More Labour spin

What a load of sycophantic tripe former Labour spin doctor John McTernan writes (“We always knew Ed B was bright – now we see he’s right”, Perspective, 1 August).

If shadow chancellor Ed Balls had had the divine foresight attributed to him why did he not foresee the folly of Labour’s mismanagement of the economy during its 13 years in power, and the £178 billion accumulated public spending deficit it left in 2010?

And, yes, Mr McTernan, we know that figure was revised down to £156bn within a few days – representing a £22bn error in his government’s monitoring procedure.

I even managed to forecast, in a letter in The Scotsman in March 2004, that another six years of their £30bn a year of borrowing would result in a £180bn deficit, so how did the great Ed manage to miss it?

It remains a mystery why they needed to borrow at all, with the proceeds from their credit-driven, cheap money-based GDP, and more than 100 stealth taxes.

The claim, that “a 2010 Labour government would have taken £20bn out of NHS spending, but without cutting services”, really does stretch credibility considering Labour were booted out, and bearing in mind they had inflicted on the economy in 2003 a 1 per cent hike in national insurance contributions, both employee and employer, with proceeds of £8bn per year at 2003 prices for NHS reforms.

Mr McTernan omits to mention whether Labour would have returned the national insurance contributions to the taxpayers.

Douglas R Mayer

Thomson Crescent

Currie