland, Spain and Greece have had the Troika’s “help” in order to plumb the depths of depraved red numbers. We did it all on our own.
But also in France – acceleration aside – the sheer size of its debt requires a 167% acceleration in growth to reduce it. And at the moment, France is flatlining.
And as I am now a Brit resident in France – yes folks, as of yesterday with my own personal unique and superbly honed Social Security Number – I have but two points to make:
1. The eurozone in general – and its 2nd and 3rd economies in particular – need to emerge from a quicksand of debt with dramatic growth….of which there are no signs above or below the horizon.
THIS IS THE SIZE OF THE LIE THE EURONAUTS ARE SELLING
2. The United Kingdom needs a massive acceleration of growth to start repaying its obscene level of National Debt….in the context of reduced consumer spending power, the near-death of its main trading partner, and a global economy beyond that EU which is inexorably spiralling into a slowdown.
THIS IS THE SIZE OF THE LIE THE TORIES SOLD YOU DURING THE ELECTION
You think this to be rhetoric? Read on. In November 2014, UK Chancellor George Osborne brought to bear the most mendaciously bare-faced stunt in British fiscal history to distract from Britain’s ever-more engorged Sovereign debt: he told the House of Commons that Britain had “paid off its First World War debt”. This was a lie: he had merely found somebody to sell it to. That well known Hard-Left Labour website Forbes felt obliged to point out how ‘ridiculous’ the claim was.
In March 2015 he topped even that, emitting the following series of untruths extracted without bias from the transcript of his Budget Speech on that day (my emphases):
“Britain is walking tall again…..We’ll have paid off the debts incurred in the South Sea Bubble, the First World War, the debt issued by Henry Pelham, George Goschen and William Gladstone….I now turn to the national debt….today, the central judgement of this Budget is this: we will use the resources from the bank sales and the lower interest payments and the lower welfare bills to pay down the national debt…..higher national debt leaves our nation exposed, harms potential growth and costs taxpayers billions of pounds in debt interest…..Five years ago, national debt was soaring…Out of the red and into the black – Britain is back paying its way in the world….”
These are the facts: the falsehoods that render George Osborne a depraved liar:
We have not paid down any debt. It is ‘soaring’ today more than it was when the Conservative Coalition came to power. Britain is deeper in the red by £600bn than it was in 2010, and its longer term liabilities have doubled. Britain is not paying its way in the World: Britain is the second most badly placed nation after Spain in terms of the economics required to pay back it’s debt.
The Chancellor talked of £50bn here and £90bn there being saved: but most voters are unable to grasp the difference between ongoing deficit and long-term debt, let alone that between billions and trillions.
These are the facts:
A trillion is A THOUSAND TIMES BIGGER THAN A BILLION. Austerity savings that now stand at £73 bn over five years are 3.2% of the National Debt.
But the National debt has increased by nearly 42% in the last five years.
So Osborne’s policy is fourteen times smaller than the savings required to keep the National Debt static.
We do not need a savings piss in the Channel here, we need solid EXPORT growth to massive new markets in Asia and beyond. But the Conservatives don’t know how to achieve that. So what they’ve done is persuade the average voter that 1000 = 1.
That really is a lie of Goebbels proportions: but it won the Tories the Election….over a Labour Opposition that lacked the commercial perspective to even challenge it.
In the UK, in the US, in China and in the EU, the truth will out.
And when it does, I increasingly feel that Western governments will have to indulge in massive censorship in order to slow down that emission of truth.
In the meantime, I leave you this morning with the link below to a piece I penned over a year ago.
I respectfully suggest that it is highly relevant to our current cultural, economic and constitutional mess.
Related at The Slog: Is George Osborne fit to be in Government?
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