[user104658]

I actually thought that was an awful interview by Mr Snow. He played the role of the antagonist, which is sometimes fine, it can be effective but he descended into whining by the end which seemed fully scripted.

More importantly, it's pretty clear that he wasn't actually listening. He had that script that he was going by and failed to adapt the interview at all to any of the responses. He was also failing to give ample time for a full response. Terrible journalism.

My personal views on the all-important deficit is that they've basically got it all wrong anyway. Promising to clear a large deficit through austerity in 5 to 10 years, is stupid. And harmful. What they should be doing is making sure they do chip away at it, slowly, primarily by INCREASING EFFICIENCY not by making cuts across the board. Our economy is woefully inefficient. That is the problem. We could be operating with zero deficit without any cuts to services if it was all running smoothly and then building from THAT point to repay debts. It doesn't matter if that takes several years. This idea that it has to be done and dusted in a couple of years is madness.