I know politicians don't like to answer the question, but when EM was asked the simple question, 'the budget deficit is currently 75 billion a year, if Labour gained power what would it be in 5 years time ' he didn't give a figure?
Like trying to forecast the Lottery numbers. Depends on more than just spending. Government has little control on global economy. How many companies/rich bastards are going to invent new tax avoidance scams? Labour were successfully reducing debt until GLOBAL financial meltdown and rightly didn't allow our banks to fold. Borrowing has increased under Tories despite their (unchallenged by press) claims to have cut it. Still quite agree EM is a to$$er.
although some of the greatest economic success the country has had in recent years has been under a Labour administration. Thing sare never as simple as the press would like us to believe. Alistair Darling's management post crash was lauded throughout the world. Something that open minded people with no agendas can acknowledge.
I didn't watch the programme for the reason that I wanted to keep my sanity, so I'm relying on this thread to fill me in on the details.
But, for the sake of clarity for everyone, I need to give an alternative view on this and I have heard from other sources that what is said below is true.
I can only assume that anyone lauding Darling indicates that they have read his book and believe it. The facts are quite different. Gordon and Alistair came within little more than a few days of creating an absolute disaster and total melt-down. Not by making a decision but by not making one. Here's some quotes from someone whose job it was to be open minded, although he probably had an agenda, but he also had the experience and the qualifications:
According to Sir Mervyn, the former Labour PM Gordon Brown and his advisers failed to heed his early warnings which he claimed, could have prevented the recession that hit the UK in 2009.
Brown and Darling dithered until October of 2008, but by then said Sir Mervyn it was "too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy".
Sir Mervyn said: "In August 2007 came the moment when financial markets began to realise that the emperor had no clothes.
"From the start of the crisis, central banks provided emergency loans but these amounted to little more than holding a sheet in front of the emperor to conceal the nakedness of the banks. They didn't solve the underlying problem – banks needed not loans but injections of shareholders' capital in order to be able to absorb losses from the risky investments they had made.
"From the beginning of 2008, we at the Bank of England began to argue that UK banks needed extra capital – a lot of extra capital, possibly £100 billion or more. It wasn't a popular message."
Sir Mervyn said the "bold action" to largely nationalise RBS and Lloyds Banking Group took another nine months.
"That "bold action" in October 2008 could have happened sooner," he said. "Bailing out the banks came too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy. The realisation of the true state of the banking system led to a collapse of confidence around the world and a deep global recession. Over 25 million jobs disappeared worldwide. And unemployment in Britain rose by over a million."
Those quotes are a little old, Sir Mervyn is now Lord King and sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He was Governor of The Bank Of England at the time and from my own knowledge had been trying to get Darling to stop dicking around for ages. But Darling either hoped the problem would go away, couldn't make up his mind or, more likely, Gordon wouldn't let him.
So, it seems there's one person, at least, who was not too sure about the erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer's competence. And I guess it's fair to say he should know.
Putting my political preferences aside, I thought Cameron was a little bit shaky and that Miliband new he had nothing to lose so went for it. Ed seemed to be really aggressive, I thought and was trying to be hard in front of Paxman - and that backfired on him. My overall impression, trying to be completely objective, was that Cameron looked like a Prime Minister but that Miliband looked completely out of his depth.
Will be interesting to see what happens when it becomes a 7-way and the likes of Farage and Sturgeon get into the mix!
I saw it differently to that which is interesting, perhaps due to my red tinted glasses?!
I know politicians don't like to answer the question, but when EM was asked the simple question, 'the budget deficit is currently 75 billion a year, if Labour gained power what would it be in 5 years time ' he didn't give a figure?
Like trying to forecast the Lottery numbers. Depends on more than just spending. Government has little control on global economy. How many companies/rich bastards are going to invent new tax avoidance scams? Labour were successfully reducing debt until GLOBAL financial meltdown and rightly didn't allow our banks to fold. Borrowing has increased under Tories despite their (unchallenged by press) claims to have cut it. Still quite agree EM is a to$$er.
