How to describe this in one phrase that all will understand....
Try this: The Government's plan for reducing the deficit over the next four years will merely bring the national overdraft down to the level it reached in 1976, when Denis Healey had to beg a loan from the International Monetary Fund.
In September 1976 there was the humiliation of Healey's dash from Heathrow and the application to the IMF for a £2.3 billion rescue – at that time, the biggest-ever call on its resources, so large that it had to borrow the money elsewhere to lend it to us....of course back then £2.3 billion was a lot of money
Put simply we aren't even in the foothills of the austerity Alps we have to climb: we need to go further, faster. This applies to all political parties; I am pleased that we are at least leading the way in addressing the problem, but we need to do more to identify what we are going to do, as this is a problem that will not go away.
