Can the UK afford to bail out Ireland? | Business | The Guardian

Can the UK afford to bail out Ireland? | Business | The Guardian: "Poor old Ireland, felled horribly in the crash. It's splendid really, that British sympathy extends to a possible bail-out from George Osborne's Treasury. But one does wonder where the money is coming from, as UK citizens themselves feel the lash of austerity. Of course, many commentators continue to insist that British government cuts are not necessary. Huge debt after the second world war is their benchmark example, for that was no bar to the setting up of the welfare state. However, those same critics are also fond of insisting that they see no reason to believe that a private sector recovery will rescue us now, as the coalition envisages.
Here, however, is exactly where those second world war analogies break down. Who could have imagined a possible boom, in the wake of working men returning home from war, industry moving back from munitions to private industry, technology advancing furiously, and consumption beginning to rise after wartime sacrifice? Pretty much everybody, I would have thought."