[mseebach]

> (although arguably the government should have tried to be more counter-cyclical than it was)

That's a very polite way of acknowledging that the UK government ran a massive deficit-funded spending campaign throughout one of the fattest and longest boom cycle in history.

[josephlord]

Public borrowing was small compared to private borrowing, it would have been better to take action to limit bank lending to cool the housing market than to drastically cut public spending. And I don't think many political leaders would have borrowed much less, under the Tories I think both spending and taxes would have been lower which wouldn't have produced better results.