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When the Labour leader said no, a lowing sound could be heard, the noise of an audience uniting in sceptical rejection of the man before them – a reminder that one of Miliband's greatest errors since 2010 was his failure to debunk the narrative that blames Labour profligacy for the country's fiscal troubles.
To that list, should United lose at Crystal Palace on Saturday, will come another first – their first four-match league losing streak since February 1979 – an outcome not beyond the realms of possibility given the rank profligacy of their strike force against Albion.
But it did eventually and just in time to support the political narrative Osborne has carefully pieced together during his period at the Treasury: Labour profligacy had left the economy in a terrible state; Conservative prudence was repairing the damage; Labour had learned nothing and would resort to its bad old ways if re-elected.
As Jonathan Freedland points out in his sharp analysis of how the three leaders fared, perhaps Miliband's true achilles heel in this election is not the SNP, but his failure to debunk the narrative that Labour's profligacy was the reason for the "no money left" note.
Because helping to support such profligacy is a waste of public money.
As Varoufakis said last week: "Greece wants time … to persuade our partners, especially in northern Europe, that this government does not want to go back to the profligacy of recent years.
Such positioning works well with liberal-minded folk in southern England, fearful of Labour spending profligacy and Tories' monstrous social attitudes.
The Germans orchestrating the rescue package hit back: why should fiscally sensible north Europeans pay for the profligacy of indolent Mediterraneans?
Aware that it is currently loathed, with a large section of the Irish public believing that the 12 years of Fianna Fáil-led rule had been an era of greed and profligacy , the party calculated that in the short- to medium-term a necessarily but brutal slash-and-burn budget would hardly make a difference to its standing in the polls.
In the Ahern era there was widespread government profligacy , such as the aborted so-called "Bertie Bowl" (a proposed single national stadium for soccer) and the use, or rather non-use, of electronic voting machines, which cost tens of millions of euros but were never put into use.
By contrast, when Mr Balls, who was partly responsible for Labour's past profligacy , calls for more public spending, he reminds voters of what got them into this mess in the first place.
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Profligacy functions as a noun, denoting careless and often immoral wastefulness. Ludwig indicates that it is used to describe the squandering of resources, often in a way that suggests moral decay or irresponsibility. Its usage extends from describing individual behavior to characterizing governmental or organizational mismanagement.
Expression frequency: Very common