Er, no they weren't, they ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were office and they weren't investing with it, they were pissing it away on white elephants or increasing the size of the welfare state, as well as damaging the private sector by crowding it out. Our public expenditure share was even higher than China's, a self-proclaimed Communist state. That's pretty remarkable.
although some of the greatest economic success the country has had in recent years has been under a Labour administration. Thing sare never as simple as the press would like us to believe. Alistair Darling's management post crash was lauded throughout the world. Something that open minded people with no agendas can acknowledge.
I didn't watch the programme for the reason that I wanted to keep my sanity, so I'm relying on this thread to fill me in on the details.
But, for the sake of clarity for everyone, I need to give an alternative view on this and I have heard from other sources that what is said below is true.
I can only assume that anyone lauding Darling indicates that they have read his book and believe it. The facts are quite different. Gordon and Alistair came within little more than a few days of creating an absolute disaster and total melt-down. Not by making a decision but by not making one. Here's some quotes from someone whose job it was to be open minded, although he probably had an agenda, but he also had the experience and the qualifications:
According to Sir Mervyn, the former Labour PM Gordon Brown and his advisers failed to heed his early warnings which he claimed, could have prevented the recession that hit the UK in 2009.
Brown and Darling dithered until October of 2008, but by then said Sir Mervyn it was "too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy".
Sir Mervyn said: "In August 2007 came the moment when financial markets began to realise that the emperor had no clothes.
"From the start of the crisis, central banks provided emergency loans but these amounted to little more than holding a sheet in front of the emperor to conceal the nakedness of the banks. They didn't solve the underlying problem – banks needed not loans but injections of shareholders' capital in order to be able to absorb losses from the risky investments they had made.
"From the beginning of 2008, we at the Bank of England began to argue that UK banks needed extra capital – a lot of extra capital, possibly £100 billion or more. It wasn't a popular message."
Sir Mervyn said the "bold action" to largely nationalise RBS and Lloyds Banking Group took another nine months.
"That "bold action" in October 2008 could have happened sooner," he said. "Bailing out the banks came too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy. The realisation of the true state of the banking system led to a collapse of confidence around the world and a deep global recession. Over 25 million jobs disappeared worldwide. And unemployment in Britain rose by over a million."
Those quotes are a little old, Sir Mervyn is now Lord King and sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He was Governor of The Bank Of England at the time and from my own knowledge had been trying to get Darling to stop dicking around for ages. But Darling either hoped the problem would go away, couldn't make up his mind or, more likely, Gordon wouldn't let him.
So, it seems there's one person, at least, who was not too sure about the erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer's competence. And I guess it's fair to say he should know.
And that he has a massive incentive to protect his own reputation, so is as unreliable a witness as any politician. Why was the Bank so slow to realise that it needed to cut interest rates, for example?
No doubt things could have been done differently and better, although I don't remember the opposition making that case at the time, but to argue that the UK could have avoided a recession discounts entirely what was going on in the rest of the world and the US, in particular.
Putting my political preferences aside, I thought Cameron was a little bit shaky and that Miliband new he had nothing to lose so went for it. Ed seemed to be really aggressive, I thought and was trying to be hard in front of Paxman - and that backfired on him. My overall impression, trying to be completely objective, was that Cameron looked like a Prime Minister but that Miliband looked completely out of his depth.
Will be interesting to see what happens when it becomes a 7-way and the likes of Farage and Sturgeon get into the mix!
I saw it differently to that which is interesting, perhaps due to my red tinted glasses?!
Almost impossible to watch it objectively if you have a strong political allegiance one way or the other. I'm a socialist (Merlot rather than Champagne variety!!) so if I had watched it I would have been shouting at the TV when Cameron was on - and probably shaking my head with Ed.
The older I get the more cynical I become and I wouldn't trust any of them now - left or right.
The difference for me is either Cameron/Osborne/Clegg as the devil you know or Milliband/Balls/Salmond if you're happy to risk dividing the UK and the economy going tits up as long as the shit is shared equally. I was impressed with Alistair Darling as Chancellor even if I didn't agree with his politics, but I don't think Balls is in the same league.
It was great to see Paxman give both of the leaders a grilling. Particularly Cameron who Paxman had on the ropes in a way that you don't see often. Particularly on all the pledges broken / deficit / debt question and where 12 billion of cuts would come from. The Conservatives like to go on about reducing the deficit but don't like to mention about the 1.5 trillion debt which has doubled under the Conservative government.
