Cameron's economic problem
On the banking crisis, he can't say "I told you so" because he didn't.
He can't say "we had a better answer" because he didn't propose one and he's given his backing to the Brown plan.
On what looks like a looming recession, he won't say "let's cut taxes to stimulate the economy" - as the American and Australian governments have - because he's already declared that "the cupboard is bare" and that as a "fiscal conservative" he's not prepared to borrow to finance tax cuts.
Thus, he's limited to proposing small-scale policy responses - yesterday a VAT holiday for small businesses, today a short-term tax cut for them - or to saying, like the Irishman in the old joke, "I wouldn't have started here".
What's more, Gordon Brown, fresh from taking the plaudits for saving the world's financial system, is busy laying a new trap for the Tories. He's pledging to carry on spending and borrowing in the downturn as the old master John Maynard Keynes recommended. There are political as well as economic reasons for him doing this.
The government wants to sprinkle magic dust on the record borrowing and debt statistics which will be published soon so as to turn them from a negative story into a positive one - from evidence of past failure to a platform for future success.
In addition, the prime minister is addicted to his favourite electoral narrative - Labour investment versus Tory cuts - and sees the chance to run it again. Specifically, if - and it is a very big if - the government can bring forward its programme to re-build schools that would cut the money which the Tories have allocated for their "free schools" programme and allow ministers to ask "what would you cut to pay for your plans?"
This morning David Cameron warned against a government spending splurge which would keep interest rates high. However, he went on to say that if all ministers are planning is a re-ordering of their spending priorities he would back that.
Thus, the Conservative leader finds himself in the extraordinary position of facing a government presiding over a failing economy for the first time in 15 years and with relatively little he can say about it.
Now some suggest this is a turning point in politics. They point to the fact that the Tory poll lead is now down to single figures. They argue that the state and Gordon Brown are back in fashion and the Tories' inexperienced leaders find themselves on the wrong side of history.
This is massively premature. Let's remember a simple point. A government that was, in any case, vulnerable to the "time for a change" argument looks set to go through the long, slow political agony of a recession with the job cuts, housing losses and spending constraints that will accompany it.
What's changed, though, is the fact that the Tories can no longer make the political weather and will often be spectators as ministers return to centre stage. David Cameron believes that at times like these the key task he has is to avoid making blunders. That's why he refers to backing the Brown bank rescue plan as "a big call" and believes that he hasn't had enough credit for it. The next year is going to be a huge test of his and his party's nerve.
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Well, the tories can maybe propose raising the IHT threshold to a million pounds ... something eyecatching, reactionary and completely irrelevant like that.
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Nick.
Once again you call into question David Cameron and the Conservative Party - this time it's their nerve. Once again I say it'sthe government you should be questioning and their way forward.
The government's nerve is known to all of us and it's very worrying.
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Given that tax and overspend (with horrific inneficiency and over budget on nearly everything) has given us this bare cupboard will GB please explain why even more spend is such a good idea?
Virtually every other serious economic commentator says a major cut in interest rates to ease everyones cashflow and stimulate the economy is actually a much better thing to do than spending money you haven't got. But of course that isn't in the governments power- unless of course they change the inflation target?
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I think it quite likely that the polls will start turning in Mr Browns favour as winter slowly turns to spring.
A June election after an electoral striptease autumn statement and spring budget would be a gamble that our friend in No 10 might jut be persuaded to take.
He would be advised -by those in influence- that the British public have a right to be both consulted and to decide how the next few very difficult years should be managed and whether they want an experienced heavyweight or a novice in charge.
It might just work? I bet Lord Mandelson has already thought of the idea.
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Gordon Brown claims that the credit crunch was an American problem exported to the UK. If some of the weekend papers are to be believed a lot of the problem was caused under the "watchful eye" of the FSA.
The economic miracle of the last 10 years has been caused by increasing debt both private, company and public. It wasn't so long ago that shareholders demanded that companies increased debt to provide greater returns for themselves and companies were taken over by the use of debt. Indeed a well know businessman made his private fortune by increasing the debt on his own company.
The worm has turned, banks won't be able to lend the amounts that they did previously and the number of cheap rate mortgages will plummet. Likewise the Bank of England will be faced with having to raise increasing amounts to finance government debt against a depreciating sterling, we've seen it all before, interest rates will have to rise while the country is in recession.
And "superman" will find that the easy part was the last 10 years and he will be faced with something that he hasn't had to do; govern in a recession (of his own making).
View the latest opinion polls as a dead cat bounce.
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When oh when is the BBC going to stop being a party political broadcast for the Labour Party and start fair unbaised reporting or at the very least prefixing statements with "in my opinion..." rather than insinuating fact....
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so gordon overspends during the good times and now he wants to overspend during the bad
when exactly are commentators, such as yourself, going to pull him up on points like that rather than wittering on about what the other parties have / haven't or will / will not do?
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A shame you don't seek to analyse the governments position in anything like this detail.
Labour have nothing to crow about, so their campaign strategy is "There isnt any thing better on offer".
A campaign that you, and much of the BBC are very actively supporting with our money...
There are many things the tories haven't played well as an opposition - they bit their tongues to avoid criticism, rather then speaking what they knew was the truth.
Labours BBC resolutely supports the misguided philosophy that SPENDING CUTS are the new N words. And they will automatically heckle, critcise and run down any suggestion to the contrary.
Overall the Tories have not risen to the challenge of tackling this head on -- a highturn over of leaders has not helped.
It is not dissimilar to the BBC (and other socialist organisaions) approach to things like immigration control - the mere mention of such subjects being condemned, with out considering any argument... at least not until the truth is undeniable, and even the labour government have to come clean and say that unfettered immigration is unsustainable -- where were the BBC looking at this (for the publics benefit and information) prior to their government paymasters telling them that it was OK to talk about now?
If work currently undertaken by the state is *really needed* and *really wanted* by the people, then the people will use their tax cuts to pay for them directly... The state (in the form of a few well paid, rich ministers) need to butt out and let people spend their own money as they see fit.
The Tories need to stop worring about what the BBC will tell the country about them - and stay connected directly with the people of this country.
And they need to ensure the government new ideas on 'regulating' blogs does not cut this channel off to them.
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Perhaps the one thing the Tories could shout loud about is the Ecclestone affair and demand that all MPs involved be questioned about how truthful they were especially Golden Brown saviour of the universe.If there is one person who we can trust to be a straight sort of guy it must be the famous son of the manse.
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No faith whatsoever in the Cameron crew. If the tories dont face facts, people will vote for the devil they know rather than a floundering group of moppets. Bring on Boris! Boris is the natural leader to pull the party up and be ready to face a formidable, even if unloved Nu Labour.
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Everyone I speak to says Cameron's the one to get their vote come election time.
Just saying it like it is.
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so all we can look forward to, is months of yet more spin via the media, then a snap election and another 5 years of gordon brown.
god help us all.
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"The government wants to sprinkle magic dust on the record borrowing and debt statistics which will be published soon so as to turn them from a negative story into a positive one - from evidence of past failure to a platform for future success."
In other words the government wants to lie - sorry "spin" the massive increase in national debt this will involve as "investing in the future"
And this is a good thing?
Sadly there are a large section of the population who will foolish believe that. And I am sure if the Government needs help selling this to the population the BBC will be there to help portray it as a good thing.
Don't worry comrades you might lose your house and your job but the Motherland will remain strong!
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Wow. Has he considered the implications for VAT carousel fraud?
Those fraudsters operate as small businesses and would just love a VAT holiday. It has already cost the tax-payer billions!
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A bit like the credit crisis, this was bound to come.
The Tories have been ineffectual in opposition, offering no more/less than "Vote for us because we're like Labour really but, er, just a bit different here and there ...". This is about the pointless politics of capturing and holding the centre ground. OK (arguably) when things are proceeding nicely. Disastrous in the face of a crisis.
So here we are, not only with the failure of our financial system but also a failure of our political system. Once again, the political class have sold us citizens short (now that's topical too).
Unless and until a true statesman emerges from this unholy mess and offers the British people a credible alternative to the long-term, economic and social nightmare now being planned by Gordon Brown and his apparatchiks, then believe me we're in deep trouble.
I simply don't think that Cameron, Osborne et al get it, unless they've got one almighty rabbit tucked in to their top hat. The Tories will only have themselves to blame (again) if they fluff the next election and get shown the door. I'm a 'traditional Tory voter' (a dying species, no doubt), but I despair at the ocean-going mess Cameron and his dizzy team are making of opposing Gordon Brown. They're not.
Time to emigrate?
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I am a true floating voter, I have voted Labour twice and Conservative once since I became eligable. I rely on the BBC mainly for information on which to form my views. I am a little disturbed lately by your tone, it does not seem objective. Yesterday Radio 4 said 'conservatives now only have a 9 point lead over labour.' The words used turned a clear Tory lead into somehow a bad thing and made Labour look better than they are doing. Is this deliberate bias in how the news is presented or is it unconscious? I am also annoyed by the spin over the Tory/Labour truce. On question time and any questions it was clear that whilst the Tories may have had a truce, Labour did not. Apparently Labour are the cause of all the good things like schools and hospitals but the last conservative government was the cause of the bad new now. The BBC presenters let the Labour people get away with this and even let them then accuse the Tories of being party political.
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If "Brown" had spent more wisely the country might have had more cash reserves to ride out this recession but he didn't and it doesn't and so we are all in the mess for the next 2-5 years.
If and when Tories get back in power they will have to sort out the mess, reign in government spending and therefore become the nasty party again.
The "Boom and Bust" is that Labours over zealous spending echoes down the economy for years resulting in multiple Busts as the economy spits and falters back into life. They take the legacy of a honed lean economy, claim it for themselves and then proceed to run around the sweet shop buying everything in sight
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Oh dear Nick you seem to have hit a raw nerve with Tory supporters on here. They look on in horror as they see the next election being snatched from their grasp.
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What can an Opposition do Nick, when we are in the middle of an economic car crash with Gordon Brown in the driving seat? All an Opposition can fairly do is to pin the blame for the crash on the man in charge - I see the SNP are backing up the Tories in this.
The good thing is that Brown is culpable - he is culpable for creating the regulatory system which has so manifestly failed. He is culpable for deficit spending during the boom years, leaving the public finances in a mess now the downturn has come. The public are not stupid and they will repeatedly see over the coming months just how much the Government is having to borrow, with Brown breaking all his precious "golden" rules.
In short, all the Opposition have to do is to ensure that the mud sticks to that boastful, bully Brown!
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Dear Nick
The Tories are off the boil, they have surrendered as Opposition, Cambell should be hammering Brown, especially over the 22,000 repossessions that have takn place because of the crisis created by the bankers in the first plafce.
This is anarchy, driving people out of their homes for situation they did notcreate.
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ARE YOU FACING REPOSSESSION?
PROCEEDINGS CAN BE BROUGHT AGAINST: LEGISLATION, REGULATION AND DECISIONS THAT THEY MADE. AND AGAINST THEIR FAILURE TO MAKE AND ENFORCE PROPER REGULATION THAT WAS THE CAUSE OF THE SITUATION IN WHICH YOU FIND YOURSELF.
HAVE YOUR MORTGAGE WRITTEN OFF, AND INSIST THAT YOUR BANK OR BUILDING SOCIETY, PASS ON TO YOU, THE CUT IN INTEREST RATE BENEFIT RELIEF, INCLUDING BACK DATED BENEFIT, FROM THE BANK OF ENGLAND, TO YOU, AND IF YOU LIVE IN THE USA FROM THE FED TO YOU.
AND WHY NOT?
After all, Bankers were gambling with mortgage-backed-securities using them as collateral in unregulated volatile markets and they lost them causing a crisis ? the effects for you as a homeowner and taxpayer are devastating.
At no time did homeowners and taxpayers give authority to any bank, building society, institution or any government to create, or gamble with instruments used as collateral putting their homes at risk. At no time did your lender in principle and in law have the authority of the regulators, or authority of law.
Why should you pay for the greed and ruthless behaviour, most foul, of the super-rich bankers, who caused the credit crunch and contributed to it? ? Not only is it the biggest modern-day bank robbery but the biggest robbery of the economy leaving it vandalised. It was all avoidable. It didn?t have to happen.
At no time has the taxpayer been responsible for the conduct and dealings of private investors or for loses incurred by private transactions of banks, mortgage lenders or any financial institution.
Many homeowners struggle for years to get on ? and stay on ? the property ladder. Why should they pay for bank loses by way of: Increased interest rates; negative equity; repossessions - made homeless with predatory bailiffs plundering their property?
Why should they pay with: financial hardship; not able to put food on the table; mental stress; and devastating effects of it all for the rest of their lives and their children s lives - whilst the bankers are having a party?
CHANGE OF THE SYSTEM
Up until 1997, the Bank of England controlled the Banking system. It was common knowledge that prior to 1997, mortgages were protected from such abuse, under existing safeguards of regulations and the law, and that mortgages, in particular, were sacrosanct.
Mortgages were only to be used for the purchase of property; loans for all other purchases had to be through a bank loan or hire purchase, which were short term and had a higher rate of interest, there was a separation of deposit banking and mortgage lending. The lending banks and building societies were strictly regulated.
However, Mr Brown decided that he didn?t like that anymore. So he introduced a system were we had, the Financial Services Authority, the Treasury, and the Bank of England, (the Tripartite Authorities) carving up the job amongst them. Just one big problem ? when there was a crisis, apparently nobody knew who was in charge. The effect of all this ? the system unregulated.
The bankers most certainly knew the enormous value of your mortgage backed by the secure asset of your home, and that they would be the driving force behind a powerful booming economy. They knew they would make a fortune if they could trade them on the US financial markets in the same way as US government-sponsored-enterprises, or GSEs. However, the bankers knew they couldn?t be traded unless they were taken out of their protective regulation. So how did they get their hands on them?
Well, first, you must know what you are doing, and know how to have them deregulated. By changing the banking system in 1997, banks were able to trade CLOs and other stealth products through institutions, but an institution is not called a bank, and therefore operated outside strict bank regulations. This was the key to the unscrupulous bankers making a fortune. The question one should keep in mind is, was it Mr Brown's idea, or the Bankers' idea, or both? Who persuaded who? Brown was the only one, in his position as PM, that could make such a decision.
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The notion here is that the government can cause all kinds of catastrophic mayhem but the pressure is still on the opposition to come up with initiatives.
GB is blaming everybody for the financial troubles while at the same time taking the credit for "saving the world".
I hope that the British people are not so stupid to buy in to this.
If they are and GB is voted in next year then UK plc is finished.
The thought of Mandelson master-minding a labour strategy for an election is nauseating!
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#7." At 09:32am on 20 Oct 2008, imdx80 wrote:
so gordon overspends during the good times and now he wants to overspend during the bad
when exactly are commentators, such as yourself, going to pull him up on points like that rather than wittering on about what the other parties have / haven't or will / will not do?"
Absolutely spot on! Come on Nick - when are you and the other BBC hacks going to hold the Government to account??? They are the ones who were in charge as this mess was being created! Challenge Brown for God's sake - it is about time he was interviewed with the same ferocity as members of the opposition are!
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Cameron well knows it's a bit pointless trying to score points at this stage.
By next year we will be in a full blown recession which Brown has caused.
Unemployment will rise to an unmanageable level. And the economy will be in debt for the next 20 years.
The elephant in the room (government pensions) will be a major battleground.
The only chance of Brown winning an election in early 2010 is if he mounts a Mugabe style coup and I would'nt put that past him.
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Labour policy: Borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend.
They know that they will not be around to pick up the pieces.
A literal scorched earth policy would be more honest: at least it wouldn't be couched in hypocritical Nu Labour language such as 'investment'.
If Gordon Brown government were to win the coming general election it would be a sad confirmation of the dictum: people the government they deserve.
Fortunately, the British people deserve better - and will, I trust, vote accordingly.
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Nick,
it seems to be consistently forgotten that Gordon Brown is not the chancellor any more, he is the Prime Minister.
The rescue plan for the banks was not his, you seriously cannot believe that Gordon sat up at night just thinking about how he would solve the 'crisis'. He and the government have so many advisers, it was the idea of nobody in particular. That is the problem with Gordon, he takes all the praise and will not accept when he is wrong, it was not only the 10p tax rate, it was giving the pensioners 50p because that is what the figures dictated.
Maybe now that he has sorted out the world economic problem, he would like to tell us all what he is doing about Iraq, and our continued occupation. What is he going to do about Afghanistan and the ever continuing kill rates, and for what, so that we can retreat ignominiously like many before us. What is he going to do about Dafur.
What exactly is he doing about the dictatorship of oil, what is he going to do about nuclear weapons, why are we having them. Why has money been allocated to it. What is he going to say about the false consultation on nuclear energy. What does he think about the Human Embryo bill, does he seriously accept that our society can continue to tolerate 200,000 abortions a year. I regard this as an abomination of the original principles behind the original abortion act. I can accept the premise about back-street abortions but how many back-street abortions are known to have occured before David Steele brought his proposals to parliament.
We, the public must not allow Brown to get away with this, come on Cameron there are so many issues which need attention.
How could anybody, for example, be against any planning proposal which will boost the economy, no matter what the environmental or social impact may be. We could all become roof laggers if we want a job, who said that, why Gordon. Immigration! The proposals are appalling. What about the unfortunate Iraqi interpretors who are denied access to Britain, when they have helped the British and are now seen as collaborators. How about so many things, you have so many advisers, what do they do for their money. If I can do it why can't they.
Finally, why do MPs need such a long christmas holiday, what sort of example is that to set for productivity. there is an economic crisis, mind you it means that Gordon will not have to answer PMQs, and we know what happens during long holidays don't we, crisis! what crisis?
Gordon Brown is a one trick pony, lock and load David, prove that you are a man, you have in your sights, don't miss the opportunity again.
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A rather contradictory post when compared to 'The truce is over'. Today you say the Tories are in "the extraordinary position of facing a government presiding over a failing economy for the first time in 15 years and with relatively little he can say about it." However, on the 17th you say that the Tories are on the attack, condemning ""the complete and utter failure of Labour's economic record." Yet, I tend to agree with the sentiments of your post. Cameron is currently wandering no-man's land whilst Brown is seemingly leading the Labour advance, who would have thought this possible a few weeks ago? Brown still has a long hard slog to the election (whenever that may be) and I hardly see him managing to keep his current bubble intact throughout a period a economic downturn. The Tories have to continue hammering home the argument, 'who exactly has been running the economy since 1997 and is therefore ultimately responsible?'
