Fri Oct 13 2017 at 12:34:11
It s been puzzling me for a while that conservatives have a persistent reputation for economic competence, even though this is almost never deserved. I know this goes for Republicans in the USA, but I m thinking mainly about Conservative Party in the UK, who came to power in 2010 (in coalition with the tame Liberal Democrats) promising to eliminate the deficit by 2015.
After five years of failing to do that, they were somehow elected as a majority government in 2015, with voters saying they trusted them over Labour to manage the economy by 42% to 29%. A couple of months after the election they pushed back their target for eliminating the deficit again, to 2020, and then gave up promising to eliminate it at any particular time after Osborne lost his job.