How different might the last decade of British politics have been if the public had been better informed about economics? It’s the inescapable thought I had when reading through the BBC’s newly published “thematic review” into its coverage of “taxation, public spending, government borrowing and debt output”.
Would a public not spoon-fed mush about the supposed perils of government borrowing have been so ready to accept David Cameron and George Osborne’s austerity in the early 2010s? Would Labour’s then leadership have felt so compelled to support spending cuts – a position that helped lay the ground for Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-austerity leadership bid? Might the Brexit vote have gone differently?
