What caused the UK to be in so much debt?

[Chelle-82]

I bet back in my 20's I helped with running the debt bill up!!

[El Cid]

The Tories inherited an outrageous budget deficit - they are trying to sort out that deficit so they can begin to pay off the debt. Trouble is they need to be elected, and the lefties pretend that we don't need to sort out the financial mess. They pretend we don't need austerity and gullible people believe them.

 

The Tories blame the reason for the debt on the wrong thing, it was caused by the banking crisis, the more lies they tell, the more people vote for another party.

[Anna B]

The Tories inherited an outrageous budget deficit - they are trying to sort out that deficit so they can begin to pay off the debt. Trouble is they need to be elected, and the lefties pretend that we don't need to sort out the financial mess. They pretend we don't need austerity and gullible people believe them.

 

No. Wrong as usual. All parties agree that the deficit needs reducing, including Labour. It's how that is the issue.

 

Do it too fast and you put a stranglehold on spending and growth falters. Cuts have to be made, but where ?

[truman]

No. Wrong as usual. All parties agree that the deficit needs reducing, including Labour. It's how that is the issue.

 

Do it too fast and you put a stranglehold on spending and growth falters. Cuts have to be made, but where ?

 

I get the feeling that no matter where the cuts were made Anna you wouldn't be happy..

[-Boomer-]

I get the feeling that no matter where the cuts were made Anna you wouldn't be happy..

 

Who would be? The only people who would be happy are the so-called untouchables and your typical nasty piece of work

[L00b]

No. Wrong as usual.

Tripe. Here, inform yourself a bit, Anna. Please.

 

Brown's government bailed the banks, that is not wrong, it is fact.

 

That bailing doubled the deficit by end 2009, again that is not wrong, it is fact.

 

However well-intentioned and -meaning Blair and Brown may have been during their tenure with their funding commitments and budgets' balancing acts, there wasn't a penny left in the national kitty for a rainy day when they left the key under the mat in 2010, again that is not wrong, it is fact.

 

That trillion-and-a-bit figure that keeps being bandied about is total commitments to term (including both actual commitments in decades' time and not due until then, and potential commitments if things go t1ts up (that actually won't cost anything at all if things keep the same or improve)). Have some sense of perspective, for God's sake!

All parties agree that the deficit needs reducing, including Labour. It's how that is the issue.

 

Do it too fast and you put a stranglehold on spending and growth falters. Cuts have to be made, but where ?

The Coalition has taken a huge (really huge) chunk out of the deficit in 5 years. Considering where and what they started from, and in the global economic context enduring since 2008, that is no mean feat. Yes, really. By any objective (that means economical and mathematical, not political) measure you care to measure against.

 

As a country, we haven't had to suffer a shred of the austerity levels the Irish, Greeks, Italians, Spaniards and more (all well developed economies) have had to go through - and are still going through. What level of further cutting is being proposed, is still peanuts compared to them, at the scale of our country and national economy.

 

Yes, it will be hard(-er still) for those most directly impacted. But they live in a (the?) country currently providing the very best chances of improving their lot (-the very reason why everybody in other countries wants to come here, lest everybody forgets), and still providing one of the best levels of social cover and care relative to the rest. They have to help themselves at least as much as the national system helps them.

Edited May 1, 2015 by L00b

[Harvest]

Labour used to boast about how much spending in various departments had increased under the government. That alone should tell you who to blame.

 

[loraward]

They also increase taxes, so it may not affect the debt level.

 

Most sensible people would pay down their debt and increase their saving during a time of plenty, Labour did neither, it used the time of plenty to justify borrowing more money, if it had paid down the debt and put some money aside the country wouldn't have been in such a mess when they left office.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2015 at 16:38 ----------

 

Hooray!!! So the penny has dropped at last.

 

Of course it'd much easier to believe Cameron's constantly saying 'the mess Labour left us in...' If he says it loud enough and often enough, (and he says it at every opportunity,) people will believe him and remember it as a fact, which it most certainly isn't.

 

He never mentions the debt now though does he? Yet it was so mega important in the first place. (Remember 'we don't want to burden our children with it.')

I wonder if it's because it's doubled under his tenure and now sits at £1.5 Trillion. In fact it's so big now we can never pay it off, austerity or no austerity.

 

Would you have been happy with the consequences of him not doubling the debt. When you have lots of money coming in you save, when money is short you use the saving and then borrow. When the money starts rolling in again you pay back the debt and save. Labour didn't do that, they increased the debt and expanded the public sector during an economic boom, when the bust came the only choices are cut the public sector massively or borrow to sustain it at its current level, the Con/Lib government have done a bit of both.

 

Labour went out of their way to spend as much money as possible because they new they would loose the last election and they new someone else would be left to clean up the mess they left.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2015 at 16:39 ----------

 

The Tories blame the reason for the debt on the wrong thing, it was caused by the banking crisis, the more lies they tell, the more people vote for another party.

 

No it wasn't, the banking crisis was a symptom of the debt, not the cause.

[Harvest]

Most sensible people would pay down their debt and increase their saving during a time of plenty, Labour did neither, it used the time of plenty to justify borrowing more money, if it had paid down the debt and put some money aside the country wouldn't have been in such a mess when they left office.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2015 at 16:38 ----------

 

 

Would you have been happy with the consequences of him not doubling the debt. When you have lots of money coming in you save, when money is short you use the saving and then borrow. When the money starts rolling in again you pay back the debt and save. Labour didn't do that, they increased the debt and expanded the public sector during an economic boom, when the bust came the only choices are cut the public sector massively or borrow to sustain it at its current level, the Con/Lib government have done a bit of both.

 

Labour went out of their way to spend as much money as possible because they new they would loose the last election and they new someone else would be left to clean up the mess they left.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2015 at 16:39 ----------

 

 

No it wasn't, the banking crisis was a symptom of the debt, not the cause.

 

It was refreshingly honest of Ed Miliband at the leaders debate on ITV last night to put up his hands and appologise for the Labour Governments failure to regulate the banks and allow Britain to drop into the fiscal mire.

 

---------- Post added 01-05-2015 at 16:51 ----------

 

Oh yes I know the graph relates to government borrowing but the point is the government has to borrow to cover its shortfall in spending. The shortfall is because people are out of work and that was due to people spending too much.

 

There was far too much easy credit. People were allowed to borrow ludicrous amounts to buy houses. This forced up the price of houses and when the crash came was known as toxic debt. The same happened in Greece where people were able to borrow money at low interest to buy stuff they didn't really need.

 

It is all fine until someone wants their money back.

[loraward]

It was refreshingly honest of Ed Miliband at the leaders debate on ITV last night to put up his hands and appologise for the Labour Governments failure to regulate the banks and allow Britain to drop into the fiscal mire.

 

Yes it was but sadly he doesn't understand why spending too much and not saving has caused the problems we now face.