I thought Miliband handled the brother question and general Paxman rudeness quite well. I thought the immigration question about an exact figure of people able to live in this country did not make a lot of sense and Milliband did well not to be pinned down on that.
The 'did the Labour spend too much question' and the whole 'caused the world economic crisis' is badly handled by Labour. Labour's spending percentage of government spending was pretty standard for any government of that time. It was not Labour's overspending that was a cause of the crash. This is a Conservative theme for years and needs to be challenged and nailed down.
A Conservative Government or any shade of government in power at the time would have suffered just as badly, It is disingenuous of Conservatives to try and blame the world wide crash on Labour, when this related to sub prime mortgages and deregulation of the financial sector. The deregulation that they had enthusiastically started and supported for the preceeding 20 years.
Milliband hinted that Labour could have had more regulation with regard to the banks but they have failed to challenge the Conservative assertion that it was down to Labour overspending. This does not help with voters perception about how Labour handles the economy.
I think most of us would struggle to manage a Paxman grilling though. It was fun to watch both leaders wither under the Paxman scrutiny.
Quite agree. Don't know who is advising on Labour strategy but not only are they failing to defend these key issues but they are allowing opponents to set the political agenda. Crash, immigration, scroungers (not the rich kind). They should be challenging that the backbone of capitalism is broken. We now have "Cronyism". There is no real competition. Large parts of Government privitisation means that companies win long term contracts, fail to meet targets and rely on huge cost of legal action to coin it in on underperformance. Companies in many areas no longer advertise because there is no competition. Petrol, energy, banking, ANUITIES!! (turnover of reasonably sized countries economies) water bus & train monopolies, BT monopoly of landlines that you need to get broadband, TV sport, pubs, freight etc. You now have what I call "slippage". Five mobile phone companies lose 10% business a year due to poor service but the other 5 pick up 2% each. They each get 2% off each other so nobody is worse off but all enjoy natural growth. This lack of competition means no customer service of merit, poor products, so no competition for decent staff, little training and poor wages, zero hour contracts, and demotivated workforce. All the above gives increased profitability and bonuses for the few. Toothless regulators who earn big slices of taxpayers money for doing nothing.
although some of the greatest economic success the country has had in recent years has been under a Labour administration. Thing sare never as simple as the press would like us to believe. Alistair Darling's management post crash was lauded throughout the world. Something that open minded people with no agendas can acknowledge.
I didn't watch the programme for the reason that I wanted to keep my sanity, so I'm relying on this thread to fill me in on the details.
But, for the sake of clarity for everyone, I need to give an alternative view on this and I have heard from other sources that what is said below is true.
I can only assume that anyone lauding Darling indicates that they have read his book and believe it. The facts are quite different. Gordon and Alistair came within little more than a few days of creating an absolute disaster and total melt-down. Not by making a decision but by not making one. Here's some quotes from someone whose job it was to be open minded, although he probably had an agenda, but he also had the experience and the qualifications:
According to Sir Mervyn, the former Labour PM Gordon Brown and his advisers failed to heed his early warnings which he claimed, could have prevented the recession that hit the UK in 2009.
Brown and Darling dithered until October of 2008, but by then said Sir Mervyn it was "too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy".
Sir Mervyn said: "In August 2007 came the moment when financial markets began to realise that the emperor had no clothes.
"From the start of the crisis, central banks provided emergency loans but these amounted to little more than holding a sheet in front of the emperor to conceal the nakedness of the banks. They didn't solve the underlying problem – banks needed not loans but injections of shareholders' capital in order to be able to absorb losses from the risky investments they had made.
"From the beginning of 2008, we at the Bank of England began to argue that UK banks needed extra capital – a lot of extra capital, possibly £100 billion or more. It wasn't a popular message."
Sir Mervyn said the "bold action" to largely nationalise RBS and Lloyds Banking Group took another nine months.
"That "bold action" in October 2008 could have happened sooner," he said. "Bailing out the banks came too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy. The realisation of the true state of the banking system led to a collapse of confidence around the world and a deep global recession. Over 25 million jobs disappeared worldwide. And unemployment in Britain rose by over a million."