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We all know that Brown's economic miracle was a bit of a mirage. But we voted for it in three (well at least two) General Elections. True some people were sounding warnings, but not very volubly. And those who were making noises were also complaining about the state of our hospital equipment, crumbling schools etc etc. We all wanted improvement there. So no one comes out of the blame argument too well.
What Cameron is doing really well is that at the moment he is appearing more statesmanlike and not a cheap 'sound bite' merchant. He is biding his time. The credit crunch has given him an opportunity to abandon his doomed 'name calling' strategy and enabled him appear to be a much more solid character. It will help him in the long run and make him a much more dangerous opponent at the next General Election.
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Dear Nick
Just as the markets appear to be calming down and the banking system is possibly, albeit very slowly, rediscovering its true vocation - to attract deposits and lend prudently, so politics is returning to normal - the next British general election remains there for the government to lose.
If Labour mismanages the recession, the Conservatives have to do nothing more than avoid looking less competent.
Saving the banking system from its own folly will not of itself deliver a 4th term.
Peter Kenyon
http://petergkenyon.typepad.com/
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The real problem for Tory Toff Cameron is that the majority of those who think about it, realise that he has no answers either. Just what would a rich Eaton boy know about the unemployed, other than they are a good way of keeping wages down.
I don't see many of his peers and friends in the City of London jumping out of windows, ruined,most of them will be in the Caribbean keeping warm and comfortable on the profits and bonuses they got whilst betting your real savings and investments on imaginary products, CDs, Swaps and Derivatives, things that even they don't understand or even have to. The 'Brokers' always win, going up or coming down they take a margin.
When it's a bit dark and cold this winter or next, just think of the fund managers and bailed out bank execs, cosy and warm in their Swiss skiing chalet, drinking and eating the only bit of your savings and investments left.
Remember Mrs Thatcher, as Mr Cameron reminded us in his conference speech, Mrs Thatcher deregulated the banking markets. It's just taken 20 Years for the policy to mature.
Just to assure you I am a political agnostic, I think Gordon is an idiot for continuing these policies into a Labour government.
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At last the media will finally put the Tories under the spotlight.
They have no answers to this problem because they are fanatical free marketeers. Labour have borrowed and used the situation of unrestrained capitalism to take taxes for schools and hospitals.
Those days are over forever. the difference between the parties now is that Labour have a way out of this mess in their locker the Tories can only prescribe more of the same.
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The first sentence in this blog is inaccurate. The Tories and others have been warning GB about the spiralling levels of debt in the economy for many years now.
This invalidates the second sentence as the "better answer" you refer to would have been to keep a lid on the debt in the economy.
In your third sentence you seem to be attacking Cameron because he has no solution to an insoluble problem. This is most unfair.
I could go on.
Why don't you just join the Labour party and be done with it, Nick?
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Nick,
The government have an army of advisors and civil servants at their disposal. They should be expected to make the right decisions.
Opposition parties have much less 'advisory' resource available. Hence there is no need for Cameron to be on the back foot - he can take the government to task over their failures of the last 11 years. (Starting with the gold sell off).
Looking forwards - Cameron doesn't need to be boxed in - he can support the short term emergency measures, but he can also spell out his longer term vision and framework for government. Easy.
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I heard Dave on the Today program and he was praising Sweden again for having reserves to allow them to get through the current crisis. Does he realise the reason is the Swedish Government is Socialist and has realistic rates of Tax? Also they don't have the same problems of Tax avoidance and evasion that we have in this country which Dave's Party seems to be strangely in favour of. If Dave is converting his New Tories into a Socialist Party to outflank labour I might consider them, but if it's just Dave trying to be all things to all men in the hope of picking up votes I don't think I'll be convinced.
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Seems to me all the Tories have got going for them is Labour having problems. When Labour start pulling together they get sidelined. This seems to show how little they have to offer. The UK would have faired no better under a Tory administration during this financial crisis as its affecting every country, so its a mute point blaming Labour for it.
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Some people may have noticed an interview with Sir Brian Pitman, former chief executive of Lloyds TSB Group. It's worth reading as he highlights some points I made a few days ago that this economic difficulty isn't a huge deal and the key to success isn't necessarily finance but management. Meanwhile, Peter Mandelson is working on a plan to get business focused in a forwards direction. So far, all I've heard from the Tories is a bullish flagwaving speech to get attention and a shower of short-term financial gimmicks. This just shows me how they lack vision for building a better Britain and are more focused on winning votes for the sake of votes.
My general view remains that developing a more positive business vision, developing staff loyalty, and taking a longer-term issue to finance is key to both getting through this difficulty and fixing Britain's broken economic fundamentals. Issues such as management listening to their staff and allowing them to perform, and retaining staff and having fair employment conditions, and a little more shared reality on finance will help cherry pick the best practices of top American and Japanese business practice instead of the backwards approach that's the default today. The pay-off is an industrial powerhouse instead of sliding of the edge of the continental shelf with shame.
I remain convinced that Labour are more clearly than ever the best placed party for government as mere cost cutting and sacking workers is a recipe for disaster. The last time that was tried it stripped the fat off Britain and bit deeply into the muscle. Now that we've only just recovered this far more Thatcherism will be have us gnawing on the bone. Well, no. That's just depressing and recessionary. Really, the best thing the Tories can do is accept the need for consensus and regain some stature by helping persuade the CBI to get on board the government's plan and continue rehabilitating their own party so it's relevant in a changed world.
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26. T A Griffin (TAG)
What exactly is he doing about the dictatorship of oil, what is he going to do about nuclear weapons, why are we having them. Why has money been allocated to it. What is he going to say about the false consultation on nuclear energy. What does he think about the Human Embryo bill, does he seriously accept that our society can continue to tolerate 200,000 abortions a year. I regard this as an abomination of the original principles behind the original abortion act. I can accept the premise about back-street
Tag, this is not exactly a government of renewal and life, so what can we expect from them? Destroy and crush is their policy since they can neither create nor nourish.
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Want to reduce your monthly outgoings?
Overspent on hospitals and the credit cards maxxed out?
PFI initiatives proving to cost more than you thought?
Need a little extra to get you through to the end of the month?
Then consolidate your debts with UKgovernmentbailout.com just give us a call and our friendly advisers are here to help.
(Remember, your banks may be repossessed if you fail to keep up with payments...)
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Only a 9 point lead ????
that makes me laugh at the rate at which Northern Rock a government owned concern is repossessing houses the Tories are assured of keeping that lead all the way to the election.......
One or 2 ministers have already realised this and are calling for stays of execution for people over repayments a very wise move on their part....
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Why are so many people unable to distinguish reporting from supporting? Nick Robinson is not praisingthe cunning politics which Labour may employ. He is simply saying this is what they will do to try to win an election.
Do try to understand, folks!
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The notion of Brown and Mandelson 'working on our behalf' fills me with fear and trepidation.
Haven't they working on 'our behalf' since 1997?
And look where we are today...
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If the Tories really want to help... they should push for - assist with - the changes in law that are required to allow home owners not to be repossessed...
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7442cc98-9e11-11dd-bdde-000077b07658.html
Come on David... make your mark...
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A general comment about BBC reporting/programs.
Is the BBC supposed to only report - not tell stories?
In this case what are the facts of what each political party is proposing.
A Panorama program about this credit crunch included the following.....
Someone stated that the government and the FSA could do nothing about curtailing 125% mortgages, because the media would have objected.
The BBC reporters sat there and said nothing about this statement.
What happened to government taking tough decisions?
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"They have no answers to this problem because they are fanatical free marketeers. Labour have borrowed and used the situation of unrestrained capitalism to take taxes for schools and hospitals."
So the way to get out of a recession caused by reckless borrowing is MORE reckless borrowing?
Sounds like a Baldrick plan to me!
Borrowing is a pyramid scheme, all we are doing is adding another layer to it.
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Whoa there! Many Conservatives have been warning for years about the impending doom of the "Debt Society". For starters, see:
"NHS debt threatens local hospitals, Tories say" - The Guardian, November 15 2005
"Conservatives launch policy offensive on debt crisis" - The Observer, 19 Nov 2006
"Tories plan 'cooling-off' period on store cards to cut spiralling debt" - The Times, 19 Nov 2006
Heck, the party even held a Debt Summit in November 2006.
True, the Conservatives, like everyone else, didn't see the sub-prime banking crisis coming, but they DID see forsee massive problems surrounding debt; they DID forsee the credit crunch.
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Nick
This latest blog is well below your usually high standards. I am aware that both Cameron and Salmond are hogging the political headlines but the Labour spin machine usually has something to say especially at the start of the week.
When Brown was chancellor, he often disappeared when bad news was about. Has this "malaise" now infected the entire Nu Labour cabinet?
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Nick
In order for London to become the financial centre they relaxed the rules America to keep up did similar How can Brown not be to blame? Its a ridiculous assertion from the media that he can just walk away from this and save the day using Billions of taxpayers money.
Subprime loans have been known about for years Bush in 2003 tried to do something and although he failed could have bought more awareness and changed rules.. He didnt..
What he did was allow the eleven million mexican immigrants to borrow and for those who couldnt afford to borrow and changed the rules so fanny mae and freddy mac had to take on this debt. He knowingly made sure those who could not pay back got huge loans.. Bankers mortgage advisors stock markets all made huge bonuses and then left the taxpayer to clean up the mess. At the very minimum charges should be bought on those rule makers and those who were irresponsible but the biggest charges of all should go on Bush for not changing the rules when he was so obviously aware and also made it worse.
The federal reserve waited its time and then suddenly kicked off about sub prime mortgages after massive sub prime loans had been allowed. They kept quiet for years..
Funny how the banks are now in the hands of governments....
Funny how the EU just got its constitution?
Funny how the banks now actually belong to the EU by default and not our government ...
Here in the UK we vote in a new party every five years if they dont please us they get thrown out that is democracy..
The EU doesnt need to please us as they stay in power forever and with out an electorate to please can do what they want.. Thats a dictatorship.. The EU has MEP elections which is the same as electing any labour MP as long as its labour..
The point is Nick we are all being taken in a single direction which is not in the public interest and controls and owns the wealth and people of the west... Democracy is being replaced by a psuedo capitlist dictatorship controlled by an elite.
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Yeah,
carrying on knocking Cameron if you think it helps any Nick, but at least he has spoken out on behalf of business which you have not and no doubt would be acting to help them given half a chance, which the Government are not.
I hope he continues to speak and I hope someone with a slightly firmer grasp than Mandelson, Cooper and Darling gets on with it.
Having just spent an absolute fortune selectively helping some businesses (called banks) I take it from Ms Cooper's remarks toward a cut in NI ie: 'who's going to pay for it' that the Government won't be helping anyone else from here on in.
Remarking on the urgent need to stop the repossession, foreclosure rollercoaster Mandelson said on Sunday, in that usual ghastly dismissive way of his 'well I don't think the government can actually force the banks to help people..'
Missed that off the small print did they?
Well, actually, let's not call it 'help'.
Let's call it serving the REAL interests of the UK population or else do they let the greater proportion of the nation dissolve into a mass of unemployed homeless bankrupts?
GC
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Cameron's problem is not that hard to see.
He is the leader of the Conservative Party - the UK party that most strongly supports free market capitalism. Free market capitalism has failed. What can he say? ("I apologise that we kicked off this disaster with Thatcher's decade"?)
Gordon Brown is the leader of the Labour Party - the UK party that historically has been the most sceptical about free market capitalism. Okay, in a misguided post-Thatcherite world Labour lost its bearings and became zanily capitalist like everyone else. But now it can return to its historically balanced roots, using the state to counteract the inevitable excesses of the free market.
I would say Brown is now in pretty good shape. But I wouldn't like to be in Cameron's shoes. (And in one of history's great mistakes, Clegg's Liberal Democrats finally embraced the unfettered free market - just before it collapsed.)
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@30 miketyler
The issue isnt that Brown continued the policies.
Its that his deregulation and tripartate system made the situation worse.
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Nick's comment about Cameron and the Tories facing a test of nerve is spot on. The media narrative over the last 12 months has been will Labour have to get rid of Brown in order to avoid electoral meltdown. The new media story is mix between Brown being the "comeback kid" and the the "father of the nation". The media is now much more positive about Gordon Brown and this is making the Tories spectacularly nervous - even when they still have a 9 point poll lead.
Cameron says he wishes to transorm social policy with a focus on the family and really trying to do something about an effectively forgotten underclass. This is big politics and an issue that will reasonate with the broader electorate. This should be the focus. Punch and Judy politics (which he is brilliant at) looks mean and lightweight given the current climate. However, focusing on a real social agenda will require leadership as well as nerve. Interesting to see if DC can show any in the coming months.
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Just imagine if Nick were to slant this blog the other way . . .
On the banking crisis, Gordon can't say "I saw it coming" because he didn't.
He can't say "I put protections in place" because he didn't and the ?Brown plan? that he?s taking credit for isn?t even his.
On what looks like a looming recession, he won't say "let's cut taxes to stimulate the economy" - as the American and Australian governments have - because he's a tax-raiser at heart and won?t change the habits of a lifetime, and that as a "prudent financial steward" he's only prepared to borrow even more to try to spend his way out of the recession.
Thus, he's limited to cheap party political pot shots ? last week at PMQs, more recently refusing to even answer justifiable criticisms of his policies - or to saying, like the Socialist in the old joke, "It?s all Thatcher?s fault you know".
What's more, Gordon Brown, fresh from unjustifiably claiming the plaudits for saving the world's financial system, whilst refusing to accept his own role in the UK downturn, is busy laying a new trap for the Tories. He's pledging to carry on spending and borrowing in the downturn, continuing the policies that helped create it, as the old master John Maynard Keynes recommended. There are political as well as economic reasons for him doing this.
The government wants to sprinkle magic dust on the record borrowing and debt statistics which will be published soon so as to turn them from a negative story into a positive one - from evidence of past failure to a platform for future success, although it is difficult to see how he can argue that more of the same will lead to a different outcome.
In addition, the prime minister is addicted to his favourite electoral narrative - Labour investment versus Tory cuts - and sees the chance to run it again. Specifically, if - and it is a very big if - the government can bring forward its programme to re-build schools that would cut the money which the Tories have allocated for their "free schools" programme and allow ministers to ask "what would you cut to pay for your plans?". Cynics may argue that changing government spending plans simply to outfox your political opponents rather than help the country is symptomatic of this government, and has strong echoes of the 10p tax rate fiasco.
Thus, the Labour leader finds himself in the extraordinary position of being in government, presiding over a failing economy for the first time in 15 years, claiming no responsibility for it despite spending years claiming the boom was all down to him, and having to suggest that continuing the very policies that got us here is somehow a good thing.
Now some suggest this is a turning point in politics. They point to the fact that the Tory poll lead is still substantial, despite all the media coverage of the Prime Minister claiming credit for the Swedish bailout plan. They argue that the state and Gordon Brown are failing to understand their role in helping create the current crisis, and that more of their ?experience? can only do more damage.
It is still a long way from an election but let's remember a simple point. A government that was, in any case, vulnerable to the "time for a change" argument looks set to go through the long, slow political agony of a recession with the job cuts, housing losses and spending constraints that will accompany it.
What's changed, though, is the fact that the ministers will have to return to centre stage and attempt to explain why after 11 years in power they bear no responsibility for current events. Gordon Brown believes that at times like these the key task he has keep smiling and deny everything. That's why he refers to the Brown bank rescue plan rather than crediting it?s original authors and believes that he should be given all the credit for it. The next year is going to be a huge test of his and his party's nerve.
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"Belmons wrote:
Why are so many people unable to distinguish reporting from supporting? Nick Robinson is not praisingthe cunning politics which Labour may employ. He is simply saying this is what they will do to try to win an election.
Do try to understand, folks!"
That would be true if this was a news report - it isn't. It is a blog - which is opinion.
There is a big difference.
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So Gordon Borwn and Alistair Darling are going back to the old tax and spend keynsian ways of the predecessors,
Do people understand that the general theory of economics ws written to punish the world for robbing Keynes of all his wealth? He wa a day trader while at University in the eighties.
Do people undertand that the last time this was tried we ended up with a wage/price spiral that took two decades to bring under control?
Everytime this governemnt spends money it puts its foot in a cow pat. Look at the list of construction companies being sued by the attorney general forprice collusion; we'll have another list within five years.
This is a disaster of a spendahloic government whose only hope is to offer its addicted patient another fix.
If he's so confident he's got a bounce then Gordon Brown should:
Call an election.
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Nick,
I'm amazed that you have filled your blog entry with so much anti-opposition claptrap.
The government is the one taking the lead, as should be expected. However you seem to accept that whatever lead is taken by the government is auotamtically good since the current conditions are bad.
Please, for the sake of everybody's sanity, stop and think and elucidate exctly why you think overborrowing and spending is good.
Keynes promoted the idea 70 years ago, when things were much different than they are today, and his idea of the magnitude of such borrwings were much lower than thex currently are, and as a proportion of what was THEN the GDP was much lower than it is now.
Neither the tories nor lib-dems are able to change the goverment actions, and your attempts to belittle any attempt they might make, does them a disservice.
Why, in a democracy, do you think it makes sense for political opponents to provide a poor government with ideas that it can use to promote itself at their expense, and then attempt to grab another 5 years of power?
Frankly, the people of this country are not that stupid, and are simply waiting for the chance to vote.
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#49 true,
but I would not mind betting that Cameron gets a pretty hard time from some of the old School Tory MPs and Grandees for his 'borderline egalitarian' view.
But. He's got more guts than Brown, at least he speaks for folk like me with firms like mine.
The UK has to face up to a reality which is that the financial crisis and the recession combined (for our country alone, and leaving aside the human cost per se) are quite as dangerous to us as a working nation now, as (without naming names) far-right Germany was in 1939.
And this government are about as much use now as Neville Chamberlain was then. To fix a problem you have to first admit a problem exists and precious days are being lost.
GC
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>Democracy is being replaced by a psuedo capitlist dictatorship controlled by an elite
wake up .. it always has been ever since the working classes got the vote.. sheep voting for the dog as my grandfather would have said.
