Sure.

Would you like me to start with £20bn (See how easy it is DaveO?) on implementing an NHS IT system that is "questionable" to say the least.

Or maybe selling off our gold reserves for c. $270 an ounce (current price more than $1000 dollars, money wasted around £7bn).

Perhaps the £3bn ovepaid in benefits in 2008/09 (Source DWP: Fraud and error in the benefits system)

Or even maybe giving away the rebate to the EU that Thatcher won for the UK. - say £7bn p.a.


No, actually I think I will cite the fact that the UK debt interest is forecast to double by 2015 to around £70bn, directly as a result of Labours spending.

Is that it?

[url=http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/politics/2012/08/exclusive-osbornes-supporters-turn-himEven Osborne's previous supporters are now turning on the financial iliterate[/url

ID Cards, Defence was a big one.

Massively overspent, shambles really.

Todays price is irrelevant, we sold some of the wifes broken jewellery 18 months ago but I don't beat myself up today because I would have got more for it now.





What was the overpayment in 2010/11 ?
How much was fraud and how much was error ?
If it was fraud are you blaming a government for its fraudulent citizens and if it was error are you blaming a government for its inept civil service (they don't bring their own with them you know)




You're estimating it at £7bn pa, have you polled someone for that figure, or is it related to fact in any way - and in what way was it "given away", I mean literally, did someone stand on a street corner and hand out £7bn every year to passers-by and if so where is this street corner ?



This fact of yours, where is it, invented or polled again ?

Strange, we never hear the right wing moan about the selling of of BT, British Gas, Electricity and the rail network, all at bargain basement prices.



I wonder what the total of unclaimed benefits come to at the moment, or the total of un-collected taxes from Vodaphone and the like...



Aye.

Since Labour isn't spending anything that would be a neat trick.

There are two parts to the deficit that increases the national debt and thus interest due. The structural deficit that is the spending on things like health, education and infrastructure - public spending to invest in the country. The cyclical deficit such as the money you have to spend to fund a recession like we are in now. So given Labour isn't in power whatever amount of borrowing the government engages in [inow[/i is a result of THIS governments need to borrow money at [ithis[/i time. Given the government is cutting public spending but the deficit continues to be at extremely high levels it's clear this is because of the cost of the recession is a massive drain on the finances.

Put another way since 2008 National Debt has increased because of recessions not public spending in terms of spending in infrastructure. Anyone suggesting otherwise is an idiot. We are not running the deficit we are because we are building railways or schools. We have had lower tax receipts personal and corporation and higher spending on unemployment benefits. Stamp duty also fell a lot due to falling house prices. This situation has not changed. We are still in recession or bumping along at the bottom and so despite its austerity plans to try and deal with structural deficit this government has to continue to fund the post-2008 recession driven costs the country faces by borrowing more.

Therefore if the government has to continue to borrow at high levels such that the national debt increases thus resulting in increased interest payments, it will be due to this governments borrowing requirements not past Labour spending. In other words the governments failure to get growth in the economy will be the reason borrowing will continue to be at such high levels because even if they could eliminate the structural deficit tomorrow that won't come even come close to eliminating the total deficit it faces.

Of course the debate is whether nor not trying to eliminate the structural deficit makes sense at this time anyway when government borrowing costs are so low. If cutting it back decreases revenues still further then its catch 22.

Your numbers overstate by about 80% ... but a waste, quite definitely.
Nice to see the Tories have learned sooooo much from this (not).


A complicated one, this, involving the Maastricht treaty (signed by a Tory administration) which rather forced Brown's hand to buy Euros.
You can nominate almost any number of billions as the amount that the gold was "undersold" by, and compare the price against any year at random and come up with fifferent value for how much was "lost".
Bear in mind it was sold at auction, not at some knockdown price (unlike when the Tories sold off all those companies).
Also bear in mind that most of gold's subsequent rise in value has been since the global downturn.


i.e. approximately half of what Vodafone alone have been let off in their tax bill (under the current tory administration).


