At a time when all our thoughts and prayers are with the many families affected by the tragedy in Norway the domestic news agenda will again be dominated by the economy. At a time when the Eurozone is in crisis, the banks are still struggling to overcome their problems, Japan is suffering the after effects of the Tsunami, the USA is facing huge debt problems it is perhaps not surprising that growth in the UK economy is not racing ahead.
A couple of weeks ago I was studying the results of an opinion poll on the publics understanding of our Countries economic position and in particular the size of the national debt. Incredibly 7 out of 10 people thought that we were going to repay £350 billion of the national debt during this Parliament rather than increase it by this amount which apparently is what is forecast to happen. Only 1 in 10 correctly said the debt would increase. The reason for this is that every day our national debt continues to increase because we are still not living within our means. All the various savings the Government are making are only having the effect of slowing the rate of planned increases in public spending which were theoretically due to take place. I say theoretically because there is little doubt that even had Labour stayed in Government the international pressure to control the budget deficit would have forced them to cut back on the planned rate of increases in pulbic spending.
David Nuttall 
if britain stopped billions in aid .stopped wars in afganistan,iraq,pulled out of europes drain of billions of pounds ,and stopped all imigration. including those from europe, which is costing billions in benefits , providing for their 3 wives and 8 kids.+and stop this green wind turbine which the only thing blowing is our money ..to foriegn shores.we would be the richest nation on earth and most envied
The economy has been up & down since the early 70’s and neither Labour or the Conservatives have had the answer. The last Labour Government had to sort out the mess left by the Conservatives with the Thatcher Government making hundreds of thousands of businesses go bust.
That Government had to sort out the problems with the Unions but went too far.
It keeps yo-yoing back & forth & the country needs a central point to stop all this.
We fought two world wars to keep our independance & freedom. Are you saying that we could have just saved all those lives by just giving up to them over in Europe. If we can’t just buy from Britain then what was fought for was just a waste. We, as a country, should be able to make our own decisions. Pull out of this EU & go back to the EEC as we voted for.
We don’t have the money for overseas aid at the moment. Lets sort out all our problems first & then help others. Stop paying money to the likes of Pakistan & China.
David,
The economy remains in an appalling state and for Labour to claim that they would not implement cuts is completely disingenuous.
Did they not say at election time that they would cut 7p for every 8p that the Conservatives would cut? Then to pretend that they would not cut this, that and (nearly) everything else is mathematically nonsense.
We can’t instruct local authorities etc., to only buy British. The EU wouldn’t allow it.
I am generally in agreement with the decision to increase Overseas Aid. But only if it is carefully controlled and properly used in the right places.
I am delighted that you appear to have made this website more political. I hope that this will continue
Oh I forgot – A billion is a million million not a thousand million as the cheap yanks say !!
If the Goverment only spent money in Great Britain the national debt would not increase. All the money spent would come back to the Government through taxes.
Stop giving money away because we are now very poor due to not having a manufacturing base.
Stop buying arms from other countries and bring back all the ammunition manufacturing.
Increase the Forces to what we had around the time of the Falklands.
Don’t allow Government offices or any local councils to pass work to other countries.
Buy British because British is Best and It’s Best for Britain !!!!!!!!
What really annoys me, is the fact that that we are struggling ourselves and the government keep billions, bailing out other countries and giving them foreign aid, when we are strugglng to sort our own out.
The government thinks more about foreign countries and economic migrants, than it does about its own people.
The government are not handling this very well at all, they are relying on foreigners to get us out of this mess, when they should be turning inward and investing in our country.
We can be self sufficent, we have done it in the past, why not now? We are begging countries for fuel, when we are built on Coal ourselves which could be used efficently to run our power stations.
We do have our own natural resources, and we could make our homes produce electricity for the powergrid, with the techology that is around however this government is so short sighted, it trips up over its self.
We have our own greenhouses, and we have our own farms, we have seeds and plants to grow to produce our own food in a more responsible way.
If we invested in this, then our deficit would be reducing, because we wouldn’t need as many imports from other countries.
We have to shut our borders and look inwards for now, bring our troops back and start to rebuild our country.
We are building houses, but we are not building the infra structure needed to supply the homes with basics light water and fuel, lets face it. We only need a couple of weeks of sun before the water companies are complaining we haven’t much water in the reserviours.
We really have got to pull away from the EU to the point of just trading with them. They are swallowing us up, and they are taken over our lives. I mean it is a bit much when a university gets £1000 fine for not putting the EU flag up, who are they to tell us what flags to fly in our own country. Yet the governmet are like the little lapdogs of both the EU and America and now China and India, rolling over everytime and letting them wall all over you.
There isn’t one of you that has got enough back bone to tell them where to go and get. Yes we might have less in the shops for now, but we can build our trade in our own country, put our infrastructure right and invest in science and technology and start to be world class again in inventions.
What is wrong with the people is that the government doesn’t have faith in them, the people are losing hope for the future. It is getting to the point where people cannot afford the basic human rights of getting married, building a home and having children, therefore young people are dis-engaged, because the government would rather allow companies to just throw the British people away, and just employ foreign workers or they take the call centres abroad. Leaving us British people no hope for the future for us.
The elderly and the disabled are being treated like a disease, instead of being valued. We could all help if you would just listen and try, let as I type this, the first thing you will do is to delete it and just carry on as normal, because your future is secure. You will get a good pension when you retire, you do have a nice home and family and you do have plenty of money in the bank and you don’t understand what it is like to be on the otherside of the coin.
One thing I have learnt and that is that the successive governments of this country will not listen to its people until it is too late.