Douglas Carswell's Blog

Oops

We all know that the last government spent far too much money - and as a result had to borrow billions.

We also know that the Coalition came to office promising to sort this out.

So in June 2010, the Coalition announced how much they thought that they would need to borrow in future years.

As you can see from the blue bars, Public Sector Net Borrowing was supposed to fall swiftly. 

Yesterday, the government published its revised estimates - the red bars.  And we can see that unfortunately the fall in borrowing just has not happened that way.

In 2013-14, we were supposed to only borrow £60 billion.  It turns out that we will need to borrow £108 billion - almost twice the initial estimate.  For every £7 that the government spends this year, it will be borrowing £1.  Would you feel comfortable running your family finances that way? 

What I find shocking as I trawl through the detail is the realisation that after almost three years, borrowing is only slightly below the £120 billion or so it was at the outset.

Look at the righthand bar.  In 2015-16, there will be a £67 billion gap between where we thought we would be, and were we now think we will be.  That is more than the entire defence, housing and environment annual spend combined.

Officialdom is still living way beyond the means of the rest of us to pay for it.  

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