In the wake of the third of the Leaders' debates, I've been left feeling none the wiser about the economy. Nor about our chances of plugging the £167bn abyss in the UK's finances, caused by the credit crisis.
Many of the measures announced by the three main parties sound good. But, as ever, jargon and abstract figures confound my understanding. ("We'll raise £2 billion by increasing the withdrawal rate on time-limit contributory ESA!").
Do any of these measures actually come close to reducing the deficit?
In this infographic and accompanying spreadsheet, I've tried to answer this question.
I've visualised the the key economic measures touted by the parties, relative to the size of the budget deficit.
I hope it makes the situation a little clearer.
It highlights one clear thing for me. Whoever gets in will have to slash and burn public services, raise taxes and probably think the unthinkable to plug that deficit. Extreme and politically-uncomfortable measures that went strangely unmentioned in yesterday's debate…
About the data
You can find the data in a Google spreadsheet here: http://bit.ly/dotheycutit
The spreadsheet contains a full list of measures, sourced from newspaper reports and the Institute Of Fiscal Studies. It's been de-jargonised wherever possible.
Thanks to James Key and Matt Hancock for extra research.
About me
I'm a data journalist and information designer. I run the website InformationIsBeautiful.net, dedicated to visualising information, ideas, stories and data.
My book of infographic exploria is called Information Is Beautiful. It's published by HarperCollins. In the US, the book's called The Visual Miscellaneum
