His Grace can't quite identify every country by its shape, but this graphic makes a very persuasive case ahead of tomorrow's budget. It shows how Labour’s disregard for taxpayers’ money left the UK with the worst deficit of any country in the G20. We are now spending more on debt interest than we spend on schools, the police, or defence.
Labour have opposed over £50 billion of the Government's savings to pay off this debt. As well as undermining their own credibility (which is not difficult), their refusal to say where they would cut leaves them swimming against the tide of economic opinion. The government’s deficit reduction plan is supported inter alia by the G20, the OECD, the BCC, the IMF, the IFS, the World Bank, Fitch, Moody's, the CBI, the IOD and even Tony Blair.
As Ed Balls sits by Ed Miliband tomorrow, as the Leader of the Opposition stands up to rail against George Osborne and pontificate about 'coalition cuts', let us not forget that they both stand as a stark reminder of Labour’s legacy. Ed Balls and Ed Miliband were Gordon Brown’s economic advisers when he doubled the national debt and left us with the biggest deficit in our peacetime history. There is a considerable moral obligation upon the Government to address this fiscal crisis, and to do so with the greatest of attention to the poorest and most vulnerable of society.
