With the new UK Coalition government setting out its manifesto for the next five years, many political commentators seem to have conveniently forgotten the financial mess left by Labour after thirteen years in power.According to official statistics, the UK’s total public sector net debt climbed in April to a new high of £893 billion, or 62.1 per cent of GDP, from £755 billion in April last year.
In other words, the money borrowed by the UK government in the last twelve months alone went up by SIX times the annual budget of the Welsh Assembly Government.
This current official national debt is equivalent to £13,000 for every man woman and child in the country.
However, others have argued that the ‘official’ national debt is not the real situation and hides other major problems, including public pension liabilities (£1200 billion), PFI borrowing (£130 billion) and Network Rail (£22 billion).
This could mean that the real public debt could be as much as £1.8 trillion – over £25,000 for every person in this country.
That is the scale of the economic tsunami facing this nation, a fact that seems to have been conveniently forgotten amongst the froth that makes up the commentariat following the release of the coalition manifesto.
More importantly, it is a tsunami that has been generated due to the Labour Party's economic policies during the last thirteen years.
The Conservative-Liberal coalition should, every day, remind the people of this country of that fact as they try and deal with this poisonous legacy over the next five years.
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