Since way before the May 2010 UK General Election there has been an extraordinary fog about what all political parties have meant about "debt reduction".
Much of the electorate has been under the impression that they have been and still are talking about reducing the existing acumulated mountain of borrowing called the National Bebt which is currently costing the tax payer,-ie diverting from other possible uses,- £120 million a day.
The Conservatives promised ,if elected, to eliminate "the debt" over their first five year term of government.
Labour promised "to halve" it.
Both still cling to those positions. This gives the impression that even borrow- and-spend Labour would make a good start on the national debt and getting that £120 million a day down. To many that doesn't sound a bad idea and makes them receptive to reasonable Ed and shouting Ed's pleas/whinges that the Coalition is cutting "too fast and too soon" and the idea that there is a much easier and less painful alternative to slamming on the expenditure brakes.
Inexplicably the Conservatives haven't shouted from the rooftops that this is a lie. Nobody is talking about cutting the real debt mountain at all. They are just talking about halving the rate of annual increase of the structural part of the annual overspend,-that's the bit which is generated by day to day running costs of government and the state sector rather than borrowing to genuinely invest in things like infrastructure developments on which there is a future payback,-to the awful negative legacy we are building up for ourselves and our children. That's a very different thing and it needs to be spelled out to the electorate in clear, simple terms. Just like this in fact. Why isn't it being?
