Millions of words have been written about Britain's fiscal crisis since the General Election battle was joined. Few, if any, are more impassioned than those contributed to this week's Sunday Telegraph by Liam Halligan.Halligan, one of the UK's most authoritative economists and journalists, warned of a "vortex of spiralling debt" and delivered a damning verdict on politicians of all party colours, accusing them of opaqueness in the face of a looming disaster.
"The UK is in desperate need of political honesty, yet we live in an age of unparalleled spin," he wrote. "Our politicians present as 'austerity measures' deficit reduction plans which barely dent state spending."
'Ghastly numbers'
Charter 2010 appreciates that there is the small matter of a General Election to be won and lost, and that the temptations to be, shall we say, economical with the truth are enormous for politicians anxious to woo a wavering electorate. Fiscal retrenchment was never going to be a vote-reaper.
But to fail consistently to confront the true gravity of the economic situation - and fail to be open about it - is an insult to the public's intelligence and, in Halligan's words, an affront to democracy. The devil, in this case, is in the lack of detail.
Halligan pitched some "absolutely ghastly numbers" into his argument. The still-spiralling national debt could double to £1,400bn by 2014/15 and may reach more than 500 per cent of GDP by 2040, he warned.
'Hidden liabilities'
Yet he estimated that all the parties are at least £30bn short when it comes to explaining how they will "halve the deficit" – a deficit which, in any case, tells only part of the story. Halligan pointed to "hidden liabilities" that paint the fiscal picture several shades blacker than it appears already.
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