The deficit, before 2008, was below that under Major – not least because under Labour, unemployment was reduced. The Tories, remember, consider that unemployment "is a price worth paying" – as long as it it's some other poor paying it.



When are you going to stop pretending that it was not and that these 'record levels of debt' (as opposed to debt under the Thatcher and Major administrations that you never complain of) did not exist except in the minds of propagandists?



How many times does Sally (or anyone else) have to explain it for you?

I can't let you just chuck that one into the pot.

The level of debt was quite manageable (by Labour or Tory standards, if you look at their respective levels when in office at various times) ... until the banking crisis hit.



Labour didn't see that coming and maybe should have regulated the banks (although that would have been tricky, shackling British banks would have reduced their competitiveness compared with foreign banks).

But, let's not forget, at that time Osborne was busily criticising Labour for OVER-regulating the banks.

And wanting us to be just like Ireland.



The political right continues to press the argument that there must be further deregulation in all sorts of areas for the sake of the economy, including in the financial sectors. This is a huge part of what some of them imagine they would get by leaving the EU, without any negative consequences.

Where do you do your research ...the Beano?



I inserted the quotation marks to show it was a quote

I am suggesting there are huge areas/populations in the world that were completely unaffected by the banking crisis - China being one, the arab states being another, Russia etc So was it really a global crisis or was our egocentric view that if affected Europe and the US then it must be global!!



So its all Milton's fault - don't blame Maggie because Blair/Brown decided to continue to follow her flawed economic theory. They had more than one economic cycle to sort things and return back to the good old days of large public ownership, union control, high taxation etc.

Suggest you read Darling's book - the labour top brass knew debt was getting out of control and something would have to be done. They did what Labour always do - shy away from making any tough decisions. If they had made any unpopular moves they would have been obliterated in the election.

simply a lie. when labour came to power it was approx 1.7m, when they left it was almost 2.5m.

You can make stats say anything can't you ?



[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117According to the BBC who have taken these stats from the ONS[/url unemployment in May 97 was 2.05m and in May 2010 was 2.49m, the trend of downwards unemployment being reversed in April 2008 when the figure was 1.66m and I'm sure we all know why stats tend to get skewed upwards from 2008 onwards ?



More telling is that its still around 2.49m which according to most commentators is far less than they would expect at this time, more worrying is that those same stat collectors and commentators don't know why.

Absolute numbers for employment/unemployment are meaningless without an indication of population.

And an indication of the underemployed.

not really, no. these stats, whichever you choose show unemployment higher when labour left power than when they arrived. are you suggesting those poor sods who lost their jobs from '08 onwards shouldn't be counted?

I'm not suggesting anything, I'm merely providing a link to stats which you failed to do, how you read them and what logic you read into them is entirely your perrogative.