To think that a lot of people have forgotten, or did not know, that..

[FelicityFlops]

When New Labour was elected in 1997, Chancellor Gordon Brown explicitly stated that the economy, i.e. what they had inherited in fiscal terms, was in a very good state and he had no plans to change this.
Cue massive increases in public spending and selling off the UK's gold reserves.
Happy to be corrected on this, but is this not where the economic downturn started and the rise of dependency on benefits began?
Or, in very simplistic terms, if you inherit a sum of money and some assets, you spend them instead of conserving them or using them to promote future welfare?

OP. With all due respect it appears as if you do not understand core economic principles. Check out the Talk section for more easily digestible fiscal explanations.

Many people are uneducated about any of this financial stuff. Brexit being one.

FFS

A simple look on Wikipedia will explain:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financialcrisissof2007%E2%80%932008

Here's a chart of UK National debt which does indeed show that debt rose from the 1997 election and the 2010 election (ie under Labour). In Labours defence they would say it was in response to the 2008 financial crisis.

We can also see that debt rose under the Conservatives from 2010 to 2022. Again the Conservatives would say it was in response to Covid .

@ghostyslovesheets do you have your own views or do you just cut and paste google links?

I don't believe in re-inventing the wheel.

I've learnt that on these sort of threads you can't do anything right.

If you give your own opinion people say "I don't believe that. Show me the figure/source/basis for that comment"
So that means practically writing a dissertation with references.

OTOH if you provide an article/link with info on it you get told "Haven't you got an original thought/view? You're idle/can't be bothered/can't think for yourself?"

etc etc etc.

I rest my case.