Tough choices not tinkering at the margins of the problem

There is an interesting piece in the Indy this morning from venture capitalist Jon Moulton who writes that the week's debate on the economy is tinkering at the margins of the problem.

The debt that Britain faces is monstrous, and neither Tories nor Labour will admit it. They prefer to quibble about the small change than admit that they are taking part in, in effect, a conspiracy on the British people. To make it worse, much of the media is allowing them to get away with it, presumably because they think – as the politicians seem to believe – that the public doesn't want to hear the bad news. In short, we are complicit in a con.

There are ,he writes,are three ways to reduce our national debt: let inflation rip to destroy the debt; increased tax revenues from higher taxes and economic growth; cut government spending.

And the only viable solution is

to cut the public proportion of our economy, which means reducing spending, increasing the ability of the economy to grow and reducing the number of civil servants, and probably their pay and pensions. And the numbers are large: we need to take out several hundred thousand public sector jobs. We need to reduce the vast liability for public pensions that clouds our future. The politics – and human costs – of this are not palatable. Tough choices have to be made as to what we can afford.