bearded socialist on the defcit and the CSR

ok, what gets me is that the deficit is about £150 billion. The cost of bailing out the banks is well over £100 bn. The deficit excluding the bank bailout is about £30bn, which is nothing compared to just about any other country. still too large i'd argue, but not really significant comparitvely (SP?).

the defcit is due to bailing out the banks, which admittedly the Tories opposed, but would have left us without an economy. Waste, bureaucracy and benefits cheats did not lead to the deficit we currently have. sadly, i honestly do think the coalition have done what they wanted to do for purely ideological reasons i.e. shrink the state. that's an arguement, fair enough. but a marginal increase or decrease in the size of the state is a completely different thing from the deficit we have at the moment which was caused by bailing out the banks, not public sector pay rates