1.2 trillion reasons Brown deserves to lose the next election

Trevor Kavanagh’s column in The Sun today brilliantly details the way that £1.229 trillion has been added to the public’s tab over the last ten years—an astonishing £20,500 extra per person. 87 percent and 90 percent increases in health and education spending respectively have not resulted in the transformation of these services. Indeed, all it has done is test to destruction the idea that all these services needed was more money. (Kavanagh’s figures come from this new book)

The great tragedy of the last decade is how little the country has to show for a decade of phenomenally benign economic conditions. Much of, if not most of, the blame for this goes to Gordon Brown who consistently blocked or forced the dilution of even the starter reforms that Blair wanted to introduce. This—not his personality flaws or lack of political skills—is the reason that Brown deserves to go down to a thumping defeat at the next election.