McDonnell vow to borrow £250bn will ‘saddle generations with debt’
LABOUR has been accused of plotting to saddle future generations with a “mountain” of debt by going on an “eyewatering borrowing binge”.
The Tories went on the attack after shadow chancellor John McDonnell refused to say yesterday how much extra his plans would cost in debt interest.
Labour has promised £250billion of extra spending in transport, energy, and communications over 10 years.
Mr McDonnell told ITV’s Robert Peston he could not predict future borrowing costs but with rates at “historic lows, this is the time to borrow”.
He added that the money “wisely invested in our infrastructure... pays for itself”. Last night Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss said: “Labour can’t say when they would eliminate the deficit because with their eye-watering borrowing binge, they never would.
“And their shadow chancellor again refused to come clean on how much that borrowing would cost taxpayers.”
She added: “Labour would saddle future generations with a mountain of debt, meaning higher taxes and fewer jobs. Once again, ordinary working people would pay the price.”
The TaxPayers’ Alliance claimed Labour plans outlined before and since June’s election entailed borrowing that would add a total of £25billion to debt interest payments by 2022-3, if implemented.
Chief executive John O’Connell said: “The shadow chancellor’s claim that his borrowing plan would ‘pay for itself’ is entirely wrong.”
A Labour spokesman said: “This is pretty spurious economic illiteracy even by the TPA’s low standards. They are using different years than Labour set out in our manifesto costings in this report and clearly they haven’t done their homework as Labour’s economic plans at the last election accounted for debt interest payments anyway.”
JOHN MCDONNELL is showing himself to be as accomplished a mathematician as his colleague Diane Abbott, famous for her gaffes about funding the police made in a radio interview last summer.
A few days ago, pressed for details on how he would deal with the national debt, he declined to answer saying “That’s why we have iPads and that’s why we have advisers”. On Peston On Sunday yesterday he was again providing no figures. Robert Peston rightly accused him of patronising the public.
He was also demonstrating his very limited grasp of his brief – never good in a shadow chancellor.