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Originally Posted by KerrAvon
For Kerr (everyone else excuse long post).
As you're a lazy dawg, here are the main points from the report (based on ONS data, sheet of this was attached to the original post, you can find it online if you wish). These points are pretty much all comaring Labour v Tory rocord on economic indicators from 56 - 97:
Public spending
• Within the UK, since 1972/3 (the start of the dataset) the highest three years for Total Managed Expenditure (TME) as a share of GDP were from 1974/5 to 1976/7. However, Mrs Thatcher’s early governments oversaw the highest sustained 5 year period of public spending as a share of GDP, with public spending that was 46% or more for a record 5 consecutive years, from 1980/81 to 1984/5.
• As regards UK public sector current spending (i.e. excluding capital spending), the highest figure as a percentage of GDP was 40.4% in 2009/10 under the Brown government. However, the highest sustained period of current spending was under the Thatcher government, from 1981/2 to 1984/5. Her government also saw a higher level of current spending as a share of GDP for 6 consecutive years than in any year of the 1974/9 Labour government.
Public Debt
• Taking the amount of annual debt interest payments as a share of GDP since 1964, these peaked under the 1979-97 Conservative government at 3.5%, and were lowest under the 1997-2010 Labour government at 2.3% of GDP. With the increase in public debt since 2009, this increased to 2.9% of GDP under the Coalition government
Employment
Since 1970, the best average annual unemployment rate was achieved by the Heath Conservative government of 1970/4 with 3.4%, and by far the worst under the 1979/97 Conservative government, with an average annual rate of 9.3%, and exceeding 10% for 6 full years. The 1974/9 Labour government had an average rate of 4.9%, and the 1997-2010 government 5.6%.
Public expenditure as a share of GDP
Within the UK, since 1972/3 the highest three years for Total Managed Expenditure (TME) were from 1974/5 to 1976/7 with 47%, 48.9%and 47.8% before it slipped back to 44.1% in the last year of the Labour government, and to 43.7% in 1979/80.
However, it was Mrs Thatcher’s early governments that saw the highest sustained 5 year period of public spending as a share of GDP - she oversaw public spending that was 46% or more for a record 5 consecutive years, from 1980/81 to 1984/5: 46%, 46.4%, 46.9%, 46.6%, 46.3%, before it fell back to 44% in 1985/6
As regards UK public sector current spending (i.e. excluding capital spending), the highest figure as a percentage of GDP was 40.4% in 2009/10. However, the highest sustained period of current spending was again achieved by Mrs Thatcher’s government, from 1981/2 to 1984/5, with 40.1%, 40.3%, 39.9% and 40%. And Mrs Thatcher’s government had a higher level of current spending as a percentage of GDP for 6 consecutive years, starting in 1981/2, than in any year at all of the Wilson/Callaghan government (highest level, 38.3%).
So on the facts, Mrs Thatcher’s early governments were for 5 or 6 years, by a reasonable margin, the highest spending ones of any government (for better or for worse!), taking both TME and current spending into account, over the whole period to the present.
Current budget deficit/surplus as a percentage of GDP: Conservative governments have an average annual surplus of 0.3% of GDP over the 53 year period to 2008, while Labour governments have an average annual surplus of 1.1%.
Public sector net debt
In the first year of the 1974-9 Labour government, UK net public debt stood at 55.8% of GDP, down from over 200% at the end of the 2nd World War. At the end of 1978/9, net debt was down to 49%, a fall of 6.8%.
During Mrs Thatcher’s government, net debt fell steadily, then (during the Lawson boom) rapidly, to a record low of 24.2% of GDP in 1990/91. When the Lawson boom turned to bust, followed by the forced exit from the ERM, the debt to GDP ratio climbed rapidly again till the end of the Major government, when it reached 39.9% of GDP in 1996/7.
The average annual debt interest payments as a percentage of GDP per government since 1964 are as follows:
1964-70 Labour 2.8%
1970-74 Conservative 2.5%
1974-79 Labour 2.9%
1979-97 Conservative 3.5%
• Under the 1974-79 Labour government, the net debt to GDP ratio in the last year was some 7 percentage points lower than at the start.
• Under the 1979-97 Conservative government, the debt to GDP ratio was around 16 percentage points lower at the end than at the outset.
• Looking at annual debt interest payments as a percentage of GDP, these have varied between 1.8% and 4.3%. The highest levels of interest as a percentage of GDP were during Mrs Thatcher’s government, when for 6 consecutive years, interest payments were over 4% of GDP.
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Why no mention of inflation I wonder?
And if Labour 70s economic miseries were entirely due to the preceding Heath government then surely the first Thatcher government's economic problems must have been due to the Labour governments that preceded them?
Last edited by great_fire; 13-12-2018 at 12:04 PM.
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Or taxation?
Or interest rates?
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The Tories are more than welcome to end the welfare system altogether and place that in their next manifesto as far as I'm concerned .
Promise to open the whole thing up for business and the country pays for it through insurance schemes .
See how that one goes at an election .
In fact those that moan and groan at the cost of welfare provision can attain private healthcare any time they want , nothing stopping you what so ever .
Go get some quotes and then can back to me .
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That's exactly the point Fire - generally, when all is said and done, there is historically little difference between the two parties on the economy. Please feel free to counter this data. GM - please feel free to add any data on inflation, tax, or interest rates that might enlighten us further - but please refer to official stats as I have done and show how the differences compare over a prolonged period of time.
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No, traditionally Labour have made a mess of the economy, the Tories have been elected to sort it, their tight spending has become unpopular, Labour get back in, mess up the economy etc
It's a cycle. Lowest point was having to beg the IMF for a bail out though and that was Labour.
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And Labour's recent stewardship of the NHS has been awful, still many years of paying off those PFI deals and the GP contracts, more money for less work, what a joke, more and more GPs are going part time now and 3 week waits are the new norm.
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I did do this on another thread around 8 months ago, I’ll try and dig it out if I can be @rsed
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But the data I have shown appears to contradict that myth. Doesn't it? What part of the ONS data do you disagree with specifically? I don't see how this data can say what they are saying and yet you can still leap to that conclusion?
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This current Government has been in office for almost a decade but have chosen I believe to do nowt about it
The PFI schemes have put an awful lot of money into private hands [a very Tory principle] is it not so what's the moan?
https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/res...g-sense-of-pfi
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