There is a wonderful line in the Charlie Drake novelty song, ‘My boomerang won’t come back’. It is delivered by the witch doctor, who makes this wise observation, ‘If you want your boomerang to come back, then first you’ve got to throw it’.

Since 2010 the governments of this country have been applying a policy of austerity. Other than the NHS, all areas of public service have been subject to massive cuts and/or a failure to keep up with costs. All this is in an attempt to reduce national debt.

By making a fetish of one economic indicator to the detriment of others the economy has been damaged and the lives of the majority of the population have been made worse. Only the seriously rich have done very well out of this policy. It is effectively taxing the poor to pay for the rich. Osborne and Hammond are Robin Hood in reverse.

Many of the cuts have been foisted onto local authorities. Your local authority has legal responsibilities to provide services within their area, such as care homes, education, the police, social services and much else. The part of the money which was the greatest part, from central government, has been halved in recent years. This has led to many shortfalls and a need to ration services. The fat disappeared years ago. These cuts are through the flesh and deep into the bone.

In an attempt to raise more cash local authorities have raised Council Tax and Business Rates. The latter raises business costs and is a major factor in high street businesses shutting down. This is very bad for the economy and jobs, both locally and on a national scale.

Meanwhile we have stagnant economy, the worst growth rate of any EU or G7 country. Of course Brexit doesn’t help, but I’m going that way in this blog posting.

I am willing to accept that at some points monetarist policies have been of benefit to the country. But the point of economic policy is to benefit the people of the country, and on that measure the past eight years have been a spectacular failure.

After the great economic crash at the end of the 1920’s the government pursued a policy recommended by the economist J M Keynes. This invested in infrastructure and housing and encouraged investment. The equivalent in the US was Roosevelt’s New Deal. This policy kick started the economy. We could do with adopting this policy again. That is not controversial, as it is supported by almost all academic economists.

It does mean investing in the country; in economic terms this is known as pump priming. But it is investing in the future, and you have to invest to get a return. In economic terms, if you want your boomerang to come back, then first you’ve got to throw it.