Is Gordon Brown a liar or is he just thick ?? 
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Benedict Brogan's blog
A phrase from Gordon Brown's lunchtime press 'availability' yesterday has been ringing in my ear. He said: "Britain is in fact better positioned to deal with these problems because we have low national debt." You may have heard it before. It's a now well-worn part of his justification for letting borrowing absorb the shock of the recession.
George Osborne, if he is ever seen in public again, might like to make this debt thing a theme. His colleagues certainly think so. One of his MP chums has been in touch to suggest the Tories should be doing more to tell the public quite how bad the nation's overdraft has become, to prepare them for the inevitable tax/spend tightening that George may have to introduce.
To recap: Mr Brown says debt is 37.3pc of GDP. The ONS says national debt is actually 43.4 pre cent of GDP because you have to take Northern Rock into account. Then there's PFI debt, which the PAC estimates is a further 6.8pc of GDP. If you fancy, you can add public sector pension liabilities (73.3pc of GDP, according to the IEA). And then there's Bradford and Bingley and the £50bn recapitalisation of British banks. As the saying goes, you're starting to talk about serious money.
Mr Brown argues that even at 43.4pc we are in significantly better shape than other G7 countries: US 60.8pc, Germany 63.2pc, France 64pc, Canada 68.5pc, Italy 104pc, Japan 195.5pc. But debt, its cost, and what we will have to pay to reduce it, is the issue that keeps Whitehall awake at night, whatever Mr Brown says.
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http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/
Benedict Brogan's blog
A phrase from Gordon Brown's lunchtime press 'availability' yesterday has been ringing in my ear. He said: "Britain is in fact better positioned to deal with these problems because we have low national debt." You may have heard it before. It's a now well-worn part of his justification for letting borrowing absorb the shock of the recession.
George Osborne, if he is ever seen in public again, might like to make this debt thing a theme. His colleagues certainly think so. One of his MP chums has been in touch to suggest the Tories should be doing more to tell the public quite how bad the nation's overdraft has become, to prepare them for the inevitable tax/spend tightening that George may have to introduce.
To recap: Mr Brown says debt is 37.3pc of GDP. The ONS says national debt is actually 43.4 pre cent of GDP because you have to take Northern Rock into account. Then there's PFI debt, which the PAC estimates is a further 6.8pc of GDP. If you fancy, you can add public sector pension liabilities (73.3pc of GDP, according to the IEA). And then there's Bradford and Bingley and the £50bn recapitalisation of British banks. As the saying goes, you're starting to talk about serious money.
Mr Brown argues that even at 43.4pc we are in significantly better shape than other G7 countries: US 60.8pc, Germany 63.2pc, France 64pc, Canada 68.5pc, Italy 104pc, Japan 195.5pc. But debt, its cost, and what we will have to pay to reduce it, is the issue that keeps Whitehall awake at night, whatever Mr Brown says.
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