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I would suggest that Mr Cameron actually knows nothing about small businesses. All the ones I have had dealings with deal in mostly cash and never pay any tax or VAT anyway, they just go bust and do the "Phoenix company" trick every couple of years when HM Revenue and Customs can be ignored no longer.
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I didn't realise Cameron had an "economic problem". He's in opposition. I thought Gordon Brown had a economic problem. Some mistake, surely?
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Spot on with this one Nick. Cameron has two real problems.
The first is he is playing catch up to the quick (in government terms), and internationally lauded, action with the financial crisis. He offered to help to gain political points but was sidelined by the speed of the action and his obvious exclusion from it.
The second is that when you examine his past comments he just wasn't calling that hard for paying off debt in the good times. Mainly he was saying split the process between tax cuts and spending. He probably wanted to pay off debt, but he was too busy trying to win votes promising tomorrows tax cuts.
Finally, his plan for companies employing four or less employees is a joke. 40 or less would help stimulate the SMB sector, preferably 100. It's a smoke screen to appear to be offering innovative solutions and most thinking people can see through that.
He would be better advised to let the Government have its head for a few more weeks and appear more of a statesman.
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If your analysis is correct (personally I think you over state the positives for Labour) and the polls get to a point that would indicate Labour could secure a fourth term, will we still have the endless 'Election now!" shrieks from Tory supporters on here and HYS. After all, most of the calls were justified on the basis of needing an election for the 'sake of democracy'. I guess they were really calls of opportunism and if a Labour success looks likely the 'Election now!" shrieks will be from the other side. Funny how things start to improve for Labour when Campbell and Mandelson back behind the scenes. I think the 'end of spin' is all spin.
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It is interesting that everyone is completely ignoring the fact that a conservative government wouldn't have led us into recession in this state. It is not entirely surprising that they have not announced any decent answers because this is a problem which would not be possible under a tory government. If the UK were a company, we'd be bust.
In 1997, Labour inherited high debt but a balanced budget.
If the Tories win in 2010, they will inherit even higher debt and a budget with at least a £50bn overspend.
Labour accuse the Tories of unfunded promises, but when was the last time Labour promised anything that was not funded by more borrowing?
If Labour are not out in 2010 then I fear for the future of our once great country.
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#45 AndrewOakley
You are right Andrew. The first sentence of this blog is factually incorrect. I made the same point in my entry above but it hasn't made it through Labour's Ministry of Truth.
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#40 Belmons
'Cameron's economic problem'
'The rebirth of Gordon Brown'
'At least Gordon's smiling'
All headings from Nick's recent blogs.
Spot the difference.
Some would say there's a subliminal message here. The use of Christian name or surname, the positive image (rebirth, smiling) - or the negative one (problem).
It's not the BBC's job (or Nick's) to relay the party message from Labour or any other party.
The blogs are interesting, informative, humorous, frustrating and annoying. It's up to the contributors to bring personal opinions to the table, not Nick's.
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Must admit, it's quite a relief to see that Labour finally get the idea of sound management and connecting with regular folks concerns. Their conference pretty much nailed that in outline. The way they're capturing the high ground while the Tories are making like white van man careering around on a wet road looks like Labour are grabbing hold of the underlying political trend with both hands.
You can't buck the market and it's clear that Cameron's stock value has been pumped too high. He tried to pull a Hannibal but got stopped at the gates of Rome, and we know how that story ended. While he's been playing Flash Harry to get in the door his product wasn't squaddie proof, so the Tories are having to go back to the drawing board. That may take a while.
My view is that if you take an interest in people and look after them, they tend to give their best and will make sacrifices when they have to. I've always admired Silicon Valley and Japanese business practice, and if the government can use this crisis as a platform to go MACH 1, I think, that will do a lot to turn Britain around.
The Tao comments that you can encourage good by preventing the the bad, making people want to avoid the bad, or encouraging them to want to do good. If the government can crystallise a vision people hunger for, facilitate it, and give all credit where it's due, one tends to think the problem biggest headache will be knowing what to do with so much national success.
How can we make things faster, cheaper, better? How can we be more bold, flexible, and enduring? By asking ourselves these questions and winning support, by daring to look ahead and put petty office politics aside, the sort of focus that can stimulate is more likely to develop the economy. Plus, there's huge markets emerging that haven't even come fully online yet.
Oh, yeah. And today's pitch for Zen Buddhism is that where companies embed that method in their company culture they can enjoy up to a 10% productivity gain for no additional expenditure. Open minds create new ideas. Open hearts get along with each other. That's a win-win and free money on the table. It comes with no gaurentees and even if it didn't work folks wouldn't be so stressed and chewing the arms off their chairs. Okay, so you're sceptical. That's fine - you could always sing a company song instead. LOL.
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#58 mrshamilton
Your comment is highly irresponsible, demeaning and spiteful to all small businesses, that even in the good times have to work extremely hard to stay afloat as well as demonstrate good management skills.
If you do actually have evidence of the abuse you claim, then this should be channelled to the relevant authorities etc. Tax evasion will always exist but mostly through loopholes in the tax legislation and badly drafted legislation.
The link to Cameron is tenuous at best.
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I think the focus by Cameron has to be on the "age of irresponsibility". It's not hard to see.
For years the current account has been in deficit - a gap that could only be filled with borrowings and/or taxes, and/or government sell-offs and/or cuts in services, or continued growth in GDP - the expectation of the latter being an extremely risky game to play.
We were going to hit the buffers in any event (but clearly not so hard) regardless of the liquidity crisis.
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I am amazed that no one thinks that the Thatcher years were not spend spend spend, lets face it they spent, Water, Gas, Telecoms, National Freight,nuclear energy(only the good bits) and the Railways.
The worst of it is we are now paying for these things again, Railways the biggest subsidies ever, Water putting up prices to cover the infrastructure upgrades of something they knowingly bought as old and broken, BT charging us at every turn, Gas bills, mine has doubled in the last 12 Months, I don't see it rocketing down right now.
The real problem is the lobbing by business and the revolving door into high paying jobs for the Ministers and Civil servants that work with the same industries, it should be banned on pain of imprisonment.
All those in any way connected to the Idiot ID cards scheme should be banned from the £300 Billion gravy train that it will become, when they leave office or their government Job, then see how popular it will be with all those who will advise the contractors.
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"mrshamilton wrote:
I would suggest that Mr Cameron actually knows nothing about small businesses. All the ones I have had dealings with deal in mostly cash and never pay any tax or VAT anyway, they just go bust and do the "Phoenix company" trick every couple of years when HM Revenue and Customs can be ignored no longer. "
Maybe that says more about you then it does most small companies! I have only came across one company who asked to be paid in cash (and the guy was "honest" enough to say it was so he could avoid the VAT)
Of course those who don't pay their VAT aren't going to benefit from his proposal of a VAT holiday so for once only the honest will benefit - that in itself should be a news worth item!
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We know someone quite high profile in the media who knows DC. She says he is much tougher than people suppose.
It is not his problem at present to sort out Gordon's crash. ""Still tongue in a wise head" as MY grandfather used to say. I nearly always found him to be right.
My grandfather also used to answer people when they voiced concern about politics:
"people are paid to worry about that, let them get on with it"!
Just wait till election time though, and the polls are a good guide n'est pas?
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#58. That's an odd comment to make.
Tax rates and regulation can drive many businesses underground, although I would hadly say this is typical. The fact is that to legitimate small businesses the extra few hundred pounds worth of cash flow is highly significant. Overdrafts tend to be low and the businesses are owner-managed; personal guarantees for leases and borrowings (especially security based on property and business assets) are the norm.
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#36,
I saw the interview you refrred to and wrote about it yesterday in Nicks log.
What I wanted to know is exactly how biased, if at all should we see Sir Brian Pitman as being. We have to ask how many shares does he have in LloydsTSB, or any any family settlements or charitable holdings. Does he any beneficial interest at all? How much does he receive in dividends every year. Does he stll act as a paid, or otherwise remunerated consultant to LlyoydsTSB.
If the government proposals for LloydsTSB involve the government preventing any dividends to shareholders then Sir Brian would surely not appreciate any government stake which resulted in dividends not being paid or reduced.
I no longer go for accepting anything said by anybody, especially if they have been given a knighthood.
Finally, I wonder if anybody else will pick-up on the comments made by the Lord Mandelson with respect to the government dropping some of their so-called family friendly policies. I wonder what Harriet Harman thinks of these changes to government policy. Have these people got no principles.
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As CEH would say
"Things can only get buddah".........
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The fact that Mandleson is back sats so much...
Out of ideas, out of touch and at the next GE, out of office.
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With no political axe to grind, the problem here is Nick Robinson's need always to have a simplistic narrative. His naratives are naive and risible and fluctuate as much as the markets. The post of Political Editor at the BBC surely needs much more gravitas and better judgement. His introduction to the Cameron interview on the Today Programme this morning was childlike.
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Moderators
#64
Please advise where I stepped out of line.
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He doesn't have any insight or stamina. That's pretty much crucified him at a time when people need to be looking ahead of the curve in a tough situation. Being 'hard' isn't everything. A little dose of patience and humanity would do him and his party some good.
Dharma, dharma, dharma, Chameleon...
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Nick,
about MPs and the extended christmas holiday they are taking. I think that there will definitely be a spring election. The MPs are going to their constituencies to prepare their labour electorate for voting. There will be a lot about how labour is thinking of the working family, their safe custody of the economy in the global economic crisis. They will soon announce further troop withdrawals from Iraq, in other words the Iraqi government will not accept an extension of the UN mandate. They will accept the Americans but there is no further point in the British presence. anyway, we are needed in the killing fields of Afghanistan.
Furthermore, back to the MPs holidays. First reports on the Today programme referred to the longest christmas break since records began. I pointed out in a mail the error of that comment because I had referred back to Hansard in August 1914 to show that MPs had taken a holiday within days of the declaration of war against Germany, so there were records. Now, they refer to the longest christmas break in recent history. See how the wonderful Internet can work!
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1. I think David Cameron can say that he backed the banks bail out in principle, but disagrees with the strategy taken. Can't he?
a. Is a 12% coupon going to be good for the UK economy? What if the US chooses 5% instead?
b. What kind of banker will want to be CEO of HBOS under these terms?
c. Will Mr Brown give categorical assurances that 'other Govt information sources' will not find their way to the nationalised banks vis a vis their healthy competitors?
2. He can also demand to see the true Govt picture on borrowing. He can demand tha off-balance-sheet liabilities be included in all figures and he can ask how these will be paid back?
3. He can ask what the £4.5bn currently being raised in the money markets using 4.5% Treasury Bonds is for?
4. He can ask Alastair Darling whether he wishes the epithet on his gravestone to be: 'I bankrupted England - what better legacy for a proud Scotsman'?
5. He can ask whether Mr Brown has ever worked OUTSIDE the Public Sector? And if not, why does he consider himself a fit and proper person to regulate the PRIVATE sector?
A few more like that........
But more importantly, he can ask whether the Labour Cabinet will pay the Tories £1m for every policy they repackage, rebrand and steal?
He can ask Gordon Brown his policy on Intellectual Property and then highlight the Govt stealing Tory and LibDem ideas. A sackable offence, maybe?
The thieving is so brazen that a magistrate's court is a waste of time. Borstal perhaps?
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OH DEAR NICK!!!!
YOU ARE ABOUT 20 YEARS BEHIND THE NEWS!!!!!!
WE HAVE THE AMERICAN UNION...USA CANADA AND MEXICO JOIN TOGERTHER IN A UNION WITH A NEW CURRENCY..THE AMERO....SOON...WAKE UP!!!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
#76 jonties
I echo that sentiment. I can't see what was objectionable about my earlier comment (#32) either. Maybe the moderators are censoring comment that is a multiple of 32. That's all I can think of at the moment.
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Sophie was a great relief instead of Andrew Marr.
She had bite and purpose Well done Sophie!
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JCook @ 33
... "he can take the government to task over their failures of the last 11 years. Starting with the gold sell off" ...
Oh no! - okay, I give up.
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Some posters, obviously coming from Cameron's viewpoint, have lambasted NR and questioned his journalistic integrity. I would suggest that you review the article again - NR is illustrating how the Tories have been out-manoeuvred politically during recent events; and how they have boxed themselves in by some of their own actions. In other words, this is not an economic article: it is political commentary. The governement may be right or wrong; that is not NR's point. The point is that the government has successfully exploited the situation - the Tories have not. As Machiavelli pointed out, it's not about who's right or wrong: it's about who's perceived to be right.............and wrong
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I'm not upset by perceived bias at the Beeb. Nick works for a news organisation and has to fill a large void everyday with comment and analysis.
Could the reason for the perceived bias towards Brown and Darling be that Cameron and, in particular, Osborne; are silent on the big issues?
I have no love for Brown, as I hold him in a large way responsible for UKplc's current parlous position, but I despair at the lack of leadership being displayed by Cameron. Osborne is clearly not up to the job and if Cameron does not replace him he lays himself open to being charged both of 'old boy' favouritism and weakness.
With Mandelsonovitch back inside the tent the Cameron tactic of hoping for an election win based upon votes against NuLab rather than votes for Conservative may have to be revisited.
Time to give the public something to VOTE FOR Mr Cameron. A good start would be to replace your Shadow Chancellor with someone who is able to convince the electorate that he/she has a ready understanding of the situation and has a remedial strategy in place.
So, in short, I agree with Nick's analysis. And until the Conservaties have something to say worth reporting those daily news voids which Nick and his colleagues have to fill will continue to be full of NuLab's spin.
The alternative is a blank page.
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Yes, Sophie was much better than Marr.
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Nick,thanks for another objective and sensible article.If the Tory readers dont like the facts may I suggest they stick with Tom and Daisy "the doomsday twins" on a rival Channel!
Frankly I think yet again Cameron has taken a pea-shooter to try to crack an atom bomb - what is the point in a 1% deduction in NI?
I run a small consultancy business,I am owed over £100k by 5 local authorities,the invoices are over 100 days past due,all 5 authorities are Conservative controlled,maybe Mr Cameron would like to get out of the greenhouse before lobbing stones.
Keynsian thinking in a recession works,point money at capital projects,building and construction,insulation work,schools,hospital,create employment to generate jobs and cash to ease the way out of recession,its proven and it works.
Brown did'nt create a world recession,we would be in it however strong our economy,he is not blameless but cant be totally blamed,people I talk to increasingly think he is the only man with the big ideas and persona to get us,and the world, out of it! Andy
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Between 1730 and 1830 enclosure was authorised Parliament.
The reduction and elimination of common rights was devastating for many smallholders and wage workers.
Between the 1990 and 2010 foreclosure was sanctioned by Parliament.
The reduction and elimination of common rights was devastating for many smallholders and wage workers.
GC
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Our crisis is not about percentages, but about economic fundamentals and, unfortunately for all of us, none of the three main parties propose viable solutions.
We can continue flooding the market with tax monies, but for how long before the State itself goes into a default?
Remember Argentina. They announce big projects. Big projects cost big money.
If the choice is between butter and canons - the ethernal economic dilemma - we should not build canons. We should try to revitalise agriculture and basic manufacturing. For decades we have under-invested in agriculture and manufacturing and look where we are now.
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David Cameron definitely DOES have stamina. I doubt if Crash Gordon could ride a bike, ROFL!
(nb. if he attempted it he would CRASH again!)
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Here are a few questions that the GOVERNMENT need to answer.
Will government owned banks be in competition with each other?
Will the be competing with non-government owned banks for the same kind of business?
Will government owned banks be more or less likely to purchase government debt whnenver it is mad available, and at whatever price?
Will government owned banks be closing branches and subsidaries in other countries?
Will government owned banks be opening new branches in other countries?
Will government banks be attempting to buy banks in other countries?
Will the slowdown in the economy, with zero growth and a lower tax take, make it difficult for the government to fund the current budget deficit, never mind any increase in debt announced in the past week?
Since there is less money in the world's financial system, does the government believe that it will be able to lower interest rate AND gather sufficient funds to finance the budget deficit?
Will the government have enough money to fund the various olympic sports during the years up to the 2012 games and complete the various stadia, given the propensity of the budget for these to go up, not down?
How will the government fund the various climate change plans it announced last week?
Where does the government believe the money is going to come from?
Please note, these are questions for the government, not the opposition.
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Moderators - post #23 - please suggest where I stepped out of line. My post contained no profanity or abuse and as far as I can tell conformed with the house rules. I have received no email from the BBC as yet explaining why my post was moderated.
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"Taking the plaudits for saving the world's financial system". What planet are you on?
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Darling also needs a reality touch. I presume that the Beeb hasn't noticed that the current plan to rebuild Schools is running massively behind target. The Olympic village is being cut in size and the Private element of funding has evaporated. How much private capital is going to be available for future PFI schemes?
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There is a systemic problem in this country, in that we have a large client state (including the BBC) devoted to the notion that any wealth around must be spent by them, on them. And if there isn't enough wealth, just borrow (i.e. tax our children). We have had 15 years of hubris, now nemesis is approaching, but we won't reach catharsis until the rest of us accept that we have to confront the client state. Only the Tories can do this - Labour always lead the country to disaster.
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#83. I thought she got a little bit tetchy with Mandelson unnecessarily. Rather than sit on the edge of the chair I think she should sit back and reflect and take things a bit more calmly, and then go for the throat.
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#83
You are absolutely right. Sophie was a blast of fresh air, especially when interviewing Lord Mandelson who I thought did look particulary shifty. When answering some questions he was looking not at Sophie or to camera, a bad mistake Lord Mandelson of etc.
Lord Mandelson seemed really not to appreciate being interviewed by an attractive woman in a very fetching top, I may be wrong but I think he looked a bit, well, distracted, more of Sophie please. Just to confirm that I am not her agent, nor related in any way to her or her family, well from earlier posts of mine not that I know of anyway.
I think that the Andrew Marr show has reached its natural end. It is almost as though the politicians know, or only allow, the questions if they have been made known in advance.
Also, you get the paper reviewers, then some actor or other pressing a book, or a singer going on before we get to the real business. The editor needs to change the presenter and the format. It has been dumbed down, it is no longer acceptable, finally why is Marr allowed to carry the Sunday Times in the preamble walk through the office, stop it, and stop it now.
