Conservatives are economical with the truth over UK debt

The national debt has gone up, not down, under the Tories, writes John Elgar. Photograph: Dominic Lipinski/PAIt is a commonplace of today’s political debate that the Conservative government (with the help of its coalition partners and other supporters) has reduced the national debt. Such statements are widely believed, and always go unchallenged. They play an important part in supporting the imagined economic competence of the Conservatives when compared with previous Labour governments. B