"I told you so"

It sounds as though A Very British Dude, like I, saw through Labour's lies and incompetence earlier than most and suffered the scorn of many for our perceptiveness.

"Fucking ignorant lefties argued whilst I was writing screeds lamenting the steady, deliberate expansion of the state, and a complete failure to control costs, that borrowing was vital to correct "decades of underfunding of the Public Services". Labour parties in power cannot resist the temptation to throw money at their clients. Being unable to see that taxing the goose, the private sector, which lays the golden eggs, eventually kills it, Labour governments always always bankrupt the country.

...

When the Labour party came to power in 1997, they pledged to stick to Tory spending plans. The result of which was that by 2000, debt as a proportion of GDP was the lowest in the UK of any major economy, and tax was a relatively sane 38% or so. Since 1997, Gordon Brown has embarked on a tax-grab which has taken us from one of the lowest to one of the highest taxed economies in Europe....

Despite the economic growth, and the obscene tax-grab, he still thought it wasn't enough money. He thought it necessary to borrow a further 3% or so of GDP per year from 2000. He was spending even more than he took in taxes at the height of the boom. The result was, when the music stopped, and city taxes in particular dried up (many banks are unlikely to pay UK corporation tax for a decade) the public finances deteriorated rapidly. Unless Gordon cuts spending, and he appears psychologically unable to do this, Britain will be unable to service the debt he is running up.

He is now in denial. And the budget was not used to start putting the economy on a sound footing for example by restraining spending, but was used to prop the Government up politically.... The budget was an admission of failure, and an acceptance of inevitable defeat. It was a scorched earth budget aimed at discomfiting the Tories, and to hell with the Country."