There was another hustings event for all five candidates at Bromley College yesterday (see photograph). It went well, I was surprised by the astuteness of some of the questions and even the politeness of the questioners. In the evening I canvassed with Robert Straker and Councillor Neil Reddin in the Cherry Tree Walk area of Coney Hall. As I did so several people mentioned the improving state of our economy shown in figures released on Monday.
Four days ago the Office of National Statistics declared that our economy had grown by 0.3 per cent for the period from January to March of this year. Indeed it has now been confirmed that overall the economy has grown by 10 per cent since May 2010 and, of that growth, 2.4 per cent has been over the last 12 months. That is very good news and confirms that our policies are working.
More good news is that our deficit has been reduced again too. For the 12 months until 31 March it was £87.3 billion. Chancellor Osborne’s target was a £90.2 billion reduction but he beat that by almost £3 billion.
In May 2010 our deficit as we took over from Labour was £153.5 billion. So, based on the last year, we have reduced that by £66.2 billion. We plan to wipe out the annual deficit to nothing by 2018 and then we can start to pay down our huge national debt.
The latest figures on our national debt put it at £1.48 trillion. It costs us more than the cost of the Defence Budget to service just the interest of this amount and it is crucial for future generations that we sort out this problem. Put in more down to earth terms, at the moment every baby that is born in the PRUH enters this world owing more than £23,000.
The Labour Party went on a ten year spending spree from 2001 when they abandoned Conservative financial planning and it is our duty to sort it out.