| Topic: | Re:Re: Osborne's Austerity Increased the Debt - | |
| Posted by: | Robert Fish | |
| Date/Time: | 03/05/26 21:35:00 |
| Very true, Philippa. Kathleen also made the very salient point that austerity didn't just fail to reduce the public debt as a percentage of GDP, but it also saw a huge transfer of wealth to the richest people in society, whilst the country as a whole was impoverished. The general dissatisfaction that this produced led to the vote in favour of Brexit, which further damaged the economy. ONS Data show that Public Sector Net Debt (PSD) declined from 37.2% of GDP in 1997, the first year of the Blair administration, to 28.7% in 2001. It then rose slightly to 36.1% in 2007, before increasing sharply to 47.6% in 2008, 60.6% in 2009 and 70.1% in 2010, as a result of the banking crisis. So much for the supposed objective of austerity: PSD as a percentage of GDP rose in every one of the first seven years of the Cameron government. By 2020 PSD had reached 97.6% of GDP, although of course the rise was exacerbated by the contraction of the economy caused by the COVID pandemic. And even in 2024 it was still nearly 96% of GDP. All that suffering, for what benefit? It's particularly regrettable that Starmer and Rachel Reeves clearly have no plan for getting out of this bind. |