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Charle E Hardwidge #65
You are dead right about taking an intrest in people and look after them they will tend to give their best and make sacrifices when they have to.
That is why people have had enough of Trust me Brown and Nu Labour. He has taxed us got us in debt and never taken an intrest in us. And the only ones Labour have looked after is themselfs by feeding us spin after spin of lies.
Blair and Iraqs WMD for one. Blair and F1 racing and smoking adverts are just a few. Then we have pensions, gold being sold for next to nothing.
We need a change and you have to see 10 years of Labour needs to end.
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#93,
don't worry too much, it happened to me too, I think an automatic word censor is used, ticklish things at the best of times. Just rewrite in different words,
GC
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Ok,
So I was wondering how long Alastair Cambell and Peter Mandelson would take to turn the tanker that is the Labour government.
Wow I can see their grubby paws in every article in the last month at least. Its spin spin spin.
In fact only they could have turned the sinking ship Brown into what it is becoming now.
They could make the sinking of the Titanic sound so great we'd all credit Gordon for "saving" it
Isn't it scary how two people can totally control the electorate?
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Cameron could get a magic 8 ball. It might be more reliable, and it would definately be less messy than reading Osborne's entrails.
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How can this whole scenario be David Cameron's economic problem? The architect of part of the crisis is sitting comfortably in No 10 smugly surveying the scene and glibly blaming everything on The Global Crisis. More worrying than any of this is the fact that an 8 pt lead for The Conservatives only translates to a 6 seat majority in The House Of Commons. There is something very wrong with The Electoral System.
The immigration problem could well soon be solved if the present situation worsens and the unthinkable comes about. If Gordon Brown should manage to sneak himself back in for a 3rd Term I predict that emigration figures will soar.
I don't really have a personal take on the present crisis because I have a mortgage paid off and have saved a tidy nest egg. I am also on a fairly good teachers pension and will benefit from the drop in inflation when that comes about. Having said that I feel sorry for the many hundreds of thousands of people who will lose their jobs and homes as a result of profligate Government spending and borrowing.
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I do not want want to sound like a Tory running scared, that I most definitely am not, but, could the quality of Nick Robinsons journalism not be considerably better?
Let me explain, Gordon Brown has difficulties by the bucket load, the majority of which are of his own making. Where is the analysis? Cameron and the Conservatives have had no influence at all in the fiasco presided over by Blair and lately Brown, who still lurches along stumbling from crisis to crisis. At what point in time, if ever, will a BBC journalist ask the searching questions that put Brown on the spot and refuse to be fobbed off as is the way with Brown.
Right now Cameron should be pushing, pushing, pushing Brown and demanding answers, sometimes his silence is deafening. Labour, and by default, the country, is in a complete mess, which will become considerably worse in the forthcoming months.
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The blatant BBC bias in favour of the Labour party is growing.
Cameron can't promise too much in the way of tax cuts or other policy matters, simply because he doesn't know the extent to which Labour will wreck the economy in the coming year.
Debt and unemployment will grow, GDP will shrink, no one knows by how much.
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This is such an easy counter; government spending already is running at historically high levels - government debt is the highest since 1946.
Keynes was proposing these ideas in 1936, when there was no NHS with its 97 billion annual budget; the education system was dramatically smaller than currently, with very few universities; there was bo enormous welfare state to support the workshy; incapacity benefits did not exist.
So in those days, spending a little money had an impact; today there is so much government debt out there it's like trying to make an impact by throwing a pebble into force 10 gale.
So, ironically, they're going to produce exactly the effect keynes warned about - pushing on a string. he was talking about interest rate cuts but this time it will be governemnt spending that has no impact.
They have to get to grips with the fact that the banking system has far too much leverage and has taken asset prices to all time highs during a period of historically low real wage inflation.
Nobody can service this debt so all this property has to re-enter the market before the economy can stabilise.
The monetary tide has gone out for good and many have been left without their swimming trunks on; trying to push the tide back in again with government spending is futile.
And no-one had made the point that Gordon Brown has dealt another crippling blow tho the pensions industry - 25 per cent of dividends from the FTSE were banking dividends that are suspended until the banks pay back the government.
So it's quite obvious the government has another agenda; it doesn't want to leave office until it has commpletely destroyed private sector pensions.
What is the point of this government?
Call an election.
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if you strip away the viel of these parties what do you reveal, they are self interested,self obssesed,greedy mobs that only want power to get what they want.
both play to the media with hyper spin and great sound bites but both in fact all are out of real ideas,ineptly stealing from the other to make the other look bad, greedy and manipulative organisations that may once have done a good job but in recent years they have forgotten how to do the jobs they were created for, neu labour goes on about its invest and spend policy but to be honest the people have not seen much of it with this government but taxation is higher than before,
the torries accused of there cutting back policy and reduction of spending shows the fact they have not moved ahead in any form of government since before most of us were born.
this crisis and the problems facing this country will not be solved by these parties who are too busy throwing handbags at each other to do anything, and the people of this country deserves a government that will do the right things reguardless of how popular it is or what the media might say, a government with a back bone of integrity and the will to front problems forcing them back into oblivion.
a honest hard working government for the people ,by the people, rather than these over paid namby pambies who have shown themselves untrustworthy.
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Why doesn't David Cameron attack the government on PFI? Now, that is ALL Gordon Brown's own work and a massive and expensive con trick. I suppose it's because the tories wouldn't mind a bit of 'off' balance sheet action themselves, if they ever get elected again.
I'm sick of the lot of them.
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Spot on Nick - the government (GB) is about to perpetuate the problem by squandering more squillions.
How is it that the illusion is maintained that all that the government does is good and worthwhile, no matter how deep it's hands in our pockets? It really helps, of course, to keep finding other people to blame - problems are caused by 'them', successes are down to 'us'.
I live in hope that Mr Cameron finds the answer to this pretty soon.
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Nick,
About MPs and the extended christmas holiday they are taking. I think that there will definitely be a spring election. The MPs are going to their constituencies to prepare their labour electorate for voting. There will be a lot about how labour is thinking of the working family, their safe custody of the economy in the global economic crisis. They will soon announce further troop withdrawals from Iraq, in other words the Iraqi government will not accept an extension of the UN mandate. They will accept the Americans but there is no further point in the British presence. anyway, we are needed in the killing fields of Afghanistan.
Furthermore, back to the MPs holidays. First reports on the Today programme referred to the longest christmas break since records began. I pointed out in a mail the error of that comment because I had referred back to Hansard in August 1914 to show that MPs had taken a holiday within days of the declaration of war against Germany, so there were records. Now, they refer to the longest christmas break in recent history. See how the wonderful Internet can work!
Oh, and just to say that come the spring election I will try to resist the temptation to say that I told you so!
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Hasn't this just set Glenrothes up to be the most critical by-election of probably the last 30 years? If Labour wins Brown's momentum will be increase, if the SNP win, as I still think they will, in a seat which is right on Brown's doorstop then the narrative will turn hostile for Labour again. Momentous times!
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#92 T'uga Mawilli (aka Duoteste)
Good questions.
FYI, I posted a reply to your #501 on the "It's the real economy, stupid" thread as my #533 on the same thread.
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Hello to KennethM #94
NR is correctly attributing plaudits to out prime minister. You may not agree with what he has done; but e.g. the most recent winner of the Nobel prize for economics does; and has argued the position recently in the New York Times.
Frankly, I'm out of my depth in term of the economic argument and do not wish to engage in one. I merely point out that our prime minister has actually received the plaudits NR refers to. You may not agree that he deserves them, and who am I to argue with you? But he did get them and your post merely illustrates an inability to accept uncomfortable truth. You would do better to argue the ecomonics (as other have done in detail) than simply cry foul.
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Nick it is a sad indictment of the two major political parties that we won't get the truth. Therefore we won't learn the real lessons - just the cosmetic ones suited to poll reactions. Therefore the crisis can happen again.
Dubya Bush was saying there must be no change to the free market. So there are clearly people out there who aren't even going to try and learn the lessons.
We need a public inquiry so that every facet of the crisis is examined and understood. These are lessons we need to learn for the long term.
It shows the shameless lust for power of Labour that they are trying to portray themselves as the economic heroes - not villains.
The Tory vote, known to be soft, is probably dented more by the fact that if you ask - "would it have been even worse inder the Tories?" would probably elicit a "yes".
Also nobody has yet explained when the government actually knew there was a crisis and what did they do?
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Firstly, it's an open question whether there will still be anything left to vote for in a year's time. Secondly, the real question is not what flavour of conservative will still be credible, but whether any socialist alternative can come together in that time, and if not, whether the poltical system remains credible, or whether the balance of power will be held by the Monster Raving Loonies or their ilk. If the vote drops much further, that's what can happen.
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C E Hardwidge 102
At least Cameron has a shadow chancellor unlike Labour who have a puppet chancellor in Darling.
Darling says what Trust me Brown tells him to say.
In fact Brown may aswell get rid of his cabinet and just have him in charge.
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"On what looks like a looming recession, he won't say "let's cut taxes to stimulate the economy" - as the American and Australian governments have - because he's already declared that "the cupboard is bare" and that as a "fiscal conservative" he's not prepared to borrow to finance tax cuts"
So say the BBC, who never understood economics.
You can have tax cuts without increasing borrowing, Nick - it's called "efficiency", and cutting unnecessary public costs.
But then again, I wouldn't expect bbc/labour to understand efficiency or not wasting public money.
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As far as the moderators are concerned, they moderated something of mine about UK banks getting caught out spinning last week on Bob Peston's blog, which was then adopted as a major theme of Sunday's File on Four. They're not rocket scientists, just second-rate lawyers unable to keep up with the speed of movement in this world, IMHO. It often helps to rephrase without naming names (they're afraid of being sued) - you can get round it by refering to their advertising.
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When the "Brown Plan" delivers a powerhouse economy pensions will be adequately covered. But, before that can happen what we do today is more important. After all, it's what we do *now* that directs and shapes the future.
Recession? Best thing that could've happened, actually. It gives Labour an excuse to turbocharge economic reform, get people focused on the important issues, and deliver the lasting change Britain needs to get over itself.
w00t! w00t! w00t!
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#82 jonno_79
Thanks for the tip. Now to re-write my comment and try to avoid multiples of the dreaded 32.....
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Hello, SecretSkivver in #96
Is that you, Paul? I used to work with a guy in Wellingborough who was always on about hubris and nemesis.
Hope you're ok.
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All the present government's farcically failed initiatives and political gaffes have come to a head in Jacqui Smith's surveillance society blueprint and much time surely cannot pass without a political fight over it. Or can it? David Davis can't exactly resign and get re-elected over this as well - it's a trick that only works once. Best leader the modern tories never had - but I digress. Neil Kinnock did much of Thatcher's groundwork for her by tackling the Unions. Is Smith laying the foundations of a totalitarian state that future tories could privatise?
If Cameron want to fight a good fight or only a cynical one, and who would know the difference, this could be it.
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#40 Belmons
'Cameron's economic problem'
'The rebirth of Gordon Brown'
'At least Gordon's smiling'
All headings from Nick's recent blogs.
Spot the difference.
The use of Christian name or surname, the positive image (rebirth, smiling) - or the negative one (problem).
It's not the BBC's job (or Nick's) to relay the party message from Labour or any other party.
The blogs are interesting, informative, humorous, frustrating and annoying. It's up to the contributors to bring personal opinions to the table.
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If GB has supposedly "saved the UK" with his recent actions and he is still 9 points behind, then hardly cause for celebration. When the next 12 months pans out and the unemployment continues to rocket and more money gets taken out of our pockets to pay for all his spending, lets see where Labour are then. Remember, you can't fool all of the people all of the time!
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Well i think everyone should pause for a moment..................................................
Then all say a big thank you to Gordon Brown for 11 years of growth and saving.
What you didn't save anything?
ooops, well you should have....................... your now going to suffer at the hands of the global crisis
Thanks to Gordon, who i trust after this GLOBAL downturn, can look forward to another 11 years of growth and prosperity, investing in schools and hospitals and making this country even better.
I voted Tory in the past, but New Labour turned my head and i have never looked back.
successful business man.
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I got referred to the moderators; I wonder if the word "efficiency" is a swear word for the BBC. I'm posting this to find out.
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How can you say he didnt say that. If anything he forcast that the shambles of a government was spending to much money on less important things than studying what was really going on in the world markets. Im sure if anything that the Tories would get us out of this mess faster than the Brown bunch.
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When are people going to realise the futility of this cosy two-party system, which guarantees a period in power for each of them in due course. Each one makes a mess of the economy, and usually of everything else.
The fault lies with the constitutional set-up of the UK. Power lies in that nebulous concept, 'the Crown in Parliament', which allows for an executive dictatorship, when a party has a large compliant majority in the Commons. (Thatcher and Blair are prime examples).
The system perpetuates a significant democratic deficiency. Neither party will get rid of the first past the post electoral method, because it ensures their time in power. But this system deprives most of us a say at a general election. Only some 50 or so marginals count. This makes the majority of MPs (and government ministers) less accountable to the electorate.
Its also significant that after 11 years in power, Labour has not created an elected second chamber. Straw had to be pushed to even support a 50% elected body. The existence of the Lords allows for patronage which corrupts the entire political process. It is also a class-ridden institution.
There is no written constitution to protect us, the citizens, from arbitrary executive power, and legislation passed by a compliant Commons. The HRA is weak, merely an Act which can be amended or repealed by a simple majority. There should be an entrenched Bill of Rights, requiring special measures for amendment. There should be a Supreme Court empowered to strike down unconstitutional legislation. Prime examples of such would be the power to detain without charge for 28 days and the ID Cards Act. The Law Lords have no such powers.
The system is built for bad government, and we've had decades of it. It will continue, until enough of us realise that it has to change.
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C E Hardwidge 119
While Brown is destroying private pensions can he stop destroying everthing else.
And as for you wanting a recession what could you gain from people having no job no money and no future. When we are all out of work no one can pay Labours high taxes.
Take a look at what The Great One has done to our country. Its on it knees thanks to high tax and lazy good for nothings on hand outs.
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#119
CEH
"when Brown delivers a powerhouse economy..."
And when will this be?
Real wages have grown less than under any period of tory rule.
Govenment debt is now the highest since 1946.
Rover was put into adminsitration.
We spent billions on two illegal wars.
We waste billions on wasteful public services.
he wrecked the penison system from the moment he took office and now aaccording to you we have to wait...how long? before he delivers us with what we had in the first place.. a pension system.
So he loses up to twenty years of lost contributions and investment in the pensions industry whoile we wait for him to get it.
Doyou know anything about compounding CEH?
This man has completely wrecked the pensions systema nd is out to snuff it out for good.
He should be hounded from office.
Call an election.
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#112 Brownedov
I think you're right, both of us agree on our opposition to rhe current government, but disagree on the best way of electing a government.
I suspect that a strong Scottish National representation might be the least worst outcome from our joint perspective, because it would repair the massive imbalance that Labour representation in Scotland currently imposes on us in England.
This might not have been what the scottish mafia that runs Labour planned, but it could well be what they get.
Come on Glenrothes, do the right thing.
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Moderators
#s 64 & 123
Once again:
Please advise where I stepped out of line.
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Nick,
It is very difficult for any opposition to do anything about current policies since by definition they are not in charge. All that they can do is point out past errors, or the likelihood of future mistakes.
Now you seem to be happy that all of the decisions being taken by Brown are in fact traps for the Conservatives, yet what they ought to be are steps that are for the short and long term good of the economy. If these traps work for Brown, all that we can be certain of is that Brown will continue to work in his own political interests, not ours.
So where is the scrutiny from you to point out that the previous 11 years have produced a boom and a bust, so how can anyone now trust Brown to get the next year or two right, never mind the next 10-12? If Browns policies were right before, how come he is now happy to tear them up (spending to be greater than 40% of GDP anyone). The Golden Rule - do you remember that one? How come the Beeb reported with relish the day when we left the ERM and the huge U turn for the Conservatives, yet you are not hammering home the huge reversal of policy by Brown?
It also seems to me that Brown is guilty of getting as many people as he can to be reliant on the state so that any "cuts" will not be attractive to voters, even if that spending was not necessary in the first place. It has so many echoes of the problems that beset Dame Shirley (remember the hooha got up by Labour and the BBC?), yet no one at the Beeb seems at all interested in how we are being bribed with our own money.
It may all be a big game to you, but to those who pay your wages, it is far more important. So stop behaving like an ambulance chasing lawyer, and start analysing the situation in much more detail and then (and only then) report in an unbiased way. Otherwise, why bother.
All the best
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Why doesn't somebody propose a 'Vote of No Confidence' in the Government. Labour are thrown out, the electorate are given a chance to elect somebody they trust (whoever that may be), then we can all get on with the job of rebuilding the country and its economy...
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Keynesian economics.
I'll tell the government what we should be doing, let's prepare for war, rearmamnet that's what we need. Why not build a few hundred Spitfires and Hurricanes. Modern rocket technology expects all planes to fly fast so a slow plane would confuse the enemy.
We are, after all, taking on a few hundred foreigners who supposedly still live in the middle-ages. So, why not take them on using older technology, why we may even develop and use some form of gas, which is what the wonderful Churchill did when we were previously in Iraq.
Maybe, we ought to build another battleship as well, lets go the whole hog and use coal to power the ships. Clean coal mind you, then we can have stokers back, now let's see the WRENs doing that job!
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1) Banks and Building Societies must recover bad debts to stay in business - if that involves reposession of a mortgaged property it is right for them to do so.
2) Governments are the agents of the people it is never right for a government to take someones home from them.
Notice something here?
Governments can't sucessfully own banks/building societies that offer mortgages...
Pretty obvious really -- shame Brown and his mob don't get it.
It is where we are, it is unsustainable, the opposition must make clear that they will correct this situation ASAP - in contrast to the labour party who are quite content (even eager) to run banks unsucessfully.
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So your anwser Nick is to let Labour carry on spending money they have not got. Just who do you think is going to pay for this. when the election is over and your adopted party has won the chickens will come home to roost.Or just maybe the Tories will win without the help of the BBC.
