Douglas Carswell's Blog

The laws of maths V Treasury rhetoric

The maths is starting to spell out a truth that the rhetoric has been trying to hide: the government is still spending far too much money it does not have.

For all the talk about sorting out our public finances, according to the Office of National Statistics, government borrowing last month was significantly higher than it was a year ago. In May alone, the government borrowed £17.9 Billion, which was “higher than the £16-16.5 Billion that most analysts were expecting”.

Gordon Brown used to talk about “prudence”, while at the same time hosing money around.

The Coalition today talks about “fiscal responsibility”, while borrowing more in five years than Gordon managed in thirteen.

Underlying it all is a fundamental problem; the Treasury still adheres to the same basic Brownian assumptions about the ability of government to engineer growth through fiscal and monetary stimulus. This explains why they keep counting on low interest rates and QE. Why they have left the PFI taps running. Why they are so slow to bring in radical tax cuts on wealth creation. 

And if you run the economy the same way that Gordon Brown did, you end up with the sort of economic mess we ended up in under Gordon Brown.

It is time for a new free market economic strategy – not more Continuity Brown.

Back to all posts