Tories - Beyond hopeless...? Evil? What do you think?

[Pete]

Interesting article via Facebook today putting some common sense into the state of the economy.

"In the final full year of the Labour administration, after 13 years in government, the official GDP to debt ratio was 44%. To put this in perspective, this was only slightly above half the average rate throughout the entire 20th Century, which was 81% of GDP.

The 20th Century debt peak came in the aftermath of the Second World War, when the national debt stood at an incredible 238% of GDP. Did the politicians of the day spend their time fearmongering about this debt? Of course they didn't. Did the Prime Minister of the day Clement Attlee describe the UK economy as being "Bankrupted"? Of course he didn't. Attlee and his government put all of their energies into rebuilding our shattered nation, and launching the most ambitious programme of state investment in UK history (social housing, the NHS, welfare, legal aid, nationalised utilities companies and industries, transport infrastructure, education ...).

Contrast that with Cameron and his Tories, who never stop banging on about the national debt (even though after three years of their brazen economic mismanagement, it has still yet to officially reach one third of the scale of the post-war debt that Attlee and then Churchill had to deal with) and they've set about ruthlessly attacking and demolishing what remains of Attlee's legacy. If the UK wasn't declared bankrupt in the 1940s, it is absolutely ludicrous to claim that it has been "bankrupted" at any time in the recent past."


We need to get them out at the next election.

[Stuart]

That's the problem with politics on all sides. Say a lie long enough, and loud enough (the national debt, Saddam's WMDs etc) and people will be worn down into not querying it Eventually people think that there must be some truth in it, simply because it has been said so often. Everyone in politics knows this, and does it on a premeditated basis. Even at local level.

[Pete]