Those quotes are a little old, Sir Mervyn is now Lord King and sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He was Governor of The Bank Of England at the time and from my own knowledge had been trying to get Darling to stop dicking around for ages. But Darling either hoped the problem would go away, couldn't make up his mind or, more likely, Gordon wouldn't let him.
So, it seems there's one person, at least, who was not too sure about the erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer's competence. And I guess it's fair to say he should know.
And that he has a massive incentive to protect his own reputation, so is as unreliable a witness as any politician. Why was the Bank so slow to realise that it needed to cut interest rates, for example?
No doubt things could have been done differently and better, although I don't remember the opposition making that case at the time, but to argue that the UK could have avoided a recession discounts entirely what was going on in the rest of the world and the US, in particular.
I'd be inclined to agree with you if I hadn't heard about Darling's dithering from other sources at the time. I'd say it was credible. Interest rates are another matter and of course were set by a vote of members of a committee made up of individuals of various political hues appointed by Govt. It's certain the BoE made mistakes but to describe Darling as some sort of Alex Ferguson of economics is laughable.
although some of the greatest economic success the country has had in recent years has been under a Labour administration. Thing sare never as simple as the press would like us to believe. Alistair Darling's management post crash was lauded throughout the world. Something that open minded people with no agendas can acknowledge.
I didn't watch the programme for the reason that I wanted to keep my sanity, so I'm relying on this thread to fill me in on the details.
But, for the sake of clarity for everyone, I need to give an alternative view on this and I have heard from other sources that what is said below is true.
I can only assume that anyone lauding Darling indicates that they have read his book and believe it. The facts are quite different. Gordon and Alistair came within little more than a few days of creating an absolute disaster and total melt-down. Not by making a decision but by not making one. Here's some quotes from someone whose job it was to be open minded, although he probably had an agenda, but he also had the experience and the qualifications:
According to Sir Mervyn, the former Labour PM Gordon Brown and his advisers failed to heed his early warnings which he claimed, could have prevented the recession that hit the UK in 2009.
Brown and Darling dithered until October of 2008, but by then said Sir Mervyn it was "too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy".
Sir Mervyn said: "In August 2007 came the moment when financial markets began to realise that the emperor had no clothes.
"From the start of the crisis, central banks provided emergency loans but these amounted to little more than holding a sheet in front of the emperor to conceal the nakedness of the banks. They didn't solve the underlying problem – banks needed not loans but injections of shareholders' capital in order to be able to absorb losses from the risky investments they had made.
"From the beginning of 2008, we at the Bank of England began to argue that UK banks needed extra capital – a lot of extra capital, possibly £100 billion or more. It wasn't a popular message."
Sir Mervyn said the "bold action" to largely nationalise RBS and Lloyds Banking Group took another nine months.
"That "bold action" in October 2008 could have happened sooner," he said. "Bailing out the banks came too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy. The realisation of the true state of the banking system led to a collapse of confidence around the world and a deep global recession. Over 25 million jobs disappeared worldwide. And unemployment in Britain rose by over a million."
Those quotes are a little old, Sir Mervyn is now Lord King and sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He was Governor of The Bank Of England at the time and from my own knowledge had been trying to get Darling to stop dicking around for ages. But Darling either hoped the problem would go away, couldn't make up his mind or, more likely, Gordon wouldn't let him.
So, it seems there's one person, at least, who was not too sure about the erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer's competence. And I guess it's fair to say he should know.
And that he has a massive incentive to protect his own reputation, so is as unreliable a witness as any politician. Why was the Bank so slow to realise that it needed to cut interest rates, for example?
No doubt things could have been done differently and better, although I don't remember the opposition making that case at the time, but to argue that the UK could have avoided a recession discounts entirely what was going on in the rest of the world and the US, in particular.
I'd be inclined to agree with you if I hadn't heard about Darling's dithering from other sources at the time. I'd say it was credible. Interest rates are another matter and of course were set by a vote of members of a committee made up of individuals of various political hues appointed by Govt. It's certain the BoE made mistakes but to describe Darling as some sort of Alex Ferguson of economics is laughable.
