Oh Darling... not in January

When it gets to the end of the month, and payday is a distant memory, there is often a time when a Poli-Chick has to borrow money- either from the nice people Mastercard, a friend or perhaps the Bank of Mum and Dad. What is perhaps more worrying is if, the day after payday, you still can’t afford to pay your rent.


That is the position the Government found itself in today. January is their bumper pay packet when tax receipts come in. Yet they still had to borrow £4.3billion last month-the first time a Government has had to borrow money in January since figures began in 1993.

That’s bad.

So what do we do going forward? Our Chancellor, Darling, has promised to halve our deficit levels in 4 years. Not quick enough for some, including the Tories, who called this month’s figures appalling. According to their maths, each this year’s borrowing is equivalent to £4,800 per UK family.
So what should we do? Start tightening public spending now or wait until next year? If we wait, will the debt rise to high? If we do it too quickly then will this harm economic growth?



Poli-Chick xx