There is a reason for adage; 'the truth,
the whole truth, and nothing but the truth'. Omission of context and use of isolated data points is how propagandists such as the canary create 'fake news' rather subtler than Trump claiming larger inauguration crowds than Obama.
Here is a graph from wings over Scotland, included because it's a bit cleaner in presentation imho:
The bit the canary has omitted, is the rather pointed fact that the picture shows previous governments borrowing while economy was in the doldrums then reducing that as it picked up. The notable thing about new labour was their contra Keynesian increase in borrowing as the economy was in an unprecedented (credit based) boom. After their initial term where they stuck with pre-existing Tory plans and therefore kept tracking downwards, they massively increased borrowing when the sun was shining - when Keynes would have you mending your roof.
You then had the double whammy caused by the casino crashing - that casino being the foundation of the economy in itself - exacerbated by the mind boggling uptick in borrowing
on top. We see the devastating effect thereafter, which has continued ever since, with borrowing staying in the stratosphere to address the effects without savage cuts (the canary's closing lines showing their hand unambiguously).
The rather melancholy longer term picture is Labour wrecking the economy, the tories borrowing to patch it up, getting it under control again, Labour gaining power; rinse, repeat. Or perhaps we are to believe that the Tories are actually the party of big state spending, in which case why do the canary et al prefer labour cuts?