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Nick,
I thought the bbc were supposed to be impartial, yet again you portray G Broon as a positive when he is anything but. Banish Boom and Bust is what he said and where are we Bust!!! Thanks to him and a few idiot bankers! Please please allow the public to decide for themselves./
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#131 T'ga Mawilli
I agree about the SNP. In the Labour party manifesto for the last general election there was a commitment to reduce the number of Scottish MPs due to the transfer of goverment through to the Scottish parliament.
When this was to be effected, guess who vetoed it? Yup, Brown.
As an aside I have been very impressed by the SNP's handling of the administration of government. They just get their heads down and do the job. A distinct contrast to Mr McConnell and Ms Alexander efforts.
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Well he has fallen for the old trap, that of backing the Government just as his predecessor signed up to the Iraq and Afghan war. When ill oppositions learn that they will earn no plaudits backing the Government of their country for jingoistic reasons. That old catch phrase, "at times like these we must all pull together." No we don't, we have a right to reasoned debate!! We have a right to find out how we got in this mess, who should loose credibility instead of all getting in a boat and expecting the taxpayer not only to take the hit but to pay as well. There will be nothing so guaranteed to get up the electorates nose as the great and the good of this failed compot than knowing they are still in their jobs, paid by us and still paying less tax than the chambermaid.
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re: 132 jonties
I think the labour department's spin machine (aka the BBC) is having a busy day today; not much is getting through at all.
You didn't really think that the BBC was a forum for free speech, did you?
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Comment 58
Let me clarify -
I am an employee rather than a small business owner, and do not seek to denigrate honest business people
There is nothing illegal about withholding PAYE/NIC/VAT and then having the company resurface under a different name and having the debt written off. This kind of thing is very very common in my experience. Realistically you can get away without paying because of a years backlog with HMRC cases. Mr Cameron seems unaware of this, he would do well to campaign against "Phoenix companies" and to recruit sufficient civil servants to actually make the country's tax system work properly.
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Is it only me, but is Brown actually rejoicing the financial meltdown?
Now that the tax cupboard is totally bare, he's probably rubbing his hands with glee at the thought of being able to hide his own borrow and squander projects deep within the current banking mire.
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How strange you lambast the Tories for not having the answer to the current woes.
It's like saying "Well, this chap killed the golden goose. Now what is your solution to this.".
The solution would have been not to do so (raid pensions, sell the gold at depressed prices, so on, so forth). Once the goose is dead, you are in the consequence stage of that action. The assets that could have made it easier to weather this storm have been sold off.
So, yes, options are limited, but that's just a result of all the "prudent" plans of the last decade.
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There's some naive politics in here. At a time when the focus should be on solutions the Tory boys just wade in with whines and put downs. I've seen some procrastination in my life but, c'mon. If that's where you're mind's at you'll never be happy.
I think, Labour should deploy Hazel Blears to Tory Central Office in the national interest. She can teach all the Tories how to relax and smile. Maybe, do a little yoga and ease their stress headaches.
We need a Ministry of Happy Thoughts. Now, that would make the Tories hearts thump and their throats constrict in panic. Free ice cream, flowers, and annual holidays for pensioners by the seaside! Hah, that would put those scowlers in a flat spin.
Man, I'm LOVIN' this recession! Bring it on. O_O
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84 Sagamix
....Gold.... yeah sorry for slipping that one in - that was just for you by the way! I didn't have time to reply to your post from yesterday!
Hope all is well with you..... ;-)
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We British do like to be able to blame our own government for everything wrong in our lives, don't we?
Who forces you to buy all the cheap goods from China, India and Poland - the places where all our manufacturing jobs have gone? But that didn't bother you because you work in a service-sector job down South.
Who forces you to buy the child-made clothes from Primark?
Who forced you to max out your credit card; swap the balance to another and then put it on your precarious mortgage when you couldn't keep up the payments?
Who forced you to forsake the future and get a bigger mortgage instead of a decent pension?
Why did the housing market over-inflate?
There are a lot of answers; and the government did encourage some of it to create short-term economic benefits (Don't tell me the Tories wouldn't have done it - I remember Tory governments), and there are dodgy mortgage advisors - but let's all face it - our own, personal greed lies at the heart of the current economic crisis. And don't scapegoat the city whizz-kids either - we all benefited from them when the times were good and even if they are blameworthy - I'd like to know if you can honestly say you'd have behaved differently with similar bonuses put on your plate!
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Like you, Miss Waldorf, we have a mortgage paid off and pretty good private pensions and nest eggs in reliable banks and we are working some of the time too.
If Brown can still be stretched into the foreseeable future, emigrating is very attractive.
However, it is the poor who are going to suffer with the recession. It always is.
The country will be left with a looney inefficient government and loads of poor people and immigrants on handouts.
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Okay! I give in.
This is what's left of my reponse to
#40 Belmons
The blogs are interesting, informative, humorous, frustrating and annoying.
#141 getridofgordonnow
Thanks - I think I get the picture.
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Umm, I thought the BBC was meant to be bipartisan?
The tories have repeatedly said that Brown has failed to save while times were good - this is why they now say the cupboard is bare - it's not the *tories* who have spent every bean we have, is it Nick? If we had, say, our gold reserves, we might be able to cut taxes. If we hadn't blown hundreds of millions on social programmes that didnt' work, squalid illlegal wars, paying millions to sit at home on their backsides, then we might have a few quid.
The *tories* didnt' waste our money, Nick.
Cameron disputed your line on Today this morning Nick - I think you should have the good grace to admit that you're wrong.
I'm wondering why I'm paying the license fee btw. If I wanted to fund government propaganda I'd donate directly to Labour.
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134 "Why doesn't somebody propose a 'Vote of No Confidence' in the Government. Labour are thrown out, the electorate are given a chance to elect somebody they trust (whoever that may be), "
Now come on: please don't disguise your satire quite so skilfully or you'll have us believing in your uncanny reprise of 1979. There are even creepier echoes than the obvious ones of course. As you recall, the no confidence was won by the perfidy (I use the word with total neutrality) of certain Celtic nationalists. Nowadays of course these folk must be too aware of the untenable position they occupy to be up for such a caper.
But it would be quite a sideshow.
Only if Cameron can tap the sense of outrage in the country at Jacqui Smith's recent stasi-like proposals can he hope to make any real kind of mark; and surely the tories divide on this one, much as they divide on Europe.
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It seems to me that the government has to go on the offensive here. If the Tories accuse Brown of presiding over an "age of irresponsibility" then his answer should be that in 1997 New Labour agreed to stick to the levels of irresponsibility they had inherited from the Tories. Now is the time for a proud Left-Keynesian defence of the state and the primacy of politics over the market.
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The UK state pension scheme is not funded. This means that there is no pot of money set aside for this and Government rely on future taxes to cover pensions as and when they are claimed. In the meantime, GB et al are borrowing even more money. I can't see how future pensions cannot be affected by this. We will be in debt up to our necks.
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I'm neither a Tory voter nor supporter but I must agree that this blog appears to be little more than Labour Propaganda.Never mind what Cameron may or may not do,how about a bit of reality and hammering the self-deluded clown who got us into this.America saved Brown's Bacon,his hideous economic mismanagement caused a bubble that had already started to burst.The one constant of this Government is that nothing is ever their fault,I'm sick of them and I'm sick of the BBC using taxpayers money to punt government propaganda,both are past their sell-by date.
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I wish Nick Robinson would just occasionally disguise his bias towards Labour. Whoever is responsible for the current downturn, it is certainly not David Cameron and the Tories (who have been locked out of the Treasury for 11 years). Cameron is doing what he is paid to do - which is to oppose and propose solutions.
Despite Nick's wishful thinking, Gordon Brown is not benefiting in the country at large from his recent heroics - largely because, outside Broadcasting House, most people see through the prime minister's posturing to save the world from a crisis he (and the Bank of England) have nurtured since 1997.
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Family friendly government is it. Then why is it being spread around that to save the smaller companies family friendly policies may well be amended, or dropped, because of the Global Economic Crisis. You really must understand. Now then let's get that Lord Mandelson to explain this to the wonderful Sophie shall we, sorry that was yesterday, funny he never mentioned it.
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#136 re: "Banks and Building Societies must recover bad debts to stay in business - if that involves reposession of a mortgaged property it is right for them to do so"
Excuse me? You belong in a previous century, somewhere between Charles 1st and Louis IV.
Calling a debt a 'bad debt' after otherwise responsible borrowers have lost their livelihoods is like calling a football team a bunch of losers after you've run off with the ball.
Yeah, hammer them in the courts for having the temerity to borrow and yeah they should have read the small print 'your home may be at risk' blah blah. call in the bailiffs, foreclose on their firms, repossess their houses, make them dependent on the state, who needs them?
I'm sick and tired of seeing ordinary people being (de facto) blamed for this mess.
GC
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101 Secondspaners
I totally agree with you.
As soon as Campbell and Mandelson were back on the scene they have begun to feed the media a positive spin. It is so obvious:
1. Falklands moment
2. Churchillian
3. Brown personally brokered HBOS / Lloyds
4. The Brown Plan (for the world)
5. Bury the bad news day: SATS, 42 days, secret inquests, inflation record high, unemployment figures
Whilst a large proportion of the electorate are gullible - the media are soft and have forgotten how to do 'investigative journalism' - they prefer to do 'opinion pieces' which are cheaper (but that relies on the spinners hands to feed them).
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Nick,
Your article does not appear to be one of your better ones, and seems in places to directly contradict the theme of your "the real economy stupid" blog.
As for the Tories "no longer making the political weather" I generally had the impression that it was Gordon Brown who was making the political weather in the past few years - mainly due to the series of bizarre decisions demonstrating how out of touch he was and the dismissive arrogance and contempt with which he holds the taxpayers and people who do not share his outdated views.
Whatever the Tories may or may not be saying, I don't think that Gordon Brown's approach can have fundamentally changed. Spin, smear and stealth taxes nonwithstanding, we are all who we are.
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Now lets see, the figures on government borrowing for September, before the spending spree on banks, have just been announced, and they're already over 37 billion, and at a time when borrowing for the whole year was forecast for 43 billion.
This was BEFORE the massive spend. So, as previously asked, where, oh where, do they expect to get all this wonderul money from?
The only way out for this bankrupt government is good old fashioned inflation, so that the value of what is actually owed shrinks. Have they got the nerve to tell us that's what they plan?
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#131 T'uga Mawilli (aka Duoteste)
Fair enough. We certainly share a common desire that NuLab lose in Glenrothes, and retain few Scottish seats after the general election. Probable rather than certain, I think, right now.
Our views on what we'd like to happen in England are obviously similar in respect to who we'd like to see losing but very different when it comes to who we'd like to winning. I do fear that unless England comes to its senses and votes for home rule for itself, the UK will not long exist, leading to a continued democratic deficit for the English.
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I don't think that many people have picked-up on the Colin Powell effect on the American election, which has implications for the occupation of Iraq.
The case being floated is that Colin Powell has never forgiven Bush for allowing him to make a presentation based on incorrect information. Maybe, it is time for Brown to denounce Tony Blair for the war with America against Iraq.
Maybe we ought to have the Kruschev denunctiation of Stalin on our news programmes to remind Brown of how it could be done. After all was Brown not compared to Stalin and the Kremlin in some earlier blog of yours.
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Well, reading this it's clear why Conservative Central Office hasn't come up with a decent spin on the economic crisis.
They're all too busy posting blog comments on the bbc website :)
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#158 - 2. Churchillian
Yup. Gifted Gordon and the bushy-eyebrowed Troskyite, Churchillian.
"Never was so much owed by so many to so few"
GC
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'Dave' and his chums have just about as much knowledge about SME's as the Labour Government - that is very little idea at all.
As much as both parties pay occasional lip service to small business - that is all it is - lip service.
Yesterday, I spoke to a small shop keeper, general stores - his taking were 10,000 per week - but now thanks to a Sainsburys local opening next door about three months ago - his takings are now 5,000 per week.
He is going bust.
Yet he still has to pay a significant sum in Council Business rates each month - which apparently has no concept of 'ability to pay' built-in.
These politicians have not got the remotest idea how tough it is out here.
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Nick,
I am sure you will find this hard to believe but for the first time, it seems that something I have said has either offended someone at the Beeb, or someone in general.
I will take this last time to make my point.
Once upon a time, a politician received scorn for allegedly using taxpayers money in a way that some thought was too political and could be seen to be buying votes using taxpayers assets.
In the current climate, we have a government with an ever increasing spread of influence on the electorate, either through spending initiatives or through an increasing government payroll. In other words, those that advocate spending could be seen to be buying votes, whilst those that argue cuts, would be seen to be in danger of losing votes as some might be concerned that it would be their job that would be lost.
To my mind, any government that seeks to increase its payroll, directly or indirectly at a time when the country is already extremely indebted is merely attempting to bolster its own position rather than taking what should be the right decisions for the short and long run good of the economy.
For the Beeb to focus upon the opposition when it is clearly the government that needs to be scrutinised is a desertion of duty. No one is asking for the opposition to be given an easy ride, only that the government is not allowed to divert attention away from their own huge mistakes by petty party political point scoring.
It is incumbent on yourself and others at the Beeb to earn your salaries by calling Ministers (including Brown) to account. What are they proposing to spend and why? Will the funds be spread across the UK as a whole or only certain areas? Do they intend to increase numbers on the government payroll (directly or indirectly)? How do they intend to repay the rising amounts to be borrowed?
To sum up, stop worrying needlessly about the opposition, and start acting like the key political journalist at the impartial BBC.
All the best.
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#147 You_Know_its_true
I complain about the governent because I didn't do any of those things but am getting the bill anyway.
The Prudent should not be made to bail out the Profligate.
I don't want to be part of this stupid, misguided socailist experiment.
We are where we are, but Brown wants to tie us in tighter to his agenda while Cameron wants to free us to make our own choices.
I always prefer choice - unlike the lefties I am perfectly happy for others to disagree with me - as long as the don't try to impose their stupid ideas on me (along with the bill to pay for them). Unfortunately the lefties interest is not in managing their own lives, it is trying to manage everyone elses.
What do the left want to ban? - everything they disagree with.
What to do the right want to ban? - the power of people to interfere with others.
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We have the biggest budget deficit since 1946.
We have the biggest liquidity injection ever into the financial system.
We have house prices falling faster than any time on record.
Mortgage approvals are falling faster than ever before.
The government has nationalised the banking system.
We've had the first run on a bank for 140 years.
The private pension system is yet again in crisis.
We have sold our nuclear power stations to the French.
And the BBC run a headline:
'Cameron's economic problem'
Is there any greater example ever of institutional bias?
When is the BBC going to hold to account a newlabour politician for this unholy stuff up?
Eleven years of non-stop spending and all this is going wrong. When are you going to hold them to account?
Call an election.
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crash gordons miracle economics means this countrys wealth has been pumped up on the back of multiple credit cards, personal loans, mega mortgage multiples and runaway buy now pay later government debt. This wealth is not real it is borrowed! This jusT has to stop no matter what the consequences. We all need to live in the real world where wealth is derived from hard work.Forget keynes. Get interest rates down. Get borrowing under control. Fixed spending and tax takes for the next 5 years and let business create the new wealth by increasing productivity and selling more goods at home and abroad. It's the only way in the end!!
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Charlie Hardwidge 145
Focus should be on solutions, dead right. The solution is for Brown to wake up and give us all the election we want. And how can anyone smile after all the mess Labour have left us in only Charlie boy knows.
But Charlie's idea of a Ministry of Happy Thoughts is a good one. The thought of Brown and Labour gone would do this country the power of good.
But I still cannot understand how a Labour man wants a recession. People with no money and no future. Or is Charlie a Labour voter with no mortgage and loads of money who can take all these tax demand.
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Hi, the-real-truth #167
The fact is I didn't do any of those things either; and I resent having to pay for it as well. However, the fact remains that the overwhelming majority, and I mean overwhelming, of our compatriots did. Our jobs were exported, & we did borrow £1 trillion as private individuals. I do blame the government to some extent - wouldn't it be nice to be in the Spanish financial situation right now?
I don't know where you're going with talking about banning.
My argument is that individuals are avoiding responsibility and scapegoating on a national scale. The same national head is the sand on environamental issues, I would argue. My follow up point is obvious - the solution is in our hands and nothing will change until we change
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147 you know it is true
You have a right to your opinion.
Please do not include me in your royal we. I have not been at the Mad Hatters Tea Party.
I avoid mass produced stuff from China if there is any option, some of it is substandard and falls apart. I have two planters in the garden one cost 4 times more than the other and is still intact after years, the UK company that made it has gone in the face of rubbish imports that look similar but disintergrate. Which was the better buy. Toxic materials appear to be a problem with China at all levels. Transportation around the planet is a pollution problem. I will not buy clothes made by child labour. It is obvious that some of the stuff on sale cannot be made at the price without abuse. I believe high house prices are damaging to the community. In particular older people benefit and younger people have unprecedented levels of long term debt because of it. If you have some guilt that you wish to make collective that is your problem.
I will comment on government policy past or present if I do not agree it, whoever is at number ten. I have not suddenly invented a position, most of my opinion is a result of observing over a period. Just because I disagree a particular policy does not mean some policies by the same government are not sound. Unfortunately with this government a large number of major polices look lacking. I am concerned about the Conservatives after the early 90's but I am prepared to listen to Cameron and I do not think he should be underestimated. Additionally governments lose elections, oppositions do not win them. Brown looks to have lost at this stage but it is still a long way out. I do not necessarily believe I am right by default and I am prepared to listen to any informed rational arguement. On many subjects I would be absolutely delighted to find I was wrong, nothing would please me more.
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Maybe you wrote this before the latest figure for government borrowing came out Nick. I don't quite get your critisism of Cameron for not producing alternative policies to the government's. Why should he ? He doesn't need to do anything , this blinkered government will either totally destroy the economy or tear itself apart with internal squabbles. It's just a matter of time before the brothers of the trade unions realise that they have the government on the ropes and can extract as much as they want from them albeit on the basis of the rises being " not actually way above inflation ", they just look that way. Whatever the opinion polls say at the moment, is irrelevant , as soon as the coming storm starts to bite, Brown's stock will fall and the vision of life outside the Westminster gravy train will start to haunt a lot of labour foot soldiers .
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JCook @ 146
... "Hope all is well with you" ...
Yes, thank you - all fine and dandy.
