X hashtag analyse

t #otd sidste 24 timer

18:30

Peter Kurrild-Klitgaard (@kurrild)

RT @DanielJHannan (Daniel Hannan): Fifty years ago #OTD, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, was sipping a large gin and tonic in Heathrow’s VIP departure lounge when he learned that sterling was plunging. He rushed back to the Treasury to announce that Britain was applying for a record $3.9 billion IMF bailout. While Healey negotiated terms with IMF officials, the Prime Minister, Jim Callaghan, tried to make his party understand the gravity of the situation. “For too long this country has been ready to settle for borrowing money abroad to maintain our standards of life,” he told stony-faced Labour delegates in Blackpool. “We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession, and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists...” Only when Britain was, as The Economist put it, “bust”, did spending cuts become feasible. Even the NHS saw its budget cut in 1977, after the bailout – by 3 per cent in real terms. People the world over vote for free stuff for as long as they believe it is there. It takes a cataclysmic shock to convince them that there really is nothing left in the kitty rather than the problem being with greedy politicians or rich tax avoiders. Are we heading for another such shock under another Chancellor Healey?