Quantitative easing, public sector debt and that nice Mr Blair

There is an excellent article by Claer Barrett of the Investors Chronicle, which tracks the positive effects the UK's quantitative easing programme has had on the commercial property sector. Foreign investors have been making hay with major investments and they have also been helped by the fall in sterling. However, one analyst cited by Ms Barrett notes that the £200bn quantitative easing programme (printing electronic money) of the Bank of England is going to have to be covered by the sales of government bonds (gilts) or government assets.
I don't think there is much left in the privatisation kitty (Scottish Water, the Tote!) and so I believe there should be more UK retail investment in gilts. These securities did have a dreadful year in 2009 but hey we have to think of our patriotic duty!!
It is a truism that Labour governments always run out of money but I wonder what would have happened if Tony Blair had sacked Gordon Brown. Then, we would have avoided unconfirmed reports of the UK premier throwing phones and printers around. There might also have been a chance of a few less gilts about.
Has quantitative easing worked? The UK government and the Bank of England have managed to avoid a complete collapse in economic activity. RBS and HBOS were rescued
and we are just out of recession although the youth unemployment figures are awful.
Lib Dem shadow chancellor Vince Cable had a good soundbite when he said the UK economy had just come through a heart attack.
The deleveraging of both the public and private sectors is going to take a few years. Commentators have been calling for a move from domestic consumption to exports. This is going to need a low pound against the euro for quite a few years yet. How it will be achieved when interest rates go up should be quite interesting.

The Independent's Johann Hari criticises Cameronics!!

In today's Independent its columnist Johann Hari criticises the economic policies of Tory leader David Cameron, which have been instrumental in the collapse of the Irish economy. He makes an excellent case for continuing stimulus policies and laments the self-strangulation of Labour.
Hari notes that Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman is shocked by the economic policies of Cameron.
I suppose my view is that the UK economy has received quite a bit of medicine in the form of low interest rates, low exchange rate and high level of printed money, so we will have to wait a bit for the patient to recover. I don't share the view that economic growth will make the public debt problem go away but it will help if we make a modest start in reducing the state deficit. There will probably be an increase in VAT, whatever the result of the general election, and future cuts in the health and education budgets using inflation. For instance, there has been an explosion in the number of unqualified assistants in primary schools, which has not really led to an increase in educational standards.
What we do not need is heavy-handed attempts to reduce governmental budgets such as Labour's slashing of expenditure for the universities.
Going back to Hari's article, he notes that China and Germany are carrying bigger stimulus policies than the UK. However, these two countries can probably afford them.
He also calls for a labour-intensive transition to renewable energies.