King's view is pretty much unique. Maybe the bail outs could have happened earlier, but Britain was the first to do it, with the EU and US following afterwards. Most other world leaders, Treasury secretary and economists say that Brown and Darling played a crucial part in averting a world crisis. For example, Paul Krugman (Nobel prizewinner in economics said "Mr Brown and Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer have defined the character of the worldwide rescue effort, with other wealthy nations playing catch-up."
I've no axe the grind here. Brown was partly responsible for British banks getting into trouble in the first and I consider him the worst PM since Eden as well as a bully, control freak and ego maniac.. But credit where it's due, he and Darling played a major part in averting a global meltdown.
It was great to see Paxman give both of the leaders a grilling. Particularly Cameron who Paxman had on the ropes in a way that you don't see often. Particularly on all the pledges broken / deficit / debt question and where 12 billion of cuts would come from. The Conservatives like to go on about reducing the deficit but don't like to mention about the 1.5 trillion debt which has doubled under the Conservative government.
I thought Miliband handled the brother question and general Paxman rudeness quite well. I thought the immigration question about an exact figure of people able to live in this country did not make a lot of sense and Milliband did well not to be pinned down on that.
The 'did the Labour spend too much question' and the whole 'caused the world economic crisis' is badly handled by Labour. Labour's spending percentage of government spending was pretty standard for any government of that time. It was not Labour's overspending that was a cause of the crash. This is a Conservative theme for years and needs to be challenged and nailed down.
A Conservative Government or any shade of government in power at the time would have suffered just as badly, It is disingenuous of Conservatives to try and blame the world wide crash on Labour, when this related to sub prime mortgages and deregulation of the financial sector. The deregulation that they had enthusiastically started and supported for the preceeding 20 years.
Milliband hinted that Labour could have had more regulation with regard to the banks but they have failed to challenge the Conservative assertion that it was down to Labour overspending. This does not help with voters perception about how Labour handles the economy.
I think most of us would struggle to manage a Paxman grilling though. It was fun to watch both leaders wither under the Paxman scrutiny.
Quite agree. Don't know who is advising on Labour strategy but not only are they failing to defend these key issues but they are allowing opponents to set the political agenda. Crash, immigration, scroungers (not the rich kind). They should be challenging that the backbone of capitalism is broken. We now have "Cronyism". There is no real competition. Large parts of Government privitisation means that companies win long term contracts, fail to meet targets and rely on huge cost of legal action to coin it in on underperformance. Companies in many areas no longer advertise because there is no competition. Petrol, energy, banking, ANUITIES!! (turnover of reasonably sized countries economies) water bus & train monopolies, BT monopoly of landlines that you need to get broadband, TV sport, pubs, freight etc. You now have what I call "slippage". Five mobile phone companies lose 10% business a year due to poor service but the other 5 pick up 2% each. They each get 2% off each other so nobody is worse off but all enjoy natural growth. This lack of competition means no customer service of merit, poor products, so no competition for decent staff, little training and poor wages, zero hour contracts, and demotivated workforce. All the above gives increased profitability and bonuses for the few. Toothless regulators who earn big slices of taxpayers money for doing nothing.
I know politicians don't like to answer the question, but when EM was asked the simple question, 'the budget deficit is currently 75 billion a year, if Labour gained power what would it be in 5 years time ' he didn't give a figure?
Like trying to forecast the Lottery numbers. Depends on more than just spending. Government has little control on global economy. How many companies/rich bastards are going to invent new tax avoidance scams? Labour were successfully reducing debt until GLOBAL financial meltdown and rightly didn't allow our banks to fold. Borrowing has increased under Tories despite their (unchallenged by press) claims to have cut it. Still quite agree EM is a to$$er.
Er, no they weren't, they ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were office and they weren't investing with it, they were pissing it away on white elephants or increasing the size of the welfare state, as well as damaging the private sector by crowding it out. Our public expenditure share was even higher than China's, a self-proclaimed Communist state. That's pretty remarkable.
Since 1974 (?) I believe we have run an overall surplus as opposed to a deficit in the UK on only 6 occasions, 2 under Conservatives and 4 under Labour. I'd be interested to have a look at your figures for the levels of structural deficit under the two parties.
