The debt was more than twice this level in 1945, and we still built the NHS and secured decades of prosperity.
Would have been helpful if you’d pointed out that Major Atlee was running budget surpluses at the time, no?
Oh well done Johann!
November 12th, 2010 · 11 Comments
Tags: Judging Johann
11 responses so far ↓
1 dearieme // Nov 12, 2010 at 4:00 pm
“we still built the NHS”: observe the dishonest attempt to imply that the new NHS built hospitals. But it didn’t, it just nationalised the old ones.
2 gawain // Nov 12, 2010 at 5:19 pm
It was just a change of management in 1945, somethingthat could happen again
3 Jonathan // Nov 12, 2010 at 5:54 pm
dearieme-
That should be ‘nationalised the old ones- without compensation’ . And, I believe, a 6 billion dollar loan from the US.
4 dearieme // Nov 12, 2010 at 6:19 pm
Jonathan – I was once told off very firmly for implying that the Yanks paid for the NHS. But money is fungible, so yes they did.
5 Newmania // Nov 12, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Well yes and that war thing , we could stop fighting it . That helps
6 paul ilc // Nov 12, 2010 at 9:42 pm
I’m reminded of Correlli Barnett’s thesis in ‘The Audit of War’ (1986?) that the Attlee government crippled the UK with its high-minded, evangelical/non-conformist emphasis on social spending and redistribution, rather than infra-structural renewal.
7 Matthew // Nov 12, 2010 at 10:36 pm
“But money is fungible, so yes they did.”
That doesn’t make sense. If money wasn’t fungible, you might have a case. But as it is, you can only claim they built $6bn/Govt Spending, and even then it’s a bit tenous as they lent us dollars which buy imports, the NHS presumably spent most of its money internally. You’d have to claim they allowed us to divert export goods to import goods and so on.
8 dearieme // Nov 12, 2010 at 11:31 pm
matthew, I was told off because, I was told, the Yank money was spent on other things, not the NHS. But money being fungible, I can equally well assert that it was spent on the NHS.
9 john malpas // Nov 13, 2010 at 1:31 am
In 1958 I was working in some pretty ancient hospitals – e.g Cardiff Royal infirmary, Hardwicke hospital – with some quite ancient equipment – so where did this money go?
10 Bill Whittaker // Nov 13, 2010 at 2:00 pm
“secured decades of prosperity”
Back in the early 60′s I remember listening to a friend of my fathers after a trip to England. He couldn’t get over how poor everybody was, and this man was working class ( a mechanic ) himself. It was a common opinion at the time that the British economy had done very poorly after ww2 compared to the other allies.
11 pete // Nov 13, 2010 at 3:03 pm
“…..the British economy had done very poorly after ww2 compared to the other allies.”
FFS
The British economy did very poorly compared with its former enemies.
Leave a Comment