Yes. I have close relatives in France. This answers my question in what respect, exactly, though? To recap:

"Can someone give me at least a superficially plausible reason why anyone might expect such measures might ever work?"

Seeing as Labour are ahead in all the opinion polls it suggests the public trust Labour to spend taxpayers money best now and are starting to ask questions why the Tories are being reckless with things like Thatchers funeral.

Deep insight there.
Love the way you back it up with reasoned argument.


I see, so mentioning genuine stats about how the debt-to-GDP ratio has worsened is now trolling is it?
Dearie me.

Since you seem to have missed the following

And

Ok I won't voice my opinion any more. I don't want to be banned or labelled a troll.

I'm sure you're clever enough to understand the difference between voicing an opinion and trolling in a manner that simply drives numerous threads down the same blind alleys.

Right ... so what's your opinion on the debt-to-GDP ratio?
What's your opinion on the continuation of the recession due to ignoring the effects of imposed-austerity on the economy?
If you are not trolling, you'll have some sort of reasoned argument for your thus-far-not-expressed opinion, let's hear what it is.

Completely different issues. I think politicians are reckless spenders of taxpayer money, but also think the austerity measures are too severe, albeit in the wrong areas.

I don't think any political party has the ability to solve the UK deficit and debt problems without fear of losing votes or losing other politicians support - basically stemming from greed. To say "the Tories are in step with public opinion" as a conclusion to the statistics produced from this survey is completely laughable seen as Tories are politicians as well! If anything, as the Tories are in charge of the cheque book, it would suggest the opposite. Try to see past party politics!

Spend more than earn = bad.

Earn more than spend = good.

That seems to be the basic concept behind it. But we all knew that anyway.

Imo the case for austerity was always pretty weak, but it is now almost definitely causing much more harm than good.

The problem is that politicians all around the developed world (nobody more so than Cameron and Osborne) have invested so much political capital into austerity, that there is no way for them to turn away from it without admitting they have made a string of absolutely shocking decisions, that have had disastrous consequences.

I have no idea why Labour aren't absolutely nailing the conservatives with this. All I can think is that they don't back themselves to be able to convince the public with facts and evidence, vs the Tories 'common sense' soundbites of
The confidence fairy. If only the government wasn't spending so much money (risking turning us into the new Greece), then big business would have the confidence to spend and invest again, and that would lead to a private sector lead recovery like the one we're going through now... oh wait.

What "austerity measures" do you think are "too severe"? What impact do those measures have on the economy as a whole?

What relevence does this have to me highlighting your incorrect interpretation of statistics?

And the spin works. People can understand the concept of a maxed out credit card but don't understand how inflation affects debt and what the ability to print money can have on how you manage an economy. In other words the spin is deliberately misleading yet people fall for it.

This government has taken this kind of spin to a new level and my favorite has always been "Why should the postman pay tax towards the students fees?" which implied two things. 1. The postman was paying a significant amount of their taxes that was put toward to block grant. 2. If the block grant was abolished the postman would consequently save a shed load on their taxes.

Neither is true. Due to the progressive nature of taxation if you work out the %'s a postman on a basic postmans salary paid less than £30 [ia year[/i towards the block grant and their income tax didn't change anyway. They are no better off as a result.

What I don't get is what someone else mentioned is that when it's easy to see such obvious things like this is why Labour don't directly challenge the spin. In this example they don't even have to say they are opposed to tuition fee increases (though I wish they would) but to simply point out forcefully that the way the change was being sold was deliberately misleading and deliberately divisive. They would then be able to question the motive for the change. Is it really austerity or the privatisation of higher education?

It's very frustrating the government is being given such an easy ride.