Today Programme 9th July 2010,
Speakers: Tim Harford, Justin Webb
JW: I asked him whether the claim that the government has just discovered how bad things are is true or false.
TH: Well it’s false. Things are bad but the numbers that David Cameron was using in his speech that he seemed to be claiming that it’s just come from no where, they are secret government numbers; they are absolutely the same numbers that we were using during the election campaign. The politicians weren’t talking about but everybody else was, especially the big numbers, the national debt, £770 billion. The projected debt in 5 years £1400 billion. They haven’t changed. David Cameron also pointed to lots and lots of little numbers throughout his speech and we’ve actually tracked down all but one of them and that every single one that we’ve tracked down was available in a published document often an official document before the election.
JW: Hmm. Available but … I mean here’s what the chancellor said, he said ‘consider this one fact which the previous chancellor refused to publish.’ Now to that extent they are right aren’t they? That these figures when you talk about them being in the public domain they weren’t actually figures that had been officially issued by the labour government.
TH: Well usually they were but there is one figure that David Cameron and that George Osborne had pointed to of £70 billion a year.
JW: Yeah that’s the big one.
TH: The cots of servicing the debt in 5 years. Now this is … this is something we’ve discussed with George Osborne’s office and they were quoting this number at us before the election campaign even started. Now its true that before the election campaign started it was a number that had been published buy the Institute of Fiscal Studies, an independent think tank and it is a very big number. Just debt payment – its over thousand pound for every man, woman and child in the country per year but George Osborne’s own office were quoting that number on emails two, three months ago to us and sure now its an official government number rather than unofficial government number but its almost exactly the same number so I don’t really know why they are so surprised.
JW: No but I suppose they would make the point that this was a number being talked about by commentators, Institute of Fiscal Studies and others but it wasn’t being talked about by government. Now they’ve got into government they discover that the government knew?
TH: Well I’m sure over the next five years they will be far more transparent. We will see.
8 comments ↓
Cameron was lying and Harford is another who has caught him out.
On twitter:
“r4today
Journalist Tim Harford says David Cameron’s figures for government debt are nothing new http://tinyurl.com/3axbweu ”
Doesn’t quite reveal that, does it?
Neither has @r4today, which shilled against labour for years, responded to that point put to it a couple of times.
No wonder more of us are coming round to the belief that it is the ToryBBC.
So what about pensions? Where are the numbers showing the pension liabilities?
I put in an FOI request for the civil service liabilities. That was refused. A follow up FOI request has more black redactions than data.
However, I’ll give you a hint. It’s around the 1.1 to 1.2 trillion mark. Not billions, Trillions.
What about the state pension? Are we owed a state pension? Or are you saying that if push comes to shove, that the government doesn’t have to pay them, so it’s not a liability?
Nick
Everything changes, everything stays the same.
Did we really expect anything different?
Politicians lie. It’s what they do.
Shurely ’9th June 2010′ …?
Getting the date wrong is something the Today programme does all the time – the other morning James Naughtie announced at 6am that it was Tuesday 9th June …..
We are hundreds of billions in debt Tom. You, your party and seemingly Tim Harford too just haven’t grasped the magnitude of this. If left unchecked for another 13 years this would have been catastrophic. What was it you and your party achieved during the last 13 years again-aside from the debt that is?
The debt is one thing and I know it is a big issue, but the things achieved in my opinion by the labour government must not go without comment. I work in equality and diversity and the new equality act did do a lot and will continue to do a lot for our society, this of course is providing it is recognised and worked to by everyone.
Christian, at what cost?
By doing it all on the never never, we now get the consequence of those decisions. The money has to be paid back for all that spending. On top of that, there are the interest charges. It’s the later that means the cost of everything has been inflated.
So now that push has come to shove, we have a choice.
Do we employ a nurse? Do we pay pensions? or do we employ someone who works in equality and diversity?
Unfortunately for you, you’re going to lose.
Nick
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