Oh dear, this old chestnut.
The rebate wasn't given away.
Some of the rebate was reduced until 2013, providing it didn't go to the CAP, providing the CAP was re-organised, providing the other states matched it for value and providing all the extra dosh thus raised went to new EU members to help bring them up to a level where they could be a market for all the rest of the EU.
Where your £7bn figure comes from is anyone's guess.


Nope.
Borrowing is rising because GDP (and consequent tax-take) is falling.
If that is your main argument, it's an epic fail.


I note that you haven't even mentioned the second part of my question... i.e. the cost of the bank bailout.
The same bank bailout that Osborne criticised and about which he has never ever said in public what he would have done instead.
The same banks that he had previously said needed to be [uless[/u heavily regulated.
The same banks whose regulation he still hasn't addressed.
Odd that, don't you think?

Re Government spending, it should be remembered that a very large proportion is locked in due to previous governments. You cannot turn the tap on and off annually. It is factually correct to say that structurally, a large proportion of the current debt position is due to policies implemented by labour over a number of years. Just as its also true that they themselves inherited a fiscal position from the Tories before them.

The one lesson from all this - which will sadly seemingly never be learned - is that Governments should seek to save money when times are good, and use some of those savings when times are bad. Instead we tend to see governments of all stripes spending any excess like a drunk at a casino when times are good, with almost no concern at all for the future.

If the current debit position was solely the structural deficit we wouldn't have a problem. As I said the deficit in 2007 before the crash was thirty odd percent of GDP. It's been a heck of a lot more than that since the crash. Therefore trying to fix the problem by tackling the structural deficit won't work. It is not a big enough proportion of the current deficit for that. Under normal circumstances you would at some point work to eliminate the structural deficit but the idea we are where we are due to Labour running a structural deficit for six years pre-2008 is a complete joke. The structural deficit also tends to exists for positive reason. Investment in the country.



There is nothing wrong with borrowing money adding to the structural deficit if you think doing so will generate greater wealth for the country in the long term. If a government thinks a new high speed rail system will help the economy deferring funding for that because we are in the "good times" and running a surplus is not necessarily good thinking (assuming any surplus isn't enough to fund it outright). The idea you shouldn't do this in the "good times" also implies you have a crystal ball as to when the bad times will return.

Nearly all the recessions bar one (I think) since the end of the second world war have been caused by things occurring out of the blue such as the banking crisis in 2008 or the oil crisis when I was young! Regardless of all that I do not think any party has ever had a plan to run a perpetual deficit position.

DaveO why do you assume that ALL elements of the "structural" deficit are positive? They need not be.

Paying £20bn for the IT NHS farce for example.

For starters, I don't know where you get a figure of £20bn from, even the Mail only has it at £12.7bn and how much of that figure is wasted?

Quote ="Him"For starters, I don't know where you get a figure of £20bn from, even the Mail only has it at £12.7bn and how much of that figure is wasted?'" www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... llion.html But let's not argue about £8bn. £12bn is bad enough.

Quote ="Him"For starters, I don't know where you get a figure of £20bn from, even the Mail only has it at £12.7bn and how much of that figure is wasted?'" www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... llion.html But let's not argue about £8bn. £12bn is bad enough.

Ah, the 2004 article quoting an unnamed official talking to someone else. Well let's just call that a tad unreliable shall we?
The Guardian, the BBC and the Mail all have it at a maximum of £12.7bn, and I'll ask it again, how much of that was wasted?

The Grauniad and the BBC.............. enough said.

The Mail is a comic.

Even so, as I said £12bn is bad enough. As for how much is "wasted", then the truth is we don't know. However, it's fair to say that with hindsight, the project would never have been started. It's an example of Labour waste.

