Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Thanks Hero, but I was rather hoping for soemthing a bit more detailed than that. Something which showed the full year's figures perhaps.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Does this help? Guardian
And if you click on the link for "Britain's public debt since 1974", you get this , which shows the steady growth in the amount of UK public debt, and in 2007/08 it was 618.7 billion, up from 399.9 billion in 1996/97.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Thank you.

Interestingly, the figures for nineteen ninety-seven were still worse than they were before the crisis.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Yes, debt has gone up since '97 (disregarding the crisis now), but it actually decreased as a % of GDP, which would presumably be the most appropriate number to look at.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Yes - recovery from the early 90's recession was complete and the economy was then in surplus, which it continued to be while Labour followed the Tory economic plan. Regrettably these plans ended and began to be unwound by 2000, with the reversal complete by 2002 when, despite sustained economic growth, the then-chancellor staring running deficits again which he continued to do despite a very long and sustained, albeit unsustainable, period of economic growth.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Perhaps Foreverwar accidentally posted the climate change hockey stick ;)

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Another interesting piece of data from that article suggests that taxation as a percentage of GDP, relevant to the first thirteen years of Tory government, from nineteen seventy-nine, was higher than the same period for the Labour government. So on the face of it, another myth busted it would seem.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Yep - for a couple of years the Tory economic plans were still doing their thing causing a nice rapid drop and the economy was doing very well with good sustained growth - much better than the Eurozone's.

For the bored you can compare the UK to other countries here.

---------- Post added at 15:34 ---------- Previous post was at 15:28 ----------

Which myth would it be busting?

It refers to tax take not tax rate, when the economy is in the excrement tax take goes down due to less people working and paying taxes, this doesn't mean the nominal tax rate is lower just that less of it got paid for whatever reason.

Something of note in the figures in the article is that the Tories in the 13 year period between 1979 and 1992 you mention reduced the national debt from 47.2% of GDP to 27.2% of GDP, on similar levels of tax take to 1988-89 when the Tories reduced the deficit by approximately 6% of GDP (a boom period pre-early 90s recession) under Labour the deficit was actually rising and in any event you can't compare the two - if you're looking for a nominal tax rate those aren't the figures we need, that's just what was paid, not what was being charged.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

The one about Brown and New Labour being competent to run the economy perhaps??.. :rofl:

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

That seems to suggest that the debt was actually at the same level as the Tories left us back in '97 or better until early 09 when the debt seems to have shot up, coinciding with the crisis?

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Absolutely. The economy had just completed a recovery from recession. The debt dropped for a while - Labour followed Tory policies for a bit and it dropped rapidly, then the drop slowed and it started creeping up again as the change from Tory to Labour spending plans kicked in despite the economic growth.

Previous 'booms' coincided with a paying off of debt, GDP up, tax take up without increasing rates, Labour had an extra long boom and chalked up debt for a large part of it.

Check out http://www.measuringworth.org/datasets/ukgdp/index.php

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

You appear to confusing taxation (as a whole) with personal taxation - of the £516.6 billion net of tax revenue in 2008-09, £156.7b was income tax, NI £97.7b, and VAT £82.6b. Over £100b was raised by Capital Gains Tax, Inheritance Tax, Stamp Duties, Corporation Tax, Business Rates, and other Taxes and Royalties.

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Shurley not ...

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

Which of those taxes are not paid by the "taxpayer?"

Re: [Update] The Liberal-Conservative Coalition
 

I'm more interested to see if you're going to accept that you have been confusing 'tax rate' and 'tax take'.