This blog though, don't know if it's just me but it's all getting a bit Groundhog, isn't it? - same points going round and around like a puppy in a spin dryer.
Probably is just me, come to think of it.
Time for a break, time for a Kit Kat.
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Nick:
i think that cameron ideas are somewhat good....
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To Charlie E Hardwidge
Great idea to bring on a recession, that would be the end of Nu Labour and The Great One Gordon (TRUST ME) Brown.
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#165
Question for you Mr Constable.
If things are bad right now, is that the fault of a government that's been in power 11 years, and has contributed heavily to the problems, or is it the fault of the opposition?
Tricky one, eh?
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Hi, glanafon #172
Like I say - I didn't and don't involve myself in behavious toxic to my environment or to my compatriots' employment opportunities and I'm very happy you share my ethos.
The fact remains we are in a minority and we also have to take into account that sometimes quality just isn't affordable to many people. I have no feelings of guilt, as a consequence - none whatsoever. My challenge to everyone is that this economic crisis is borne out of our economic lusts - to have it all now. I agree this government has, at the very least, done nothing to prevent the problem and probably helped it to happen. I just don't think the Tories would have behaved differently one iota. They were quite capable of short-termism when in charge and I think Mr Call-me-dave will simply say whatever needs to be said to gain power. I draw attention to the now obviously discredited utility privatisation policies.
My fear is that everyone is treating this crisis as a pause for breath before getting back to the good times again - instead of realising that the game is up and we must only buy what we can afford.
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Re: 151
There's a lot of electioneering in this and other Blogs and an election is still some time off. Why not get it out of the way and have done with it ?
We can then have the debate about what needs to be done (Keynsian or otherwise), we can vote for it, and whoever's returned to power can get on with their new mandate to implement that new direction. Unhindered by all the electioneering that's going on behind the scenes and getting in the way at the moment...
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What's changed, though, is the fact that the Tories can no longer make the political weather and will often be spectators as ministers return to centre stage. David Cameron believes that at times like these the key task he has is to avoid making blunders.
Quite right you are Nick.
Except, that Cameron made the blunder in 1992, when he dithered from coming out of the ERM and lost 3.4 billion in 15 minutes.
Never ever trust a Glossy Mag. model!
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Charlie Hardwidge
If Zen Buddhism is about being alive at the moment we are all in the moment. People with jobs on the line, people who have mouths to feed, bills to pay and all you can do write words from a book. That will help people out a great deal.
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George Monbiot wrote a good opinion on growth versus development. It's an interesting read and may help people focus more on quality of life and environment.
I just think that folks need time to decompress from a generation of fear and greed, and learn how to be more happy within themselves.
Contentment. Now, that's a rare word.
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Onlywayup @181 wrote:
"...Cameron made the blunder in 1992, when he dithered from coming out of the ERM and lost 3.4 billion in 15 minutes."
Oh Dear. Repeating a lie time and again does not make it true. to repeat for the 50th time: in 1992 Cameron was a junior advisor in the Treasury. He was not the Chancellor, and had little impact on decisions taken.
Brown has been in charge of the Treasury for the past 11 years (as Chancellor and First Lord of..). This is all happening on his watch.
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And are you saying "well done Labour for taking 11 years to lose trillions?"
3.4 billion in 15 minutes seems quite thrifty in comparison to where we are now!
Government in power has to answer for the mess NOT the opposition.
11 years is a long time in politics.
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#181.
Here he goes again. Twists the story but the message stays the same.
The fact is that Cameron was not Chancellor, nor was he Chief Secretary, nor was he a member of the Cabinet or even an MP. He did not make any decision about the ERM - in fact it was made for us. He wasn't an adviser to Lamont when we entered the ERM, although he was in that unhappy place when the music stopped.
Have you read any of the biographies which talked of Cabinet members meeting during this crisis to decide on next steps? Cameron had nothing to do with it. I think you really ought to give up on this attempt to rewrite history so it fits with a political bias.
By the way, did you want to come out of the EU under Michael Foot's leadership? Were you happy to enter the ERM under John Smith's? Would you have liked to have remained in the ERM or in fact agree that it was not for us?
Gordon, by the way, was an ERM fan.
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Max Sceptic 184
You are wasted here. What a return to Charlie boy with all his Zen answers. I wonder if Gordon reads Zen?
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Yes, Nick. I think it is a fair point - the Tories have not been able to make the political weather since the financial crisis erupted.
But I predict in a couple of months that we will be back to where we were with Labour defending the indefensible. Bruce Andersen has summarised what the Tories need to do very well :
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/bruce-anderson/bruce-anderson-time-to-expose-browns-negligence-966937.html
It is a pity you didn't take your analysis further in the same way.
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#62 asserts a Conservative government wouldn't have lead us to recession .... on what do you base this claim ? Perhaps the factual evidence that a Conservative Government lead us to THREE deep recessions? Tory economic policy seems to be based on short boom and bust cycles, so the exact opposite of your assertion would have been the likely outcome of a Conservative government. If the trend continued from 1997 we'd have been in recession by 2000, again by 2006 ... we would never have had the money to invest in Schools and Hospitals and now that the American sub-prime market has collapsed we'd be in the same credit crunch but with public services completely dessimated. At least real investment was made in public infrastructure when we could afford it, it seemed that we could never afford it under the Tories (I know, I was educated in decrepit state Schools during Thatcher's years, leaking ceilings and shared dog eared reference books all round).
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Nick
Can I quote from the 2005 Tory manifesto:
"Our economic success over generations has been built on the hard work, enterprise and creativity of the British people.
Today, government is spending too much, wasting too much and taxing
too much. Britain cannot continue indefinitely to spend more than she
is earning without higher taxes or higher interest rates ? either of which
will harm our economic prospects. If we are to secure our future
prosperity, government must once again start to live within its means.
The consequences of Labour?s profligacy are now plain to see. Last
year, average living standards fell for the first time in over a decade ?
and the poorest 10 per cent of Britons became poorer.
We need to change direction."
Now what't this about not being able to put the blame on Gordon Brown.
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#181, Onlywayup
Some people have selective memories. No one in the Labour Party shadow cabinet argued against membership of the ERM at the exhange rate we agreed with the other members. When it all fell apart on the back of huge speculation, the Labour Party were the first to seek to gain political advantage. No sign of national unity back then I am afraid.
In any event, the main point to note from the period leading up to ejection from the ERM was that all of the main parties were in agreement about the policy that subsequently had to be ditched. It didn't matter then who was in charge since the outcome would have been the same. However, the BBC made it obvious that we had to balme the government, and look how long it has taken for the Conservatives to be rehabilitated.
So here we are now, with the boot on the other foot, and rather than hitting the government for their mismanagement, you argue that because of 1992, we can continue to blame the Conservatives.
I would however ask you to tell us all why Brown does not need to explain why his promise to end boom and bust has turned to dust. Perhaps this is more relevant than 1992 and who did what then.
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174 Sagamix
Yes - it is very Groundhog day.
Day in day out we discuss the major economic issues. With a year or two of recession predicted - things are not likely to change....
What we need is a good old David Davis style resignation or a Mandelson corruption story or Nick Clegg to get the push for indulging 'unusual Liberal extra curricular activities'.....!!
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From this site: "The UK government borrowed a record amount last month, Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows. Public sector net borrowing hit £8.092bn in September, up from £4.775bn in the same period a year earlier, marking a record for the month. The amount borrowed this financial year stands at £37.6bn so far - more than the total amount borrowed in 2007"
BAD DEBT. We should foreclose on them and repossess all their properties.
GC
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FANTASTIC
We currently have a government floundering in a sea of debt, financial meltdown, record borrowing of 12.65 billion last month and a new dodgy Baron in the Lords.
And Nicks trying to hold the opposition to account for what they may or may not have said, will say or would do. Get a grip man.
Couldn?t care less in what the other useless teams that arent playing this season are or are not doing, so shine the light on the team with the ball.
Seeing as we are all gunning for bankers at the moment for making some rather careless investments, how about a little focus on a few chancellors whose current attitude to tax, waste and squander makes them look rather good.
Max is right.. Scorched earth policy is the right phrase? What has Brown got to loose?
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Would like the BBC/Nick Robinson to be less overt in their support for the Labour Party - or possibly more overt by admitting their bias at the outset.
It is not helpful to the British public to act as though there are only two political parties in the debate. The Liberal Democrats are able to say "I told you so" whereas clearly the Conservatives cannot. Why are we hearing from the BBC about the LibDems views?
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This recession:
The rich will stay rich and the poor will get poorer. Some fine Socialist values there NOT.
All started off by Tory Blair of course.
What a mucking fuddle.
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19 crowded island,
- I see the SNP are backing up the Tories in this.
You must be pretty niave if you thought they wouldn't, If Labour get in the SNP will lose the Independence vote if the Tories get in they'll win as the Scots have no love for the Tories.
Nothing to do with genuine support.
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Message to the BBC...
To re-dress the balance....
1. The Tories suggested re-capitalisation as a solution to the banking crisis for the NR debacle. That was almost a year ago.
2. Cameron has been going on and on about how Labour have ran out of money for over a year. See today's record government borrowing.
3. No mention at all when Cameron was 20 points aheads - why now?
4. Gordon Brown's 1997 revision to banking regulation has seen our banks fail for maintain adequate capitalisation.. It is not a global phenomona, other economies have weathered this in much better shape.
5. When the economic malaise is discussed on the BBC, please can you tell your interviewers to refrain from seeking assurances regarding public spending cuts? To see and hear a self-interested broadcaster ask questions for its own ends - it chafes a little with us private sector workers.
It's called cutting your cloth to suit your means.
People are struggling to make ends meet, pay their mortgage and bills.
Basically, I'm certain if the Conservatives had precipitated the crisis, the BBC would screaming it from the rooftops.
It seems at the moment the BBC has lost all sense of objectivity.
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#190
As it goes, the decrepit state schools were fixed by borrowed money using the PFI scheme. This was a Tory scheme. The Tories couldn't decide on the extent to use it to fix infrastructure, however Labour had no qualms about this. On balance this is probably a good decision - who knows how long it would have taken its Tory inventors to agree this too. The problem is that the terms of PFI schemes have been subject to some stick, as being unfavourably balanced towards the supplier.
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91 Flame Patricia,
"David Cameron definitely DOES have stamina. I doubt if Crash Gordon could ride a bike, ROFL!"
Would you let Dave Cameron teach your grandchildren to ride a bike? he doesn't even know the highway code, and if he does he's a serial highway offender.
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#150
Sorry until the last few weeks Cameron just has not been telling Labour to save while economic times are good (Or not so you would notice outside of a thorough Hansard scan). His contant mantra has been to split the proceeds of any good times between tax cuts and spending.
He SHOULD have been screaming reducing national debt from the rafters but it wouldn't have made such nice soundbites as tax cuts.
For once it is the Tories who are suffering for their previous Spin..
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Conmandave 190
The schools still leak and books are still being passed around. And the schools are over crowded with kids carring wepons to kill each other with.
True the tories may have took us in to a recession but we will never know that.
All I know is we have had 11 years of Labour Government and at the start of this Government I had money in my pocket and savings, now I have been made redundant once on the the verge of being made redundant again and no savings thanks to Gordon Brown and his tax and waste. What am I along with others suppose to do, shake him by the hand and thank him for the great job he is doing.
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Nick all I can say is these Tories dont want the Truth, Why dont you try and say something nice for them,something that they have given much thought to, like Dave likes to eat cornflakes before he gets on his bike in the morning, thats were he gets the energy to burn up one way streets hoping no one will see him. Now you must agree thats the resposible sort of guy we want to run the country ,isn't it.
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There are plenty of 'I told you so' moments. Right back as far as the BoE independence.
There are plenty of IMF 'I told you so' moments aswell. The idea of Brown going to discuss an early warning system when he ignored all their warnings, including the national debt and house price crash is laughable.
There are plenty of Brown quotes that will make him cringe.
The political weather? The outlook is misreable and Labour's overspending in the good times have made it worse than it should be.
Look at the polls. I mean look properly. Not the usual drivel that journalists talk when they speak about poll.
Maggie got a '17 points in front' bounce from the Falklands.
The current polls shows [in the order they were done - not released] -8, -9 and -16, the last one being done at least in part after Cameron's speech, the others before.
Battle has commenced. And the only thing to protect Labour is lies about budget deficits, lies about what they have done in the past, lies about warnings from the Tories and the IMF and lies about us not having our own recession starting before the banking crisis.
These lies will be exposed if the media does its job.
IF.
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Charlie from about a week ago
"I see no signs of a recession"
Charlie from today
"I'm loving this recession"
From denial to callous in one week. Typical New Labour
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Sagamix,
I think it was you and I discussing irritating habits of politicians etc last week....
One irksome issue was Brown's addition of the letter 's' to Billion - as in 'Billions'.
I'm watching Brown's statement to the commons at the moment - he's moved on. Now keep an eye out for 'Trillions'. It is still irritating - it just got a lot more expensive that is all!!
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Nick.
Please tell us. Has Auntie been gagged by the Government? Is that why you don't ask pressing questions and keep pressing until you get an answer?
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Duoteste @ 178
Mr. Blair was in power for most of the last 11 years and towards the end of his tenure, he stated that his big regret was that he had not been 'radical enough'.
I think I know roughly what he meant by that - serious structural political and economic issues that have not been addressed.
So, if there is any point in attributing 'blame', then you have your answer.
Not that 'Dave' and his crew are likely to be any sort of improvement.
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I think it all goes to demonstrate how far the 'One Nation' Tories lost out to the Libertarian wing in the 1980s and they are now totally in hock to the economic philosophy of the Milton Friedman Chicago School of Economics - and that has now utterly failed!
The Tories just have nowhere to go and they are going there in ever decreasing circles - if ever there was a party that is circling-the-plug-hole when they were so recently on-top-of-the-World it is the Tories.
Their whole economic philosophy of the last thirty years has failed they built everything on no-regulation and that is exactly what has proven so disastrous and is so out of date.
This also explains why the Tories have been so quiet in recent weeks. It is the realization that they were absolutely wrong for thirty years.
However, all is not lost, perhaps things will get so bad for the incumbents that Gordon Brown will ask David Cameron to join the cabinet in a National Government.
The credit crunch is a failure of politics as much as of economics!
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179 you know its true
Glad that was sorted. No man is an island and anybody has their future in the hands of others. I am afraid some people have short memories and give them a teabreak and they will have forgotten what was happening before the kettle boiled.
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Before this all blew up the BBC had already decided that bashing Gordon wasn't fair. There has been no decent reporting on how this government has spent us into oblivion and little reporting over the years of anyone who opposed the view that Gordon had been a great chancellor. If you read the press and listened to other than the BBC, there were reports that we were overspending on a massive scale, and that Gordon was a shining example this. The coverage of the BBC has been biased from day one towards Labour and not interested in any other view.
Cameron is doing his job and putting forward realistic suggestions that are business friendly and immediately deliverable. We hear all about delivery from the present government; they have delivered us into this situation with no room to move....except borrow more. We will suffer in the end for their total incompetence and arrogance. They will of course by that time be drawing a very nice pension that we will be struggling to provide.
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#201
So you claim ownership of PFI for the Conservatives as a 'good idea'?
Does this mean that we will hear less about 'the deceitful, irresponsible off-balance sheet PFI debt' on this blog?
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Labour have been in power for 10 years!
There is nothing that they can blame the Conservatives for now simply because they have had enough time to fix things if they wanted to!
Why do you feel the need to blame other people who were not involved in running the country for the decisions of those who are in control?
All the hype and misinformation (spin) that we get from New Labour hides the real truth so that no one is actually in control and no one seems to know what is going on.
Even Brown seems surprised at discovering that the financial system, without proper controls and regulations, does not work.
But NO systems work without defined rules and supervision.
Face up to it - it is Brown's who has failed us!!
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184 Max
LOL
non-zzzenz to nonsense translating in full flow.
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One of the problems of opposition is that you can't actually do anything. All you can do is talk. In the Conservative case, with a lot of rather vapid platitudes and generalisations that stops them committing to anything until they have to publish an election manifesto (not that a manifesto has to be stuck to - just ask Tony Blair).
Cameron's major chance of looking vaguely statesmanlike fell apart last Friday when, in a a fairly poor act of judgement, he broke with the rather delicate mood fo unity that had fostered. All it did was to make him look was an opportunist. Very unfortunate. Meanwhile Brown has been looking like a statesman, whatever his past faults. His response looked decisive. In hindsight it may be incorrect, but for now that is not the issue. It's also interesting that Labour haven't really played the old-style nationalisation card. They have been very reluctant to do so, even though they might find it plays more favourably now.
As a result, many of Nick's points are reasonably fair. Right now Cameron is caught between rock and a hard place. He can't bash Labour over the head with impunity about economic policy anyway because he has history with ERM. And the Conservatives can't shout too loudly about the deregulation of financial markets and the loosening of credit controls that started in the 1980's. Because they did it. Indeed, it was a fairly central plank of Thatcherism (which, given her own position on debt was beautifully ironic).
Frankly, he looks stuffed for now. All he can hope for is to hold on tight and ride this out, hoping to score other points along the way.
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The BBC are a bunch of biased journalists, they always support the other side. Giving the minister, or shadow minister an easy or hard time, depending on whether you are a Tory, Labour, Green, Lib Dem or other supporter.
I'm pretty sure the BBC is very straight down the middle, the only problem they have is when they say " look the Emperor has no clothes" whoever is on the Emperor's side gets upset.
Personally I think all interviews should be pre-recorded and only shown if the Minister or spokes person answers the question.
As in "Mr Cameron as you have criticised the PM, how would you handle this differently"
.... Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeep
"Mr Cameron declined to answer the question we now move on to someone who actually answered the question.
This would work for all interviewees.
This will stop Jacqui Smith talking complete rubbish, from 7:25 to 7:29 knowing that the Today programs has to move on at 7:30 , effectively talking out the time with dribble.
I say give them a much harder time, with fact checking the answers before transmission.
i.e Mr Brown announces £20M spending on new "ding bats". Followed by : Fact check 19M of this is already allocated only 1M is new. or perhaps - we can't find out if this is new money, the last 10 times this type of announcement was made it has been old money re announced.