Not a lot, according to [url=http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/nhs-npfit-lorenzo-csc-governmennpfit-89224THIS[/url

I don't assume that. Things do go wrong and I am sure when they set out to implement that system it wasn't the intention to fail though £20bn is not a figure I think is realistic anyway. The point I am making is the structural deficit that Labour ran for six years pre 2008 isn't the source of the problem. Had the 2008 crash not occurred this would have been easily manageable and you would expect them to have worked to reduce it anyway as Darling said was the plan.

In my opinion the current governments focus on the structural deficit reduction is as much political as economic. They want to reduce the size of the state and the current crisis is the excuse. The trouble is unless they can get some real growth in the economy any reductions they make to the structural deficit are going to be eaten away by having to fund the recession. This cost is already huge and so compared to pre-2008 the government has to borrow at three or four times the level than back then. It is not having to do this because it inherited a bad NHS IT system or anything else from Labour.

But how much waste? It started at £20bn, we're now down to £12bn, and then you don't know how much was wasted. So you don't like the Guardian, the BBC or the Mail? How about the Telegraph? They have it at £11.4bn. How much of that was wasted? Come on, this goes to the heart of your argument that the debt and deficit is a result of wasteful Labour spending.

But do you think it prudent economic judgement (a term that Brown used to pin himself to) to assume that the economic boom would continue year after year?

Don't you think that a truely prudent Chancellor would have made provision for a downturn?

Of course the Conservatives wish to reduce the size of the state? Doesn't everyone with an ounce of economic sense? Surely no-one favours a large public sector in this day and age?

You also still don't make a decent counter argument to the fact that there will be a time lag between spending and the deficit materialising.

e.g. had Labour managed to do what they promised, and "balanced the books over the economic cycle" , then the borrowing requirement now would be greatly reduced.

Well if you read the link that you posted, you will find that there is very little consensus on how much is wasted.

"Despite the risks, in September 2011 the UK government announced that the £12.7 billion scheme will be “urgently dismantled”"

This implies virtually all of it.

The "latest" is that some "may" be saved.

The truth is the number changes all the time. The reality is that at least "some" will be wasted and maybe all.

I didn't post a link.

If there is very little consensus then how can you say "maybe all" is wasted? I can categorically state that not all of it was wasted because I was peripherally involved with it whilst I worked in the NHS.
So, the truth is you don't know how much of the £20bn...sorry £12.7bn...sorry sorry £11.4bn is wasted, which begs the question as to why you included the entire £20bn figure in your argument as to how much Labour spending was wasted?

Where would YOU make the cuts, ignore what has gone before because that money is spent, its a bit like crying over last weeks grocery bill, where would you cut public expenditure, right now, to make a definite effect within the lifetime of the current government ?

Because they have to show some definite benefit to their policies before the next election, they won't get away with blaming someone else.

So,

Healthcare ?
Pensions ?
Policing/Armed Services ?
Education ?
Infrastructure investment (road building, rail network etc)

And lets have some targets, not woolly politicians arguments like "cut out layers of middle management" or other bollax that give the impression that billions are being spent on jobs that are meaningless because we're all grown ups and we all know that the press love to invent stories like that - lets have some definite targets, how many police officers do you think we could safely afford to lose for instance, or does a City like Leeds really need two huge hospitals, genuine examples like that...

Well not having access to governement figures, I cannot give you a definitive answer now can I?

However, in general the areas I would like to see cut back are.

Benefits
Public sector pensions
Public sector jobs


Why? Because I believe we spend far too much on benefits as a country.

I believe that public sector pensions should fall more in line with the private sector.

I believe in "Small Government". I believe that all levels of Government should be reduced to an absolute minimum.

If you need a case to give you evidence, I present to you Wigan Metro.

Which benefits? Safety nets for the unemployed?, child allowance? Jobseekers?, which benefits specifically should be reduced?
What aspects of public sector pensions? Just make them smaller? or what?
Which public sector jobs? Nurses? Dustmen? Librarians?, Carers?, Boris Johnson? The Queen? which?

And of course what are the costs of doing so? What is the cost of reducing benefits, pensions and jobs?

I doubt he'll answer, he doesn't do the detail.