The 1945-51 Labour Government which inherited the largest structural deficit- not that this actually matters- and debt in UK history and proceeded to deal with this by creating the National Health Service, nationalising the coal and steel industry and embarking upon the most far-reaching house-building programme of any UK government. What they did essentially was to repair the economy through full employment, by circulating the available money and by achieving growth through investment. This is where the opportunity presented by the infrastructure failings we have at present should have been, I thought, immediately apparent.
The coalition are choosing a different tactic, one of shrinking the economy (VAT cuts hitting expenditure, wholesale redundancies preventing money circulation, cancelling the school-building programme in order to fund their 'free schools' (for selected kids in affluent areas) programme and opening up the NHS to speculators from here and abroad) and hoping that the private sector will grow sufficiently to not only make up the shortfall but also to pay off the second largest debt in UK history. And where does that public sector growth come from? Well, as no-one here will have much money it will have to come from abroad. But with the EU (by far our biggest customer for exports) in much the same boat then it can't come from abroad either.
It's a conundrum isn't it?