Perhaps we could have sport like statistics at the bottom of the screen, i.e. this is the 21st time Jacqui has mentioned terrorist this week, along with Pedo 10 times and Bomber 4 times.
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It's terrible that families and single individuals are being evicted from their homes because they cannot make mortgage payments. I believe that everything should be done to assist them, not only for humanitarian reasons, but for practical financial purposes. People made homeless will have to be supported, the financial bills being higher than assisting them over a hard patch in their own homes. The social benefits of allowing children to remain at their usual home, with their parents and at their regular schools are enormous. On the other, those 'spivs' who bought up houses at grossly inflated prices, planning to sell them on for quick profits, should be treated as the easy come, easy go merchants which they are. Too many houses have been thought of as investments. They should be seen as more than bricks and mortar, they are homes in which people live. Places where people raise children, where memories remain when the children are grown and go off to build their own 'nests.' Sorry if I sound corny, but the home is the base of the family, and families make up the nation. Once everything is reduced to its market value, it becomes very expensive but actually is valueless.
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#205.
Cameron burns energy on his bike.
Labour burns a country to a cinder in an illegal war.
It'll be interesting when Jack Straw gets to write his memoirs. With every new book we get closer to knowing the truth about how this administration has governed our lives and how the denials eventually turn to dust and turn out to be deceptions.
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The Chancellor said in an interview with The Sunday Telegraph that he would not limit public spending and would instead bring forward some public sector projects to support the UK's faltering economy.
No change their then.
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I would have no hesitation in letting David Cameron teach my grandchildren to ride bikes but my point was that Gordon doesn't have the stamina in general. He may not stay the course.
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grandy:
If all you have is a repeated criticism of David Cameron riding his bike the wrong way up a one way street we're all in trouble. I would imagine that all of us have broken the highyway code at some point or other. It has nothing to do with his credentials as a potential P.M.!
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#214.
You're mixing two concepts:
1. The first is borrowing under PFI, the level of which is open to discussion
2. The second is Government accounting and how Gordon set a limit of 40% of Government borrowing as a proportion of GDP.
In relation to the first question, I don't know the answer.
In relation to the second, that's what Gordon decided, and then created a scheme whereby borrowing which should be on balance sheet was left off of it so as to make it look as if he was achieving his goals.
The trouble is, he was running a current account deficit funded by borrowing. He obviously didn't want any more borrowing on the balance sheet to expose his failure.
That's his problem. Note mine.
As I said, something had to happen with infrastructure. Whether this required Enron-style accounting is something Gordon will have to answer for.
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does it realy matter who attacks whom in westminster?
no not realy we the public masses have no say as to what those whom were elected to represent us do or say, once they are elected to the giddy heights of parliment there eyes glaze over and the ringing of cash registers run through there minds and they become distanced from what we mere mortals call norma life.
how many mp's elected are normal down to earth people meaning not university trained or drones to a party?
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miketyler @218
PMSL. I bet a certain Mr Chris Morris must be looking at all of that, then looking at his old episodes of The Day Today and Brass Eye and thinking, "This wasn't comedy, it was prophecy"
Which means it can't be very long before it happens...
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The only surprising thing about the cut in the Tory lead is that it wasn't reduced by more. The price of the bipartisan approach pending coming up with the bank solution meant that Cameron and the Tories were effectively self-gagged. This gave Brown and Labour a free run and massive, positive media exposure with Cameron conspicuous only by his absence.
Brown's response to this "sacrifice" by the opposition parties was not one of restraint in recognition of their cooperation, or the seriousness of the situation or a modicum of humilty that it happened on his 10 year watch. Instead he has milked it for all he could, with ill-concealed relish and blatant exploitation of the political advantage it has brought him.
The deeper the crisis for the country, the happier he has appeared. Perhaps he has decided this is no time for a statesman.
My feeling is he has been badly advised or that he hasn't listened. I think the combination of unwillingness to acknowledge any part in causing the situation and blatant political exploitation of it will rebound.
Having said all that, Brown is nothing if not a political animal. Dogs bark, wasps sting, snakes hiss - political animals do what political animals do.
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What is especially important here is that this global financial crisis and the looming recessions cannot seriously be put down to "Brown" policies without opponents admitting that they had a part to play in it too.
It is a simple fact that this has been building for 30 years, since the very late seventies.
My late father, who worked in building societies till his retirement in 1980 predicted this back then. He saw the change in regulation making money easier to borrow and said the system would implode over time.
He and others of his generation (all now long gone and forgotten) were right.
And when people like Ken Clerk try and back out of all responsibility, I find my respect for him disappearing very quickly.
30 years in the making, this crisis. Will it take us that long to come out of it?
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Each week I wonder whose side Radio4 is on. Ministers turn up to wriggle on one issue for minutes on end and then, prompted by the presenter's 'er, that's all the time we have' prompt, hurry out a list of specious claims for the government which the presenter does not challenge but just says 'Minister, thank you'.
Sounds like a pre-agreed format.
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#217 Illumin....
It seems to me that the electorate do eventually get over previous poor decisions by politicians (eg War in Iraq) so long as the offenders are seen as the best bunch in other respects. In the case of Brown, we have to consider whether his role in bringing the economy to its knees is more of an offence than simply being the leader of the Conservative Party.
Were it the case that we could hold a party to account for every bad decision that has previously been made, would either party ever get elected? At some point you have to give up on old news and look at what is happening now.
The government has failed the economy. We have been overtaxed for too long, and Brown can't afford the new bills that are now arriving. By borrowing, he is simply storing up problems for Sterling, interest rates and taxation in the future. Are these the acts of a statesman, or merely a politician who doesn't want to give up on power?
Every opposition politician on the other hand has to be made of stern stuff to want to pick up the awful mess Brown is about to leave behind.
All the best.
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Cameron is young and fit but I know a lot of older men don't want to hear that as their own egos get in the way! I think Tory Bliar had a similar problem but people got disenchanted with him when they realised he was just a thespian.
Actually, Cameron has bearing, fortitude, breeding, education, fitness, fairness, dedication and commitment.
He's the one for me and everybody I speak to friend or stranger.
I see that most of the bloggers here are supportive of him. Poor old new labour, drinking at the last chance saloon.
Tears in their beers.
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204 well I must live in a unique contituency (Dudley South). The local secondary school (Summerhill) has been completely rebuilt, the next closest (Kingswinford GM) has had new classrooms and a brand new sports hall, my kids primary School has been extended and all mobile classrooms (installed in the 80's) replaced by permanent buildings. In addition our local NHS Hospital (Russell's Hall) has been massively extended, new A&E department and is a credit to the NHS. My wife has worked in the NHS since the mid-80's as a ward manager (Sister), she used to come home and literally cry with frustration at the lack of staff, beds and equipment, things are not perfect now but are a world away from the Tory starvation of investment years.
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Grandy. You must have stamina with your yachting, I am sure.
David Cameron has it in spades just like your goodself.
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Yes tricky situation for David, but has anyone investigated whether the Goverment
blackmailed the British Banks to giving loans etc to those that should not have been given loans in the first place, much like what the Clinton gang did to the American Banks? If they did then the true nature of our problems today could be pointed at the Prime Minister.
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#217, I disagree
This is a SUPER_RECESSION. Not one of those ordinary ones. We'll never 'come out of this' one in the true sense - all we can hope for is damage limitation. We are way past the tipping point.
If DC actually came out and called for the only things that are going to make ANY difference now, ie:
1. Moratorium on foreclosures and repossessions
2. freeze on court proceedings, seizures, loan, cc and mortgage interest
3. Cap on credit card interest rates
it would capture the headlines instantly and the majority of the population would support and applaud him and he would steal a march on Labour for all time.
I just don't know what he's waiting for. He's got nothing to lose, unlike the rest of us. Brown could do it but Brown is a coward.
GC
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Miss Waldorf
I agree with you about Cameron on his bike and the remarks from Grandy.
But Gordon Brown has been leading the country up the wrong way of a one way street for years. Its about time someone knocked him off.
Perhaps Madelson could give him a lift.
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Not that I want it that way but if I could still get the odds that were being offered a few weeks back on a Labour victory at the next election, I would certainly have a few quid on it - just for insurance purposes you understand.
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220.
"Cameron burns energy" that he does being a fit young man.
the book of Straw will spontaneously combust.
Watch the flame....
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Why is everyone lauding Gordon Brown now for "saving" us when he was the minister in charge of our economy for the last 10 years!
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Gordon Brown in the Commons this afternoon:
'we will do whatever it takes to help mortgage holders and small businesses through this difficult time'
Whatever it takes? Yeah?
Do you KNOW what it will take Prime Minister? Have you any idea what you just promised? Is that a contract or another empty pledge. I have 10 days to raise min £7k due to lost takings at my firm this month alone. Instead I am writing on a BBC blog because it's one of the few mediums where I can speak out because my MPs are interested.
So, can I have £7K please to make up for what you've taken from me? And can I have my mortgage, loan and cc interest frozen too until my firm starts to function profitably again as it did for every other month of the last 7 years till 3rd qtr 2008.
GC
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Any Conservative, and I count myself as one, has to be concerned now about an early 2009 election. The Crunch has completely undermined Cameron's 'bull market' narrative of environmental clap trap (that no one now cares about) and hugging hoodies. It is very tough for him to re-invent himself, regardless of how much angst ridden frowning he does. Then there is the problem of the 'Boy Wonder'. During the bubble, having your mate from public school who has never had a real job as Shadow Chancellor was not an issue. But now Osbourne's lack of gravitas risks leaving the Party looking lightweight in the only area that is going to matter for the next year. A rapid switch with a more experienced player (Hague perhaps) might help in the short term.
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#224
Well, the accounting rules haven't been changed (PFI was accounted for outside the main national debt pre-1997 as they are now).
I think the truth is that the previous Government only used PFI in a very limited way to fund road infrastructure e.g. the QE2 bridge over the Thames at Dartford (and not schools).
To clarify - PFI was a good idea pre-1997, but now it's not so good.
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Nick,
There is a time for lying low and this is it. Cameron is doing exactly the right thing by pointing out that Brown is the part-architect of Britain's economic woes. To attempt to lay out detailed Conservative economic pledges would be an act of folly and quite unnecessary.
Voters at the moment are dazed and confused by a series of global financial events which most of us do not completely understand.
When the impact of Brown's inevitable tax hikes begin to bite as a result of following outdated Keynesian economic doctrine by borrowing to support Labour electoral interests (Britain - a client state), voters will quite rightly hold him to book.
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239. it's a conspiracy. Crash Gordon has been dreaming of this for years, decades even. There is one theme running through it all, and he even admits it, to change the world - Bush, Clinton and Obama's dream too.
Look it up on Google or Youtube. It's called:
New World Order
and there's more to come.
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#232 conmandave
I wonder if your new schools and hospital have anything to do with the fact that Dudley South is a Labour-held seat?
It's a well known fact that if a Labour Government is in power, the money goes to their consituants first.
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One thing that's very frustrating in the debate on borrowing is that its always expressed as an absolute number of billions - so of course over a long period it tends to be higher.
Can we have an analysis of borrowing as a percentage of GDP over the years since the 1970s? I am sure that would enlighten us all and stop the pointless "oh yes it is/oh no it isn't" type of debate.
My feeling is that the results may embarrass the Conservatives, but I'm happy to be proved wrong. When we establish the facts we can then argue about what is a sensible level for different stages in the cycle - but surely its better to borrow to invest rather than borrow more later to pay for unemployment benefits?
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240.
OMG How terrible. It is a travesty.
Words cannot explain the contempt I feel for Brown. He's been dreaming of this New World Order but it's turning into a nightmare for thousands like you.
If things escalate and get really bad I can foresee Brown (who likens himself to Churchill and Maggie with her Falklands triumph), being attacked as in a POLL TAX RIOT.
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#241 Torywatcher
I agree with what you say.
Installing friends (and relatives) in top jobs seems to be a pre-requisite for any Prime Minister/Cabinet Minister these days, regardless of whether they can actually do the job in the first place.
I always thought William Hague would have made a good PM. At least he's got a bit of go in him.
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'Do whatever it takes to help mortgage holders'
I don't like this.
Some people ignored the fact that houses were massively over-valued (e.g. compared with renting) and that they could not afford the massive mortgage payments that they burdened themselves with and bought their first home.
Other people were responsible, and decided to sit tight and wait for the market to become more sensible before purchasing their first home.
The first set of people are rewarded by being allowed to keep the fruits of their irresponsibility.
Though I guess it's symptomatic of the encouraging of this irresponsible behaviour by the media (get on that property ladder now), and politicians of all colours (how can we help first-time buyers purchase houses that are ridiculously over-valued).
Hopefully this house price crash can lead to a more sensible attitude towards home ownership (e.g. tackling the crummy private rented sector and lack of tenure security, building more social housing, ending economically distorting subsidies given to homeownership by the general taxpayer). I won't hold my breath though!
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Re #224
With the amount of our cash the government has pumped into schools and hospitals, and it was a 'given' that new investment was needed, it simply could not fail to bring about a measure of improvement.
What it has not done is invested our money, as taxpayers, for good VALUE and that is what we are all destined to pay the price for over coming generations.
That is clear for all to see, except perhaps the BBC!
Another government under the leadership of the current incumbent, or indeed any of the other potential labour leadership contenders would simply intensify the disaster we are now seeing develop.
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The problem the Tories have is that until the wheel came off Northern Rock it looked as though Brown would win the next election. Then as matters banking went from bad to worse so did the public view of New Labour.
Now, just because Brown has stolen the intellectual property rights of the Sacndinavian bank bail out and pranced around the world like a certain retired political correspondent in Celebrity Come Dancing, the Tories are back in the doldrums.
I don't think so, somehow. This is, as you say Nick, just a passing phase before the real gritty stuff happens.
There is nothing wrong with Keynsian economics in a down-turn. We are in for a serious down-turn this time and so dear old Maynard-Keynes has to be taken out, dusted down and quite rightly so. Only a deadbeat like Brown could make a big deal out of something so obvious.
However, the questions need to be asked about how we got here and it will not be good enough to blame it all on Americans, global conditions and the spirit of the times. There are hard lessons to be learned and Brown and his party are going to take a spanking as a consequence.
For my part I would not recommend voting for this Tory Party as much as I would not recommend voting for New Labour. They are all so utterly useless. With one or two very notable exceptions Cameron and his `youthful' team look woefully inadequate. Brown and his team are known to be inadequate.
So what does one vote for? This is the seriously sticky bit and were it will get very dangerous for our democracy when unemployment peaks and poverty is common. There will be many options out there; most seeking to destroy what's left of our society
For my part Vince Cable can say `I warned you' and Clegg is saying `cut taxes for the lower paid'. I know where my vote will go next time. I don't agree with the Liberal Democrats usually but these guys have respect for my intelligence. All a political leader needs is the respect of the voter.
We are going to need imagination before we are over this thing and the same tired old formulae from a knackered political establishment are not going to help. My concern is that sentence could have been easily written by a certain Sir Oswald back in 1930. The slippery slope beckons but we must not let it catch us out.
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Marx popular amid credit crunch
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7679758.stm
Shows a 7500 percent increase in Marxism (or at least of sales (in German) of Das Capital from one publisher.)
Not really about Cameron and the Tories, but as Ted Heath once said to me 'a straw in the wind' (Ted Heath was talking about de Gaulle and EEC membership at the time.)
Never managed to read my copy (of Das Capital) all the way through - perhaps Central Office should give it a try for an analysis of the foibles and pitfalls of capitalism as they have obviously overlook them and are now without any economic policy at all having seen their dearly beloved free markets shoot-the-cat!
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Re #232 (apologies - incorrect post given earlier)
With the amount of our cash the government has pumped into schools and hospitals, and it was a 'given' that new investment was needed, it simply could not fail to bring about a measure of improvement.
What it has not done is invested our money, as taxpayers, for good VALUE and that is what we are all destined to pay the price for over coming generations.
That is clear for all to see, except perhaps the BBC!
Another government under the leadership of the current incumbent, or indeed any of the other potential labour leadership contenders would simply intensify the disaster we are now seeing develop.
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Message 252
John of Hendon
I suppose trying to read Das Kapital is just one sure way of making the recession feel even worse.
Morris's `News from Nowhere' is so much more jolly!
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I'm sure I'm not as thick as a post but I just cannot see how projects like building schools a Trident missile system and two aircraft carriers somewhere down the line is going to help the immediate crisis we are facing now.
These were in the pipeline anyway so what's new?
With respect Nick, Cameron doesn't have to do a thing at the moment there's enough buffoonery going on to keep everyone bemused.
It would appear though that he is the only one to come up with something realistic to help those small businesses struggling to keep their people employed at the moment.
A far more serious matter to talk about I think.
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The main problem D. cameron has is how do you fight someone who cannot tell the truth. G. Brown seems unable to be truthful I have just watched him in Parliament and could have pulled him up on many things he said which simply are not true.
It is your duty and that of the BBC to point out to the public that certain things he says are not reliable. I know the BBC favours labour simply because they never put forward impartial views but really someone must bring G. Brown to account instead of you all giving him a free run.
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251, I don't agree Brown was popular until the Northern Rock issue.
The Tories shot up the polls with their Inheritance Tax policy which was unveiled by George Osborne over a year ago.
That was the catalyst and they went from strength to strength.
Labour shot themselves in the foot many times not least over the 10p tax debacle, hurting those poorest members of society, a real breach of Brown's socialist ideals.
Then Brown came up with his "fix" to make it look like he saved the world. Unfortunately his popularity was short lived. After we'd got over the shock of the "crisis" we then started to dissect his methods and his prognosis is very poor indeed.
This unelected leader should not be there. He was used as a sticking plaster by Blair but the wound is going septic,.
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While I can't believe that the Prime Minister will totally revive the Labour party vote, I have to say that Mr Cameron is not coming over as he should. In the end it will be down to the people who are behind him and in that respect, Mr Haigh excluded, I don't see much to get excited about.
We should not forget that those who gained most from our current malaise are not the Prime Minister's natural supporters and are unlikely to support him en mass just because he made it all possible.
They will be looking to consolidate their wealth and that would not bode well for us in the current financial climate.
In my opinion, the best outcome at an early election would be a hung parliament and a genuine attempt to form a government with Vince Cable as Chancellor.
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#254. stanilic
Das Capital is on the web and a lot easier to dip into for that!
