Once again I am obliged to The Coffee House in general, and Jonathan Jones in particular, for continually conducting surgical explorations of politicians and their slithering language. Who better to be strapped to the pathology gurney than the odious Ed Balls, and Mr. Jones slits him open with effortless ease:
Balls claimed that "we went into the crisis with lower national debt than we inherited in 1997". That is flatly untrue. Public sector net debt when Labour took over was £350 billion. In 2006-07 it was £500 billion. Even adjusting for inflation, Brown and Balls had added £62.8 billion in today's money to the national debt they "inherited" by the time the crisis started.
Of course, the reason the debt dropped in the early years of the Labour government is because Brown agreed, more or less reluctantly, to stick by the Tory spending limits set by the previous government. Once they came to an end, it was, hey-ho, and off to the races!
Then, in his speech this week, he seized gleefully upon the fact that in March-June, the unemployment in the public sector far outnumbered the small rise in employment in the private sector thus disproving, he claimed, the government's theory that the private sector would take up the slack for public sector unemployment. However, Mr. Jones points out that such statistics should never be judged on one quarter. Seen over a year, like a shaken kaleidoscope, you get an entirely different picture, see diagram below:
His final lie is actually an embarrassment to the government, or at least, it should be. Balls claims that 'Tory cuts and austerity' is the reason our growth has stalled. If only! The fact is, the government has been taxing (VAT!), borrowing and spending even more than, er, Ed Balls would have done!
Is there a lying competition in the Olympics? If so, I know who should represent Great Britain.
Comments