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It's ridiculous that the deficit after Cameron's election in 2010 far exceeds that of the Blair years, yet hardly any Tory voter would beleive this you if you told them.
Looking at the chart, I think it's saying we borrowed a shit load of money to bail out the banks in 2008 / 9 and (not surprisingly) we can only pay that money off slowly over time.
It might also be that they measure the debt against the GPD of that year, so if in 2009 (presumably the year you are referring to) our debt stayed constant but our GDP shrank, it would look like our debt increased....
tl;dr I have no idea what I'm looking at, but I'd be surprised if Cameron and co. spent more money than Blair did, but I wouldn't be surprised if our economy contracted heavily post 2008 increasing the debt as a %GDP
Howard-
Looking at the chart, I think it's saying we borrowed a shit load of money to bail out the banks in 2008 / 9 and (not surprisingly) we can only pay that money off slowly over time
Not as slow as you might think. As of last year the total cost of the bailout to the taxpayer was only £35bn. Vast majority has been paid off. A lot of money for sure but a lot less than many people think.
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I think it's saying we borrowed a shit load of money to bail out the banks in 2008 / 9 and (not surprisingly) we can only pay that money off slowly over time
It's not. It's showing flow rather than stock excluding interest payments, so the bank bailouts only impact the 08/09 years.
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I'd be surprised if Cameron and co. spent more money than Blair did
It's the phenomenon of Keynesian "automatic stabilisers". When your economy crashes the fiscal position naturally becomes more expansive as income-related tax receipts fall and welfare spending such as JSA rises.
Stonehedge
NickCJ
I wonder if bonfire of regulations also meant removing limits on borrowing money? It's ridiculous that the deficit after Cameron's election in 2010 far exceeds that of the Blair years, yet hardly any Tory voter would beleive this you if you told them.