It's not but it's also not true. I think you will find that our economy crashed and burned just like every other countries economy. It was global. I doubt even Gordon Brown was so awful that he fucked the economies of USA, Germany, Japan, France, Spain, shall I go on.
I know politicians don't like to answer the question, but when EM was asked the simple question, 'the budget deficit is currently 75 billion a year, if Labour gained power what would it be in 5 years time ' he didn't give a figure?
Like trying to forecast the Lottery numbers. Depends on more than just spending. Government has little control on global economy. How many companies/rich bastards are going to invent new tax avoidance scams? Labour were successfully reducing debt until GLOBAL financial meltdown and rightly didn't allow our banks to fold. Borrowing has increased under Tories despite their (unchallenged by press) claims to have cut it. Still quite agree EM is a to$$er.
Er, no they weren't, they ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were office and they weren't investing with it, they were pissing it away on white elephants or increasing the size of the welfare state, as well as damaging the private sector by crowding it out. Our public expenditure share was even higher than China's, a self-proclaimed Communist state. That's pretty remarkable.
Since 1974 (?) I believe we have run an overall surplus as opposed to a deficit in the UK on only 6 occasions, 2 under Conservatives and 4 under Labour. I'd be interested to have a look at your figures for the levels of structural deficit under the two parties.
Except that's not actually relevant to the point I was making.
I know politicians don't like to answer the question, but when EM was asked the simple question, 'the budget deficit is currently 75 billion a year, if Labour gained power what would it be in 5 years time ' he didn't give a figure?
Like trying to forecast the Lottery numbers. Depends on more than just spending. Government has little control on global economy. How many companies/rich bastards are going to invent new tax avoidance scams? Labour were successfully reducing debt until GLOBAL financial meltdown and rightly didn't allow our banks to fold. Borrowing has increased under Tories despite their (unchallenged by press) claims to have cut it. Still quite agree EM is a to$$er.
Er, no they weren't, they ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were office and they weren't investing with it, they were pissing it away on white elephants or increasing the size of the welfare state, as well as damaging the private sector by crowding it out. Our public expenditure share was even higher than China's, a self-proclaimed Communist state. That's pretty remarkable.
Since 1974 (?) I believe we have run an overall surplus as opposed to a deficit in the UK on only 6 occasions, 2 under Conservatives and 4 under Labour. I'd be interested to have a look at your figures for the levels of structural deficit under the two parties.
Except that's not actually relevant to the point I was making.
So, you didn't state that "Labour ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were in office" then?
The less likely you are to achieve power the easier is to promise things you'll never have to deliver - and the less likely you are to understand why they are not deliverable anyway.
I know politicians don't like to answer the question, but when EM was asked the simple question, 'the budget deficit is currently 75 billion a year, if Labour gained power what would it be in 5 years time ' he didn't give a figure?
Like trying to forecast the Lottery numbers. Depends on more than just spending. Government has little control on global economy. How many companies/rich bastards are going to invent new tax avoidance scams? Labour were successfully reducing debt until GLOBAL financial meltdown and rightly didn't allow our banks to fold. Borrowing has increased under Tories despite their (unchallenged by press) claims to have cut it. Still quite agree EM is a to$$er.
Er, no they weren't, they ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were office and they weren't investing with it, they were pissing it away on white elephants or increasing the size of the welfare state, as well as damaging the private sector by crowding it out. Our public expenditure share was even higher than China's, a self-proclaimed Communist state. That's pretty remarkable.
Since 1974 (?) I believe we have run an overall surplus as opposed to a deficit in the UK on only 6 occasions, 2 under Conservatives and 4 under Labour. I'd be interested to have a look at your figures for the levels of structural deficit under the two parties.
Except that's not actually relevant to the point I was making.
So, you didn't state that "Labour ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were in office" then?
Yes I did but the context was that someone had claimed Labour had reduced the debt, I was pointing out that this was inaccurate.
I know politicians don't like to answer the question, but when EM was asked the simple question, 'the budget deficit is currently 75 billion a year, if Labour gained power what would it be in 5 years time ' he didn't give a figure?
