The truth about ‘Labour’s debt’

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

Thanks to the Telegraph’s attempts to undermine Ed Balls with their stash of utterly unsurprising old documents, the debate on “Labour’s debt” has been re-opened. And we’d like to take this opportunity to share a graph with you that explains

Labour did “fix the roof while the sun was shining”, and made some impressive investments in public services at the same time. Public sector net debt (as a % of GDP) FELL from the start of Labour’s time in government until the beginning of the global financial crisis, as this handy graph shows:

According to the IFS:

“By 2007-08, the public finances were in a stronger position than they had been when Labour came to power in 1997.”

So next time some tells you that Labour mismanaged the economy – just show them this, and ask them to explain how much Labour should have slashed the Tory debt mountain by…