The government had no choice in the debate over the economy

Very true, but reality will never stop the press getting in the way of a good anti-torey story!

Crowding out, expectations of lower taxes, there is no alternative etc. etc.

The same talking points were trotted out in the 1930s. But hey maybe this time right, and if it doesn't work at least we screwed over the poor so it's basically win-win.

What utter rubbish. Had this ragbag coalition simply kept to the pre-election spending plans, then the deficit would have gone down anyway. With these incredibly stupid cuts, which not surprisingly are making the consumer panic, growth is going to be lower, a lot lower.

In the end it will be hilarious to see that the reduction these numpties achieve will turn out less than had they not changed anything!

Also you seem to be confused between the actual reason you're behind the cuts and your cover story (this is pretty standard in the tory blogosphere).

Your headline gives us the cover story - "there is no alternative". But the meat of the article is about the actual reason - you believe in the voodoo economics by which taking money out of the economy creates growth. "Sadly the government has no alternative but to do this thing which is actually a really good idea" doesn't make sense as a narrative, because presumably even if there were an alternative you'd still pick this one.

I thought that as a nation we were very much in debt, which could well have dire effects on the whole nation during the years to come.

Action currently being taken should bring down this debt fairly quickly, other action suggested may or may not have had that result.

If our debts had continued to increase what would have been the final outcome?

Answers on the back of a post card please.

I'm just not convinced that throwing hundreds of thousands of public and private sector workers onto the dole is the best way to bring down the country's debt. It's not like they disappear from the books, these people will then need to be paid benefits. Not only that they will cease to pay tax, national insurance, pay into a pension scheme for the future, pay council tax, and if that weren't enough, they may lose their homes and be forced onto housing benefits. Some saving.

Problem is, you need to pay off the debts. Stopping spending doesn't automatically reduce debts, you need taxes to come in.

Your petrol tank doesn't automatically refill when you switch off the engine does it?!

Notice that the election promises about capital gains tax and removing higher rate relief on pension contributions was a pack of lies?

Let's takle a closer look at the 30s - so often quoted, as here, as a terrible example of the wrong policy - that of Keynes of course being right.

The peak of 2,995,00 unemployed of Jan 1933 had fallen to 1,276,000 by the autumn of 1937, when 11 million in insured occupations surpassed the figure of 1929. Four million people had been absorbed or reabsorbed into industry, even in coal mining, unemployment had been cut from 40% to 18%. Agriculture flourished; the acreage under wheat rose by 44%, home-produced bacon doubled.

In the year 35-36, while local authorities built 52,000 houses, private builders produced 270,000, half paid for with money advanced by building societies to wage-earning owners, amongst them my father, who on a wage of about £150 a year bought for a little over £600 the house where I grew up; it now commands a price of around 180k. To keep the same ratio a single buyer today would need a salary of £45k

This was a time when many families had one wage-earner, for married women rarely worked outside the home - remember that female teachers, and probably women in other jobs were automatically sacked if they got married.

There were of course many areas where there was hardship and deprivation, just as there are now after 13 years of Labour government. The legend that Britain suffered appallingly under the Great Depression is a convenient quarter-truth mouthed by ill-informed politicians who worship at the shrine of JMK. We fared better than any other country.

Bernard, you are absolutely correct, The National Government, elected by the biggest landslide ever, was the greatest administration of modern times.

AJP Taylor, a left-wing historian but an honest man, was amongst the first to point out how far from the whole truth the cliched 'lost decade, Hunger Marches, appeasement' image of the Thirties was.

Britain preserved its constitutional democracy when all around were falling into civil war or dictatorship. A dangerously Nazi-admiring king was eased out. Our depression was shallower than others, including America's double dip under Roosevelt. Most people, except in pockets of structural de-industrialisation, became richer. Many social welfare reforms we trace to Attlee were really initiated by Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain, such as holidays with pay and the raising of the school leaving age. Even the average dole claimant was better off in real terms in the 1930s than his fully employed grandfather had been just before the Great War.

Inflation was controlled and the value of sterling maintained-- yet the UK managed to rearm fast enough to deter Hitler in 1940. Churchill's rhetorical defiance would have been hollow without the air defences Chamberlain and Inskip placed in his hands.

Let's hope today's Tory-Liberal coalition governs with as much pragmatic good sense.

Of course, in the 1930s the UK had a very different economic position in the World. We were a net exporter, and consumption was primarily provided from within.

We are so far away from this, that any lessons from the 30's are irrelevant. The problem now is that if anyone has any net disposable income after essentials, then it tends to leave the country, thus making our position worse!!

So perhaps we should reduce everyon'es incmoe to a level at which they cannot afford to buy foreign goods, or go abroad for a holiday !! :-)

Of course, if we do not reduce our deficit soon, and keep spending, then sterling will dive, inflation will run riot, and we will be in this position in any case !!

When Keynes first proposed that spending was the solution to slump he added some provisos:

“Whenever you buy goods you increase employment – though they must be British, home-produced goods, if you are to increase employment in this country.”

It is also forgotten that although he was a committed free-trader, he reluctantly agreed that a tariff barrier was a necessary if temporary expedient to energise the domestic economy. His vivid picture of housewives rushing out to buy sheets and blankets assumed that they were made in the UK. We now have a double problem that he could not have foreseen- cheap foreign goods and cheap foreign labour. The free movement of labour across 27 countries must tend to push wages to the lowest level; how many eastern europeans are working in our service sector at the minimum wage or lower and enjoying benefits unavailable or expensive in their home states? When Cadburys and others close factories here and move the production to Poland or Hungary they are seeking lower wage costs beyond union control. The common currency eases financial problems that arise in siting production in cheap-labour economies in Asia. What happens if and when when China revalues its currency?

May I add another point? It's not just a question of paying off national debt, never forget the cost of servicing it - it's the interest bill. When TV commercials offer to solve our debt problems, what they are really saying is ' pay your (increased) interest to us.'

Is anyone with a mole in the Treasury able to tell us the size of the current bill?

there is no doubt that we have problems-we do have choices in how we deal with them and this lot are making choices based on their tory view of how the world should work-ITS A CHOICE!!!!-and if i hear the phrase "were all in this together" again i think i may vomit! We are NOT all in this together-bankers still have bonuses while poorer folk lose their jobs and houses! cameron et al may find they have to buy cheaper caviare-oh yes were all in this together!!!! UNION LEADERS GETTING PAY RISES STICKs IN MY THROAT AS WELL!!!!!

So Jon - what would you cut to solve the problem - we need constructive criticsim ?