Let us hope that the govt will support innovation and growth over the next few years, rather than relying solely of the private sector.
What a hopeless optimist you are, Dinahmo . You said yourself at the start that he was signalling austerity with all the talk of high deficit.
Did you notice nothing at all for the public sector? That's how it starts. All those key workers who've been slogging their guts out for the past year, ameliorating the government's huge mistakes over covid19? Zilch for them...
Plenty more corruption on the way with those Freeports. Smuggling, tax avoidance, no need to implement workers' rights... Lovely...
You are absolutely correct to point out that deficits aren't damaging.
But what is more pertinent is that the so called 'deficit' is nowhere near as big as is made out, as all the QE that has been created is newly created money which is owed to no-one.
And the rest? Well, some of it is 'owed' to foreign holders of UK bonds and gilts, but most of the rest of it is actually people's savings and investments or institutional investments (such as for pension funds). This is not a Bad Thing. We have a safe, unexciting, but safe, place for our savings and the government has use of our money until the bond repayment is due, or we withdraw it. You know when you invest in shares and you are solemnly warned that share prices can fall as well as rise? Well, apart from Premium bonds, which erode in value through inflation, your government investments can't fall in value. Nice and safe; government can't go bust.
So why worry about the deficit?
What is more, because government is able to create as much money as it likes, it can afford to pay for anything it wants to pay for. This not only can maintain effective public services but also maintain growth through the use of private enterprise to supply resources to the public sector and the spending of public service employees' wages in the the private sector.
The government could, if it cared, equally put money into vital Early Years and childhood services and into social care for the elderly, and invest in the NHS, and invest in Green projects with no detriment to the national economy.
But it won't, because it doesn't care...