Like trying to forecast the Lottery numbers. Depends on more than just spending. Government has little control on global economy. How many companies/rich bastards are going to invent new tax avoidance scams? Labour were successfully reducing debt until GLOBAL financial meltdown and rightly didn't allow our banks to fold. Borrowing has increased under Tories despite their (unchallenged by press) claims to have cut it. Still quite agree EM is a to$$er.
Er, no they weren't, they ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were office and they weren't investing with it, they were pissing it away on white elephants or increasing the size of the welfare state, as well as damaging the private sector by crowding it out. Our public expenditure share was even higher than China's, a self-proclaimed Communist state. That's pretty remarkable.
Since 1974 (?) I believe we have run an overall surplus as opposed to a deficit in the UK on only 6 occasions, 2 under Conservatives and 4 under Labour. I'd be interested to have a look at your figures for the levels of structural deficit under the two parties.
Except that's not actually relevant to the point I was making.
So, you didn't state that "Labour ran a structural deficit for nearly every year they were in office" then?
Yes I did but the context was that someone had claimed Labour had reduced the debt, I was pointing out that this was inaccurate.
..part of which was by reference to Labour running a structural deficit during most of their term in office. I've only asked to have a look at these figures that you based this on, not suggested you were incorrect. If it wasn't relevant to your rebuttal of the original point why bring it up?
Comments
But, for the sake of clarity for everyone, I need to give an alternative view on this and I have heard from other sources that what is said below is true.
I can only assume that anyone lauding Darling indicates that they have read his book and believe it. The facts are quite different. Gordon and Alistair came within little more than a few days of creating an absolute disaster and total melt-down. Not by making a decision but by not making one. Here's some quotes from someone whose job it was to be open minded, although he probably had an agenda, but he also had the experience and the qualifications:
According to Sir Mervyn, the former Labour PM Gordon Brown and his advisers failed to heed his early warnings which he claimed, could have prevented the recession that hit the UK in 2009.
Brown and Darling dithered until October of 2008, but by then said Sir Mervyn it was "too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy".
Sir Mervyn said: "In August 2007 came the moment when financial markets began to realise that the emperor had no clothes.
"From the start of the crisis, central banks provided emergency loans but these amounted to little more than holding a sheet in front of the emperor to conceal the nakedness of the banks. They didn't solve the underlying problem – banks needed not loans but injections of shareholders' capital in order to be able to absorb losses from the risky investments they had made.
"From the beginning of 2008, we at the Bank of England began to argue that UK banks needed extra capital – a lot of extra capital, possibly £100 billion or more. It wasn't a popular message."
Sir Mervyn said the "bold action" to largely nationalise RBS and Lloyds Banking Group took another nine months.
"That "bold action" in October 2008 could have happened sooner," he said. "Bailing out the banks came too late to prevent the financial crisis from spilling over into the world economy. The realisation of the true state of the banking system led to a collapse of confidence around the world and a deep global recession. Over 25 million jobs disappeared worldwide. And unemployment in Britain rose by over a million."
Those quotes are a little old, Sir Mervyn is now Lord King and sits as a crossbencher in the House of Lords. He was Governor of The Bank Of England at the time and from my own knowledge had been trying to get Darling to stop dicking around for ages. But Darling either hoped the problem would go away, couldn't make up his mind or, more likely, Gordon wouldn't let him.
So, it seems there's one person, at least, who was not too sure about the erstwhile Chancellor of the Exchequer's competence. And I guess it's fair to say he should know.
No doubt things could have been done differently and better, although I don't remember the opposition making that case at the time, but to argue that the UK could have avoided a recession discounts entirely what was going on in the rest of the world and the US, in particular.
The older I get the more cynical I become and I wouldn't trust any of them now - left or right.
Labour should be raising these issues.
I felt sorry for him, the personal attacks were a bit much. However the best thing he could do is get rid of Balls.
Actually what has happened to Balls' wife? You never see or hear from her.
I've no axe the grind here. Brown was partly responsible for British banks getting into trouble in the first and I consider him the worst PM since Eden as well as a bully, control freak and ego maniac.. But credit where it's due, he and Darling played a major part in averting a global meltdown.
Frugal Chancellor my arse.
This is why I refuse to vote!
Vote who you want nothing will change!