Liars II

With lots of graphs and other things that I cannot seem to copy into Blogger, Fraser Nelson (yes, the Editor of The Spectator) tears apart the claims by David Cameron in this evening's Party Election Broadcast:

“So though this government has had to make some difficult decisions, we are making progress. We’re paying down Britain’s debts.”

David Cameron’s policy is to increase Britain’s debt by 60 per cent, more than any European country. To increase it more over five years than Labour did over 13 years. Just yesterday, we learned the national debt had hit £1,111 billion and it’s heading to £1,400 billion.

By no stretch of the English language can this be described as “paying down Britain’s debts.” What Cameron said is not an exaggeration. It’s a straight falsehood, and one that demeans his office. He has previously used different language, saying that he is “dealing with the debt”.

As Cameron says in his party political broadcast, he’s only half way through his term of office. So what progress does he intend to make on national debt in the remainder of his parliament? His deputy, Nick Clegg, has previously boasted that his government is “wiping the slate clean of debt”. An utterly misleading analogy.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that David Cameron and Nick Clegg have an agreed strategy: that it is not important to tell the truth about how much debt their government is saddling voters with. That a little deception is no bad thing.

Here is the full Conservative Party election broadcast. It really is quite shameful. Financiers are, quite literally, prosecuted for this kind of thing.

As you can see, people are asked to guess how much the deficit is going down by. They guess low figures – 2 per cent, etc – and are then told that it’s actually 25 per cent. Then they say how impressed they are with the Tories. Have you spotted the trick? No normal person knows what “deficit” means, nor should they. It’s a Westminster wonk word, not even used in business. Most people will think “deficit” means “government debt”. Every time a proper poll is conducted about public perceptions about debt, it exposes the staggering extent to which people have been successfully misled. Last month, ITV – the channel the Tories chose to make this broadcast – released a poll showing just 6 per cent of the public realise that the national debt is rising. Why might this be? Is it because they’re all thick? Or is it because the Cabinet – even the Prime Minister himself – keep telling them that it’s falling?

This is not a nerdy footnote, not the same as – say – people not knowing the direction of the environmental policy. Cameron won’t be paying this debt back – the voters will. Their children and grandchildren will. I’d argue that ministers really do have a moral duty to be honest with the people who will be repaying the debts that ministers are running up. The Prime Minister has a greater duty than anyone. When he claimed debt was falling on an ITV sofa recently, you might have put it down to a slip of the tongue. But on a carefully-scripted party election broadcast?

I will ask 10 Downing St and the office of Grant Shapps how they reconcile the Prime Minister’s statement with what is actually happening to our national debt. I’ll let you know what they say.