The next time someone treats you as if you are daft for questioning the need for cuts, remember our Top Deficit Deniers (or more accurately, folk who, like us, recognise that the deficit has grown and that it must eventually be reduced, but who just don’t think Osborne-style austerity is the way forward)...
Joseph Stiglitz
Professor of Economics at Columbia University and a Nobel Laureate in Economics. (Yes, we’ve got a Nobel Prize winner and former World Bank Chief Economist – an audio version of his recent ‘Newsnight Scotland’ interview will be uploaded soon)
Paul Krugman
Professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and 2008 Nobel Laureate in Economics. (Another Nobel Prize winner for us.)
Robert Skidelsky
Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes received numerous prizes. (There are a lot of kiddie-on Keynesian’s about - Robert’s not one of them)
Martin Wolf
Chief Economics Commentator, Financial Times (and Samual Brittan at the FT too)
William Keegan
Senior Economics Commentator, Observer (Gets it right nearly every time.)
David Blanchflower
Professor of Economics at Dartmouth College, Professor at the University of Stirling, & former member of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy Committee. (The one member of the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee who saw recession coming.)
Larry Elliott
Economics Editor, the Guardian. (Check out: The Gods that Failed: How Blind Faith in Markets has Cost us Our Future)
Will Hutton
Economics commentator and former Editor of the Observer. (He might be one of the usual suspects but it doesn’t make him wrong)
Boris Johnson
Mayor of London (Definitely not a usual suspect but that doesn’t make him wrong either)
Ann Pettifor
Fellow of NEF (New Economics Foundation) and Author of books on debt and international finance. (Some may consider Ann a ‘usual suspect’ but her recent record is unchallengeable. She correctly predicted the bursting of the credit bubble.)
Ed Balls
Labour Leadership Candidate and Shadow Education Secretary (The STUC has no view on the leadership election but check out his blog on the deficit for what Labour should have been saying when it was in power)
Vince Cable
Out of the Top Ten for Good: Secretary of State for Business (Just months ago he was making sense, but that was before May 6th)