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[url= http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/7568/debt/government-debt-under-labour-1997-2010/ ]stats and tings[/url]
First google result and all that, but pretty much the whole labour stint was in deficit.
I know off the top of my head that Labour had more surpluses that the previous Tory government. (3/4 iirc)
The Tories have hardly ever produced surpluses, certainly in the last 30 years.
Your charts fails to show in comparisons to the Conservative party.
Conservative 1991/92 to 1996/97 (6 years): £348 billion (average £58 billion per year)
Conservative 2010/11 to 2016/17 (7 years): £ 720.1 billion (average £102.9 billion per year)
Total Conservative overall deficits for the 13 years: £ 1068.1 billion (average £82.2 billion per year) - yes, over one trillion pounds in 13 years!
Total Labour 1997/98 to 2009/10 overall deficits for the 13 years: £496.4 billion (average £38.2 billion per year).
Tories are borrow monsters.
Can't escape the fact.
Nice piece here:
https://fullfact.org/economy/labour-and-conservative-records-national-debt/
It's all balls anyway. A country that controls its own money supply controls the debt.
Enlighten us?
Are you new here, or what?
In isolation, whether the government is in surplus or defitict doesnt matter. It needs to be considered in the context of whether the other three major players are in surplus or deficit in, households, corporates and the the rest of the world. It is the balance between each of these players that matters, indeed ALL that matters.
Hence the idea that you can't solve a debt crisis with debt was myopic at best, ignorant at worst - but maintsrateam economics is still dominated by the flawed models that makes otherwise sensible people believe this.
If, as in the aftermath of the crisis, the corporate and household sectors are running surpluses (paying down THEIR debt) the government's need to balance this by running deficits as does the ROW (note what happens to £ in this context)
Whether deliberately or not (if believe the latter) the Tories abandoned austerity at birth and correctly (if unintentionally) ran among the highest fiscal deficits in the developed world. Hence the UK (and US) recovered faster and stronger than the EU in complete contrast to the widely abused narrative of "austerity". It was and is a myth but a boon for sloppy journos and politicians, who can't be bothered to understand what happened and is happening.