Indian Bicycle Marketing: Austerity

Just as a refresher on how this works:

From The Telegraph (a right-wing, Tory-supporting newspaper):

The shock fall in output is a blow for Chancellor George Osborne, who has come under intense pressure over his austerity drive, with most of the government's cuts yet to come into effect.

Mr Osborne said: "it's is very disappointing news and it is a very tough economic situation," but the Government must maintain its austerity measures and make sure "we don't deliberately add to borrowing". He added: "I think if you ask the British people should we borrow and spend more in a debt crisis, I think you would get a very clear answer that would be a disaster for Britain."

From The Guardian (a left-wing, Labour-supporting newspaper):

Analysts embarrassed by getting their forecasts wrong rubbished the official estimate that GDP declined by 0.2% in the first quarter. But a couple of tenths of a percentage point either way would make no difference to the big picture, which is of an economy flat on its back. Output is lower than it was in the third quarter of 2010.

Osborne's central economic gambit – that, by cutting business tax and regulation and convincing the markets he was serious about tackling the deficit, he would clear the way for growth – has failed miserably.

From a superficial reading of these two articles, you might be lulled into thinking that the UK government had actually cut spending - the right-wing press says it and the left-wing press says it, aren't they supposed to say the opposite of each other and leave the reader to make up his own mind?

Nope, because they both support the same oligarchy.

The actual facts of the matter are as suggested in City AM (which has its own agenda - it is propaganda funded by financial services and land owners):

What is most depressing is that the double-dip (if that is indeed what it is) will wrongly discredit austerity, even though the state remains incredibly profligate. The budget deficit in 2011-12 was a massive £126bn, down just £10.9bn from the £136.8bn the year before. The national debt is still rocketing: public sector net debt at the end of March 2012 was £1,022.5bn (66.0 per cent of GDP) compared with £905.3bn (60.5 per cent of GDP) at the end of March 2011. Current spending rose in cash terms from £604.8bn to £617bn in 2011-12.

The OECD says UK public spending was 49.8 per cent of GDP in 2011. Public sector net borrowing remains at a catastrophic 8.3 per cent of GDP. All of this remains utterly unsustainable – yet the public have wrongly been told that the UK “is tackling its debt”. Osborne has been a disappointing chancellor – but not for the reasons cited by the left.