Ten years on...
I've just been helping a student find this: the text of Tony's Blair's Romanes lecture on education at the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, in December 1999.
Was rather, erm, struck by the following description:
"Economic management was poor, with two deep recessions in two decades. There was chronic instability - boom and bust - in the economic cycle. Borrowing was £28bn and national debt doubled at the up-stage of the cycle, an unsustainable position. Investment in infrastructure and the public services was declining as a proportion of national income. The share of national income spent on education was falling sharply. Unemployment was set to rise, pushing up social security spending, which had already risen by 4% in real terms over the last Parliament, a higher rate than spending on schools, hospitals and transport."
He is, of course, talking about the situation Labour inherited in 1997. Ahem...
Was rather, erm, struck by the following description:
"Economic management was poor, with two deep recessions in two decades. There was chronic instability - boom and bust - in the economic cycle. Borrowing was £28bn and national debt doubled at the up-stage of the cycle, an unsustainable position. Investment in infrastructure and the public services was declining as a proportion of national income. The share of national income spent on education was falling sharply. Unemployment was set to rise, pushing up social security spending, which had already risen by 4% in real terms over the last Parliament, a higher rate than spending on schools, hospitals and transport."
He is, of course, talking about the situation Labour inherited in 1997. Ahem...