by James Ruddick
The truth is out there, and not even a smooth and accomplished liar like David Cameron can hide it.
The truth is that you pay off more debt through growth than through austerity. It’s a plain fact. History confirms it again and again. Right now, in the US, where Obama snubbed austerity, the economy has not only come out of recession, but is booming, and the creditors, getting bigger and bigger monthly cheques, are swooning with surprise and delight.
Of course you never hear this in the UK media, which is lazy and self-interested and in thrall to the austerity lie of the hard right. You never hear that growth means more tax receipts and less deficits. No reference is ever made to the period after the Second World War when the whole of Europe was broke and in ruins, and yet boomed back within five years on Keynesian growth. Hush hush, that.
But now the lie is about to be exposed because the French people, sometimes a more sophisticated electorate than our own, have junked austerity and voted for growth. Unemployment in France will now fall, tax receipts will rise, consumer demand increase, debt repayments accelerate. It is what always happens. This is a disaster for Cameron and the Tory lie machine. Voters in Britain will see the extent to which their leader has duped them. They will realise that had we kept Labour’s economic recovery of 2009 going we would now have repaid more national debt.
As the truth emerges, we will at least have front row seats. It’s a small consolation but it’s not to be sneered at. We can watch the excruciating pay-off from this particular commedia dell’arte – David Cameron climbing the spiral staircase with the mob trailing behind him. The coalition is already teetering and his backbenchers, knowing the voters are going to sack them at the first opportunity, want his head. He has no answer. He finds himself in waters that are unchartered for him: no one now believes a word he says. There will be an election before long and he will lose. And who can feel sorry for him? He has been discovered secretly poisoning the patient he was supposed to be caring for.
