How did Labour afford the radical investment in Education?

[Undesired Walrus]

I don't know if anyone got the education supplement in the Guardian the other day but the stats shocked me. After hovering around without increasing for most of the 80's, it dramatically increased each year in real terms since 1997.

How did they afford this?

[Darat]

The growth in the economy and borrowing.

[Undesired Walrus]

Did the Conservatives have as strong an economy towards their end?

[Giz]

I don't know if anyone got the education supplement in the Guardian the other day but the stats shocked me. After hovering around without increasing for most of the 80's, it dramatically increased each year in real terms since 1997.

How did they afford this?

Have you seen the deficit?

Another question might be:

Given the way the UK's rankings in science/maths education has fallen relative to our international competitors, was the money being spent efficiently?

[Darat]

Have you seen the deficit?

Another question might be:

Given the way the UK's rankings in science/maths education has fallen relative to our international competitors, was the money being spent efficiently?

The first generation of school kids who can be said to have been schooled under the Labour "funding" haven't left school yet.

[Giz]

The first generation of school kids who can be said to have been schooled under the Labour "funding" haven't left school yet.

You're right, we mustn't leap to conclusions - they have only been in power 13 years.

[Jaggy Bunnet]

I don't know if anyone got the education supplement in the Guardian the other day but the stats shocked me. After hovering around without increasing for most of the 80's, it dramatically increased each year in real terms since 1997.

How did they afford this?

They can't. They have borrowed billions and have no idea of how we are going to repay this.

[Darat]

You're right, we mustn't leap to conclusions - they have only been in power 13 years.

Whoever said that - I just pointed out the flaw in your argument i.e. that it is Labour polices that have resulted in the "UK's rankings in science/maths education has fallen relative to our international competitors".

[commandlinegamer]

PPP: having business build and maintain new schools and paying them back over many decades.

[quixotecoyote]

Whoever said that - I just pointed out the flaw in your argument i.e. that it is Labour polices that have resulted in the "UK's rankings in science/maths education has fallen relative to our international competitors".

When it takes a 13 year cycle to see results, most of us with 70 year lifespans aren't going to wait through that many cycles. :)

[Francesca R]

The investment in education (which has produced mediocre results) and health (which has produced good results) were both paid for by running large structural budget deficits (borrowing). As long as the economy grew strongly, this was offset by cyclical surpluses and so it never showed up alarmingly in the government balance.

Unfortunately, because the economy was leveraged into a global expansion of credit that involved a massive and concentrated mis-allocation of productive resources, the cyclical support for the UK's public financing vanished and reversed extremely abruptly in 2008 and 2009. And growth and tax really can't close the gap from here on.