Busted

I dare you to watch (you'll need to keep a sick bag handy)

Do you remember 1997?

Of course you do. Who could forget that brave new world? A new day had dawned, had it not. A new leader, a new beginning, and a new Chancellor. A Chancellor who admonished his debt-addicted predecessor thus:

"The Chancellor is first and foremost the guardian of the people's money."

Yes indeed, ladies and gentlemen - the People's Money. The money that belongs not to the selfish grasping rapscallions who earned it, but to The People.

"During the 1990s the national debt has doubled. This year alone the taxpayer will pay out £25 billion in interest payments on debt, more than we spend on schools. Public finances must be sustainable over the long term. If they are not then it is the poor, the elderly, and those on fixed incomes who depend on public services that will suffer most. So, as with our approach to monetary policy, so in fiscal policy: we will now establish clear rules, a new discipline, openness, and accountability.

My first rule - the golden rule - ensures that over the economic cycle the Government will borrow only to invest and that current spending will be met from taxation.

My second rule is that, as a proportion of national income, public debt will be held at a prudent and stable level over the economic cycle. And to implement these rules, I am announcing today a five year deficit reduction plan.

Together, these rules and this plan will ensure a historic break from the short-termism and expediency that have characterised the recent fiscal policies of our country. As with our monetary policy, our fiscal policy will be all the more credible for being open and accountable."

Yes, that really is what he said.

And here we are 13 years later, with debt that has already doubled again, and which is set to double again by the end of the next parliament. And debt interest payments that within a year or two will again exceed the hugely increased schools budget.

As for ensuring "a historic break from short-termism and expediency", he did that all right. Entirely disregarding short-term considerations such as red signals, and matters of expediency such as staying alive, he cranked the controls to max and slammed us into the buffers at speed. From where recovery will be a very long-term undertaking indeed.

Of course, Brown also made a number of other ludicrous pledges during those first golden months. And one of the central ones was to lift the UK's productivity levels up to those of our more successful competitors. As he put it in his 1998 budget:

"..over the next few years we must seize this opportunity - by challenging ourselves to lift our productivity in each and every industry towards the levels of the world's best...

Breaking free from old ideas of state control and crude laissez-faire, our new ambition for Britain must be... to implement for our country a medium term strategy for growth."

Not the failed Wilson National Plan, you understand, nor the failed Callaghan industrial policy with its National Enterprise Board. No, a medium term strategy for growth - something brand new and whizzo and totally 21st Century. Which is how we got all those incredibly complex and expensive arrangements like R&D tax credits.

So how do you reckon it's worked out? How do you think we've done in the international productivity league tables under Labour?

As it happens, the ONS has recently given us an update. And needless to say, it doesn't look good.

Here's the summary chart, showing UK output per worker relative to G7 average (ex UK). As we can see, despite all the huffing and puffing - and expense - there was virtually no improvement between 1997 and 2008:

Now, you might say thank God. At least Labour didn't make productivity worse.

But you should note that the ONS numbers only go up to 2008, and we know that UK productivity fell during 2009. In fact, according to the ONS itself, output per worker fell by 3.1% in 2009 compared to 2008. So watch this space.

It really is amazing how apparently intelligent people can still recall 1997 with such fond memories (eg Victoria Coren on last night's Question Time). 13 years of Labour deceit and wishful thinking have left Britain crumpled up in a busted heap. Crushed under a pile of debt and economically prostrate.