The Conservatives are, in sum, as guilty as their Labour colleagues.
After the disastrous economic mismanagement of a succession of Labour governments, which managed to give away 60% of the nation’s gold reserves, double public debt, build a huge out-of-control budget deficit (despite constantly raising taxes), and shrink GDP by a whopping 5% during its last full year, the incoming coalition government was faced with difficult choices. Amazingly, they made the right one, and set out to implement drastic cuts in public spending in order to reduce the deficit. Unfortunately, however, they were either unable, or unwilling, to eliminate the deficit with just cuts, and decided they also had to increase VAT and raise taxes. With citizens under ever increasing economic pressure, particularly during the past two years, during which they had to put up with bankster perfidy, government waste, fiscal rapacity, job losses, and inflation (the true extent of which remains hidden), the coalition’s decision to cut subsidies and allow universities to treble their fees was not going to be met with smiles—particularly after 13 years of a Labour government that fomented a culture of entitlement through their egalitarian efforts to extend university education to half the population.