Ed Balls still wants to pretend that it was just the recession that destroyed the UK's finances, well here are the figures from Eurostat. The chart is of the cumulative net spending as a % of GDP, so ignore where the finances are coming from, and focus on what government spent excluding interest payments versus their tax income, it is very clear that from 2001/2002 the Labour government significantly overspent, to the tune of ~20% of GDP. The entire terms of the debate on the austerity measures would be so different if the UK's net debt was going to top out at ~60% of GDP, additionally we'd probably not be running such a large deficit.
So when Mr Balls calls for emergency VAT cuts, he really should answer the question as to why he fired that fiscal ammunition in 2003?
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