David Cameron speech on the economy

David Cameron speech on the economy; ENGLAND: London: Royal United Services Institute: INT David Cameron speech SOT Last week I argued that we have to leave behind the failed economic consensus of recent years, break from the past, and develop a plan to address the fundamental weaknesses in our economy. Addressing these long-term economic weaknesses will not only benefit our economy in the long-term the action we take to bring down debt, improve financial regulation, tackle welfare dependency and rebalance our economy will also provide us with a routemap for recovery in the short term. Today I want to explain how we intend to address Labour's debt crisis through the control of public spending. And how we will do that in a way that is consistent with the aims and values of the modern, progressive Conservatism. But first we need to be clear about the scale of Labour's debt crisis, and its implications for Britain's economic health. We are not dealing with some average deficit, on a par with our peers. Just this morning, we saw the worst set of public finance figures in our peacetime history. According to some forecasters we are set to have the largest budget deficit of any G20 country this year. It could be more than 10% of our GDP. That is easily the biggest deficit since the second world war – far larger even than when Denis Healey had to go to the IMF in the 1970s. We can't put this problem off until sometime in the future. Not just because I think we have a moral obligation to stop running up bills that will have to be paid by future generations. But because unless we take concrete steps to start reducing this massive debt, the recession will get worse and the recovery will be delayed. Why? It's a question of confidence. When confidence in the economy is low, people and businesses stop spending. Restoring confidence is the most important step in economic recovery, because that is ultimately what will unleash the financial firepower of hundr...