"We used to think that you could spend your way out of a recession and increase employment by cutting taxes and boosting government spending. I tell you in all candour that that option no longer exists, and in so far as it ever did exist, it only worked on each occasion since the war by injecting a bigger dose of inflation into the economy, followed by a higher level of unemployment as the next step. "
So said James Callaghan when he was Labour prime minister around the time of the 1976 IMF crisis (when it bailed out the British economy before north sea oil could do the very same thing)
How things change give or take the hack back in spending plans from 2010/11 onwards set out in the November 2008 Pre Budget Report by the chancellor. And dear god was that predicated on optimistic economic assumptions.
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