a very fair point. but nonetheless, what liz truss decided to do, along with her then chancellor, kwasi kwarteng, was go for growth go for growth by slashing taxes, all sorts of different taxes, at a time when, as i say, the national debt was rising and the deficit was also rising. now, most economists, if that had come from a labour government or a labour party, would have said that is the most irresponsible sort of economic policymaking! but it seems you and a bunch of other i m saying small c conservative economists appeared to think that was the right thing to do. 0k. there s a whole host of issues there. let s take the actual debt figures. but then the advice after. in terms of the debt figures, uk debt to gdp is very high. it s just below 100%. it s the second lowest. it s going over 100%. yeah, it s second lowest in the g7. so the point is that it s not a unique problem for the uk,
but the high level of debt means that it makes the debt picture very sensitive to the relation between economic growth and interest rates. so, if interest rates go up, it makes the debt picture worse. if the growth picture is disappointed, it makes the outlook worse. so a decade ago in the uk under 0sborne, the uk adopted the wrong approach. then, with the economy weak, the treasury said the public finances are in bad shape, therefore you need austerity. i was critical of austerity at the time, as indeed was borisjohnson, shall we say. in the last couple of years, the approach has been in economic terms similar, but the politics very different. the last couple of years, the treasury has basically said growth is very weak, public finances therefore are not in good shape. to get the finances back into shape, you need higher taxes, which is what rishi sunak was advocating. now, the imf, earlier this year, rightly, in my view, criticised the uk as being the only g7 country planning to rais
germany, france and italy like britain, they re all part of the g7 group. in actual fact, the uk tends to be pretty much in the middle of the pack or indeed better than the others. if we look at the major economic indicators, such as growth, jobs or indeed inflation, if we take growth, sincejune 2016, up until the latest data, britain has grown faster than italy, faster than germany, but not as fast as france. if we take jobs, what s quite remarkable is how manyjobs the uk continues to create. in fact, in terms of unemployment, or indeed youth unemployment, we have less than half the european area average 3.5% unemployment here in the uk. and if we look at inflation, of course inflation is poor across all of western europe, including britain. but latest data shows that inflation in britain is lower than in italy, lower than in germany, but much higher than in france. so the reality is that, if we look at the last six years, often the forecasts, the expectations, have proved to be f
so the point is that it s not a unique problem for the uk, but the high level of debt means that it makes the debt picture very sensitive to the relation between economic growth and interest rates. so, if interest rates go up, it makes the debt picture worse. if the growth picture is disappointed, it makes the outlook worse. so a decade ago in the uk under osborne, the uk adopted the wrong approach. then, with the economy weak, the treasury said the public finances are in bad shape, therefore you need austerity. i was critical of austerity at the time, as indeed was borisjohnson, shall we say. in the last couple of years, the approach has been in economic terms similar, but the politics very different. the last couple of years, the treasury has basically said growth is very weak, public finances therefore are not in good shape. to get the finances back into shape, you need higher taxes, which is what rishi sunak was advocating. now, the imf, earlier this year, rightly, in my view, crit
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