Not my party. It's for the many not the few.

Your first paragraph is complete balony.

A quick look at the actual evidence reveals that only two Labour governments have ever left office leaving the national debt higher than it was when they came to power, all of the others have lowered the national debt as a percentage of GDP.

On the two occasions that Labour oversaw increases in the national debt there were the mitigating circumstances of huge global financial crises. The Ramsay MacDonald government of 1929-31 coincided with the Wall Street Crash (they left a 12% increase in the debt to GDP ratio), and the Blair-Brown government of 1997-2010 coincided with the 2008 financial sector insolvency crisis (an 11% increase). The other Labour governments all reduced the scale of the national debt, Clement Attlee's 1945-51 government reduced the national debt by 40% of GDP despite having to rebuild the UK economy from the ruins of the Second World War. Harold Wilson's 1964-70 government reduced the national debt by 27% of GDP and even the Wilson-Callaghan government of 1974-79 managed to reduce the debt by 4% of GDP.

The majority of Labour governments have ended up reducing the national debt, and the two that didn't coincided with the biggest global financial crisis of the 20th Century and the biggest global financial crisis so far in the 21st Century.

f*** me,being a "teacher" i thought you would know the meaning of irony.

always a Norwood boy, where ever I live.

Investment for growth rather than culling everything.

Is that a fact? Or supposition?

The reason I ask is like all things...stats don't mean a lot unless given context.

An example would be after War...to wage War is prohibitively expensive and as with WW2 our infrastructure was greatly damaged, resources depleted and a lot of our Soldiers died.

So to NOT have invested in the rebuilding of infrastructure, utilising a workforce that had been depleted by deaths of millions of able bodied males and then supplemented by mostly anyone that could work would've been negligent WHOEVER was in power.

Also, the Debt run up by the war all but came to a halt when it ended and as such the 'tap' the money had been pissing out of had reduced greatly allowing for the debt to be reduced, from the increase in manufacturing.

Again, something that would've happened anyway through osmosis and not necessarily because Labour were in power.

So, whilst figures look good and can be used to support a thought it's always good to get the context.

I guess what this teaches us is that if money is pissing out of the economy at one end it'll always be hard to reduce debt. Unless the issues are dealt with (by whoever is in charge at the time) you cant attempt to make a go of it...

For me tax avoidance/evasion is one of the biggest issues that need to be addressed first.

Edited by Lyons550 (02 Oct 2017 4.29pm)

The Voice of Reason In An Otherwise Mediocre World

Last paragraph is spot on, which is why I was perplexed by the cut in numbers at HMRC.

Conservatives on HOL don't need to heed any lectures from Left-Wingers about debt reduction when research has shown that Jeremy Corbyn’s disastrous marxist policies will at least treble the country’s debt burden under its current economic plans.

I am now going back to viewing 'Conference'.