Nick Supports Fiscal Stimulus
Nick Thomas-Symonds strongly supports the approach taken by the Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Chancellor Alistair Darling, to invest their way out of the global financial crisis in which Britain finds itself engulfed.
The principle that unemployment and economic cycles are not the inevitable product of western economies was debunked by John Maynard Keynes back in the 1930’s. Governments should not simply stand by and set families adrift during straitened economic circumstances but should take positive action to invest their way out of recession. That is why Child Benefit, which was £575 a year in 1997, will by 2010 be over £1,000 a year: real help for families. That is why the government has acted quickly with a fiscal stimulus that will ensure that as much as possible can be done to hold down the inevitable rises in unemployment.
David Cameron talks about thrift and an age of austerity. But an age of austerity for who? And what does thrift actually mean? David Cameron’s age of austerity will fall most on hard working families and it is those hard working families that we need to support through this recession. And what thrift actually means is a real terms cut in public spending which can only lead to increased unemployment. That is why I support what the Prime Minister and the Chancellor are doing.
About Nick
Nicklaus Thomas-Symonds is a barrister and was born in South Wales. He attended his local comprehensive school and was educated at Oxford University where he read politics, philosophy and economics. He still holds a lectureship at his old Oxford College St Edmund Hall and specialises in teaching 20th Century British Government.
