As many of us already surmised (and there was a certain amount of evidence suggesting it) the real extent of Britain's debt has been largely hidden, but is now being discovered.
It is likely to turn out to be somewhere around double the previously-known figure of around a trillion Pounds, especially as a result of huge additional spending and commitment during the months preceding the General Election. While it comes as no surprise, the overall figure is likely to be so huge as to put us very close to the Greek situation.
There is to be a full audit of the public accounts, with auditors starting their work today, so we shall know the full truth soon enough (assuming George Osborne discloses absolutely everything, which I hope he does regardless). It is already clear, though, that the previous Labour government were pursuing a "scorched earth" policy, as I and others blogged at the time the first strong clues were leaking out.
There is to be an emergency Budget on 22 June, it will be announced this morning.
As always, Labour serves only itself and its own agenda, never the nation except where it occasionally overlaps, and was intending to wreck the economy anyway as part of its Frankfurt School programme. Some would call it treason...
There is a vitally important lesson there: in today's communications-rich era, and for other reasons, the universal truth of the political Left has at last been more-or-less completely revealed in public, despite their best efforts to hide the truth and run a largely (mostly?) fake administration. This will always be the case with the Left, as other countries have also witnessed during (say) the past century or so.
The lesson is that, this time, future generations of voters, currently too young or not yet even born, must be made fully aware of this universal truth about the Left, so that they don't make the same mistake that our generation and those that went before have made. From now on, Labour and any similar parties must be kept out of government – for ever!
I have a real sense of trepidation waiting for the results of this audit, not because I don't already have a good idea what is likely to be found, but because I don't know how aware either foreign investors are, or how distracted the bond markets have been by other events.
ReplyDeleteWith our true situation written in bright flashing lights, the risk is that the IMF will be only lender.
As for the scorched Earth policy, that was started nearly two years out from the election, along with the printing presses. The later acts may well have been unconstitutional in the extreme, especially the signing of contracts, but I doubt whether this will register more than briefly with the British public. So tired have they become of politicians that they will stick their heads in the sand until the bad news passes.
Now there is a very good point! Indeed, we have had early signs of it, though the prospect of a Conservative Government post-election kept the credit rating agencies from downgrading our AAA status.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly, on the other side of the coin, Gordon Brown's manoeuvres in pursuance of a Lib-Lab coalition instantly impacted the currency markets negatively.
My own feeling is that the markets and lenders have been broadly aware of our country's situation for some time, and they also know that the entire world's markets cannot handle too many Greece/Eurozone crises.
Therefore they need to look more to the future rather than just today, if they are to have any future careers and prosperity themselves.
This means, with the change of UK Government, that they will find it better to stick with us, now they know they have competent and honest administrators here. If I were in their place, knowing what was at stake for my own and my employer's future, kit is the only sensible option open to me at this time.
that I think is what will now save us: the clues have been there throughout, along with that old principle of "enlightened self-interest".
Regarding the public's perception of the reality: that has improved considerably since Gordon Brown became PM, but nowhere near enough to guarantee that the British voting public won't fall insto the same or similar traps in future.
It is our job, yours and mine, to keep pushing the messages of truth out into the public arena, armed as we are with concrete facts. It won't be easy, and will often feel like banging one's head against a brick wall (been there, done that , though not literally!) but it will pay dividends and could prevent our making the same mistake again, one day.
Even if what might in some future time look like becoming a small Labour majority is instead transformed into a situation such as that existing in Britain today, it'll still be a vastly better actuality than the alternative would have been.
It is our job to ensure that such an alternative never happens.
I blogged on this myself today, all I'd ask from the government is honesty, tell us how bad it will be, show us the figures where necessary and at least we'll be able to point the finger when Labour critisise what's having to be done.
ReplyDeleteAh yes, great minds thinking (and blogging) alike!
ReplyDeleteThere will be pressure from within the party to divulge everything that is discovered, and it is our policy to be open and transparent.
I think it'll happen, probably along with a downloadable document with all the gory details.