For the real idealist I would recommend :Manuel and Manuel - 'French Utopias' far more 'fun', and an anthology too. (Starts with Sir John Mandeville includes Rousseau, Fourier, Proudhon and ends with Teilhard de Chardin. - a good bedtime read!)
Alas, the tragedy is that even through history is well document and analysed we seem destined to re-live it every 80 years (from slump to slump!)
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re: 256, Susan
Agreed. Brown's attempts at misleading the public are laughable. All politicians are liars but some of them are good at it, and Brown's ineptitude at lying just shows his contempt for the public when he tells porkies (which is all the time).
As for the BBC, they favour whoever is in power at the time. Sickening yes, but they know which side their bread is buttered. Watch them start sucking up to the Tories in 2010, Polly Toynbee style.
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re: 257, flamepatricia
Labour shot themselves in the foot many times not least over the 10p tax debacle,
Yep, and NuLyingBore still haven't sorted it out. They have no intention of doing so, and couldn't care less about the public. They sicken me.
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Nick,
I've just been reminding myself about "Reconstruction: Plan for a strong economy". Cameron & Osborne seem to be making a fair stab at a proposal for restoring economic sanity in this document which isn't of the 'spend, spend, spend' variety. They seem to have offered up a big view for rebuilding our economy whereas Brown and Darling offer little but sound bites dressed up as tactics but short on strategic span.
I'd be really pleased to see you blog a comparison of the Brown/Darling versus Cameron/Osborne proposals. Any chance?
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Nick you are too engrossed in the Westminster Village to appreciate what is happening on the ground.
This dead cat bounce by Labour will fizzle out like all their previous ones simply teh public are sick of them.
The public knows all Labours tricks and see the headlines never mean what they say. The Tories will win simply because Labour is desperate. but their taxes hurt everyone every month and there is no room to borrow more without a collapse of the pound and the eventual inflation.
Labour talks tough but does nothing and we all know why, its because after 11 years they have not learned how and we can't afford to pander to their ego's any more.
Its tough out on the streets and if you looked beyond Westminster you would see you are totally wrong in your summary of whats happening.
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I think Alan Carr and Ricky Gervais joking about the credit crunch on The BBC News programe tonight was beyond the pale. People are losing their jobs and homes right now as a result of this crisis. Humorous jibes and long term goodies are going to mean nothing to these poor unfortunates!
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There is a lot of Conservative support in this newslog. Many of them probably too young to remember some of the social unfairness which unfolded the 1980s.
Some of them, perhaps, were able to benefit from the minimum wage legislation when they first left school or when they got their first job or when they financed themselves through college.
Do I understand they do not want spending on roads, hospitals and schools to keep skilled people in employment and nurture the country's skills for the future?
It makes sense to me to create useful, skilled jobs and keep people in employment now, to keep the economy ticking over, whilst investing in the future.
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You-know_its_true #113
Thank you. I stand corrected. The BBC seem to have found a nugget: (Kruger poses the question: ?Has Gordon Brown, the British prime minister, saved the world financial system?? in the NYT). Out of this they have conjured ?Cameron?s Economic Problem?. Amazing sleight of hand.
This is the same BBC that has attempted to rehabilitate the PM since the Labour Party conference with a unilateral self-fulfilling proclamation that he had made a good speech. This all has the old Millbank feel to it. I wonder what ? or who - changed?
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The real problem here is people's pig headedness - the Tories have made a complete hash of being effective opposition, but for some reason people in Britain still only think there are two possible parties to vote for
who has been slamming the government's finances for years? who isn't coming from a position of weakness on finance? - the lib dems, I even know tories who admit they are the best option, yet will they ever vote for them?
that said, people won't buy "flash gordon - saviour of the universe", as much as the media like to think he's turned it around, come an election he's going to struggle, it's probably a good thing the tories won't sleep walk into a massive majority but it's a sad state of affairs when only two useless parties are basically allowed to win
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As soon as I read this I knew what to expect on here.
Bias Bias, stupid BBC, not Fair, blah blah, whinge.
Well, how about the DAILY MAIL.
The only bias its known for is very Right wing Tory supporting bias.
Here's some quote from its editorial on Saturday.
"If Mr Brown had borrowed less, Bitain would undeniably be better placedto cope with recession (THOUGH OUR MAJOR EUROPEAN PARTNERS BORROWED MORE)".
This is something Cameron/Osbourne can never bring themselves to sdmit even if the right wing papers can. To be objective in this situation you have to compare like with like ie we compare to other G7 European countries like Germany, France, Italy all with higher borrownig and NOT to Sweden (Cameron's preferred comparitor, a non-EU, Non G& country of less than 10 million pop)
MORE FROM THE DAILY MAIL
" The Tories have three problems. First that they as a Party are closely associated with the very City Fat Cats whose greed triggered this financial meltdown" (note not the government)
"Second, they never spoke out against a deregulated City" (strange you'd think they did)
"And thirdly they have no clear policy as to what to do about the crisis"
ALL THE ABOVE FROM THE DAILY MAIL!!!
Well what can it mean are the Mail's journalists all closet Labour Spin doctors OR is it like Nick's article simply pointing out the blindingly obvious.
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Nick
Just wondering if you were going to comment labours new approach to rational argument:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7680449.stm
Aparantly no discusssion is now needed - Brown justifies record borrowing purely by declaring it "right".
Labour have been using this line for a while now, but generally saying that something cannot be challenged because the minister "beleives it is the right thing to do".
However now brown doesn't feel the need to prefix such declarations of infalibility with "beleive" - things are so, because he says so.
Are you going to continue to insist that his clothes are made of the very, very finest thread?
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Cutting 1p off National Insurance for 6 months will not fix the problem.
Why don't the Government cut tax on all overtime completely? This would give those of us who want to work a bit of extra money in our pockets, who wouldn't necessarily work overtime under the present conditions.
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If a tree falls in the forest and it lands on Brown, does anybody care?
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58. At 10:59am on 20 Oct 2008, mrshamilton wrote:
I would suggest that Mr Cameron actually knows nothing about small businesses. All the ones I have had dealings with deal in mostly cash and never pay any tax or VAT anyway,........
Absolutely NOT true...you must be one of the people using the black market in cowboy traders.
Small businesses pay far MORE in Capital Gains Tax than the big companies.
My son has a shop..he works all hours and employs 2 staff....Capital gains this year will be 16k, VAT 40k plus and he takes home far less than the average wage.
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251. to vote Liberal is to vote tactically. You know one of the Big two will win so what's the point?
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265#
You're right newtactic there is always a high level f Tory support on this blog.
Why does bear no proportional resemblenct to the polls?
Even a month ago if you took the polls to their extreme their would only bw a 2 - 1 ratio of Tories to Labour.
Even if you added all the don't knows to the Tory support it would still only be 3-1.
Strangely the ratio is usually a minimum of double that.
Some might suggest a "conspiracy", that Tory Central office are orchestrating a right wing domination of the blogosphere!!
Not me though, I just think those who like to complain/moan/blame somebody,anybody, something (as long as not themseves or people like themselves) shout the loudest!!
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Nick,you are spending too much time with GB in that he seems to have you in his pocket. Have we forgotten all the lies so soon, remember the referendum we were promised for one.
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249 balhamu
Dont think you need to worry. It is undoubtedly more hot air. I am suspicious that the real motivation with trying, if it is possible, to keep people in their houses is not primarily to help those individuals, it is mainly to stop the housing stock being dumped on the market and therefore driving the housing sector even deeper and exposing much larger numbers of households to negative equity. As NR is the worse offender for foreclosure and it is owned by the taxpayer it is difficult to give any credibility to the government statements.
The underlying message is the government will retrench and prop up the public sector in order to keep as many voters happy for the next election, and in practical terms anybody exposed can go to hell, what is new.
This recession is hitting widely but it is hitting certain people very hard. If the numbers are relatively small, in the big picture, the response will be much like the early 90's, just to turn away and talk about something else. Only if the deep impact is wide scale will something be done, and by definition it will be small because of the numbers.
The housing problem is going to start affecting householders who were not stupid or freckless. Realistically no help will assist those who went for 125 percent mortgages so I wouldnt expect them to get any bailout, but many previously financially sound young families will be under threat shortly if they are not there already. The normal response if you have a severe cash flow problem is to sell your house and reposition but this is not possible with negative equity and no negative trading is likely to occur with the banks. All the government is talking about is very modest voluntary measures. In terms of the scale of the problem it is ineffective.
What is needed is people prepared to buy property and that will only happen when it is believed the bottom has been hit.
Public sector spending is not going to help the High Street or small businesses very much. It is like a light being switched off there is no greyscale, just black or white.
It is all pretty basic isnt it, there is very little room for manouevre. That is part of GBs and DCs problem. Centrist policies are centrist policies whoever speaks them and there is not much scope, just blame, DC is just holding back because it doesnt help at present and could blowback on him. I dont know about scorched earth - its is looking more like a bomb crater. Take the bubble away, leave the debt, stop new credit/debt, scale back the City engine, decimate employment in the private sector - no decimate is only one in ten. Tax takes drop like a stone.
I have posted before, weeks ago, that the impact of fear which had to be allowed to develop to allow the so called bailout intervenion is part of the process and fear and the anger which follows are part of the scene at the moment. I also posted that following standing off and allowing the building up of the fear the politicans would then pose as a saviour and max on it. Emotion, negative or positive is useful in some situations. History records that when under collective threat the tribespeople respond to rulers who talk the talk and act the act even if they are part of the creation of the problem. The next phase is that emotion cannot be sustained and a backlash with resentment occurs as the adrenelin drops. Its all in the library.
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I fair and well balanced analysis Nick. Clearly the Tories would prefer tax cuts tho' these are ruled out by their past pledges. They, in turn, object to what they like to call the planned 'splurge' of new government borrowing and spending intended, a la Keynes, to keep aggregate demand high.
This approach is however, more effective than tax cuts. Governments can ensure that money borrowed is spent in full on projects that help keep British labour in work. Some money gained from tax cuts in contrast may be hoarded or spent on imports and doesn't give immediate relief in a recession. So spend on Gordon, there's lots of useful capital projects long overdue so kill several birds with a few well aimed stones.
One criticism of your comments on the six PM radio news Nick. You echoed David Cameron's use of the word 'splurge'. My dictionary defines it as 'a bout of unrestrained extravagance' so not the sort of neutral word you might have chosen. 'A very significant increase in public spending and investment' is longer but more objective don't you think?
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re 268 eatonrifle
Sweden are in the EU - it's Norway who aren't
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Nick,
I watched the exchange in the House of Commons today between Brown and Cameron.
The Labour spin doctors are going to have to work hard on Brown's lying. He just isn't good enough at it. His face glows red and he sweats when he lies.
Blair was never caught making those basic mistakes, he didn't glow red when he said "I'm a pretty straight kind of guy".
Now that we have the return of Mandy and Campbell - there is also presumably room for Blair to come back and coach Brown to tell more realistic porkies.
Of course Brown has shown he has fantastic
ability to tell whoppers - i.e.
"The prime minister insisted to MPs that the UK was in a "stronger position than at any other downturn" and could borrow now because of debt already paid off"
All they need to do is help Brown hide the body language that give him away as "mispeaking" or telling "untruths".
Lucky for Brown - the media in the UK are soft on him. So maybe he can just carry on without lessons from Blair?
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re: 277, taffrail
Governments can ensure that money borrowed is spent in full on projects that help keep British labour in work.
Don't you mean 'Governments can ensure that money borrowed is spent in full on projects that help keep British Labour in power' ?
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The Conservatives like to pin the blame of City deregulation and associated ills on Labour - Cameron and Gideon were, according to many on this blog, only pushing for general business deregulation and not financial market deregulation.
How would you square this with the following?
First, from Gideon on June 6th 2006. No sign of the urgent need to give the FSA's powers back to the Bank of England, and a pushing of further deregulation of the financial sector Gideon says we need to deregulate the City
"London has no divine right to be the pre-eminent international financial centre...we have to get regulation right - domestic and European. I want the FSA to be the model of a modern financial regulation - a beacon for the rest of the world.
But many of the regulations that affect the City, such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, originate with the European Commission.
I fear that much of this regulation has been burdensome, complex and makes cross-border market penetration more difficult. This is exactly the wrong direction in which Europe should be heading and it threatens the global competitiveness of the City of London .
Major companies can pack up and move anywhere in the world if faced with damaging regulations. We have already seen it happen in the , with the Sarbanes-Oxley regulations that were hastily introduced after the Enron scandal and which have led to international companies delisting and moving elsewhere.
London has benefited enormously from 's short-sightedness and it would be foolish of us to make the same mistake"
Second, let's hear what Cameron was saying in a speech to the LSE in June 2006. It seems that success of the City was down to three Conservative decisions, including deregulation. And low regulation is the key. Interesting that he's less keen to take the credit now! Cameron says the City is successful because of Conservative deregulation/Cameron_The_new_global_economy.aspx
"The City is a great example of using our advantages
The City of London is a great UK success story.
It?s the biggest international financial centre on earth.
The London foreign exchange market is the largest in the world, with an average daily turnover of $504 billion. That?s more than New York and Tokyo combined.
There are more than 550 international banks and 170 global securities houses in London.
By contrast Frankfurt has around 280, Paris, 270 and New York 250.
The growth of the modern City as we know it was shaped by three critical Conservative decisions.
First, because of our attractive tax regime, in the 1970s, US bonds were traded in London ? the so-called ?euro-bond? market.
Then the big bang of the 1980s removed a huge swathe of regulation that allowed the City to expand and removed restrictive practices.
And by being open to competition from banks from anywhere in the City.
The success of the City helps to drive the UK economy and provides huge benefits for our wider society.
Over a million people are employed in financial services, who last year generated net exports for the country of £19 billion.
Far from being based on the old school tie, it is supremely meritocratic.
It is also highly innovative.
You cannot simply set in stone a tax or regulatory regime for the City as it is today because it?s always changing, adapting and mutating.
But, again, we must not be complacent.
London has no God-given right to be the financial Capital of the world.
If we want to remain ahead, not just of Frankfurt or Paris but of Shanghai and New Delhi in the next 20 years we need to continue to make Britain the best place in the world to do businesses ? whether it?s in the financial sector or any other part of the UK economy.
The lessons from the City are clear. Low tax. Low regulation. Meritocracy. Openness. Innovation. These are the keys to success."
These are just 2, of many, examples.
This is why Conservative politicians trying to re-write history and claiming that they have always stood for things they haven't sticks in the throat.
And why Conservative bloggers conniving in this also grates.
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aargh, how can this bias continue unchecked? DOes the labour Party pay the Beebs wages? Nope, WE DO, and I for one want more bang for my bucks.
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#276 Glenafon
I don't think it's hot air - Labour have some policies which they have floated to go with the idea (e.g. fund Local Authorities and Housing Associations to take part-ownership in properties, force banks to give payment holidays to those in difficulties).
I think the new policies will help people regardless of how they got into difficulties. It's difficult to discriminate between the 2.
Cameron is getting on the bandwagon too with these ideas.
We are so irrational when it comes to housing in this country.
If I bought an Aston Martin on an income of £20,000 with a massive loan from Sharky and cos bank, the Government wouldn't be looking for ways for allowing me to keep my Aston now would they?
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#281
Second link (it was broken)
Cameron says the success of the City is because of Conservative deregulation
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Surprising how the Tory undead come out of the woodwork, Nick, as soon as you even hint that David Cameron and the party may have an issue or two to face. Suddenly you're a loony leftie apparently.
Quite how your latest Blog entry could be construed as being anti-Tory is about as baffling as how a teddy bear, innocently named Mohamed, could amount to an insult to Islam.
The fact is that your Blog entry 'Cameron's Economic Problem' is a lucid and relevant piece of political journalism.
Thanks Nick - keep it coming.
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re: 282, runskippyrun
Well said. But like all champagne socialists they'll soon change their minds if it's to their advantage, financial or otherwise, to do so. If we purge our country of the dead sheep upstream, the rotten Nu-Lab, then the mountain spring of the BBC will become pure and clean again.
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#281 balhamu
This is why Conservative politicians trying to re-write history and claiming that they have always stood for the things they haven't sticks in the throat.
If you think that sticks in the throat, you'll be hoarse come Christmas. Thigs are going to get much, much worse.
Labour have had 11 years to re-write history but they decided to collect the stamp duty and taxes on excessive public borrowing instead. You can't have it both ways but you still keep on blaming the Conservatives. Labour have been in power for too long.
We now have more debt than ever under a government whose intention is getting themselves into the history books, rather than their actions.
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I think you will find it was not Gordon Brown who said we will have to spend our way out of this crisis first.It was the Japanese their leader told companies to give wage rises to put more money into the economy this has now been raised in America that we have to get more money flowing.You will find the answer to all ills with the Tories are CUT,S CUT,S AND MORE CUT,S.
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#288 wildAhatheavenger
So you think we should just keep on borrowing and spending and borrowing more when the money runs out, then? If I can't afford to buy something, I don't borrow more, I make cuts where I can and tighten my belt. That's what good money management is.
The Olympic Stadium is going to cost us an arm and a leg, and you can bet that the final figure will be closer to 20bn than it is to 12bn. Should we just borrow the money for that too?
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Why is everyone commenting on Nick being pro-Labour and anti-Conservative? The BBC won't do anything about it. He gets invitations to all of Gordon's foreign trips, battle buses and so on. Only he can deliver glowing reports on Grodon in even the direst of situations. Nobody has done it as well as this since John Sargent. Why oh why isn't the BBC running the vox-pop interviews that they were so good at when the tories were in power? Or finishing every news bulletin with a running total of new unemployment data? Remember those techniques anyone?
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bradford and bingley - more than 80% of their business was in buy to let and high risk mortgages.
if the "american crisis" did not happen, the bradford and bingley would still have had to be sold off or gone bust.
still think it is a "global" problem (for the UK) a direct result of the "sub prime" disaster in america?
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More proof of what boy Dave's job was with the Chancellor Lamont in 1992.
Knocked back
If you study carefully the famous footage of Norman Lamont on Black Wednesday - looking pale, underslept and defeated in the glare of the TV lights - you can just make out another figure, scuttling from one side of the frame to the other. David Cameron, then 25, was a special adviser to the chancellor, but nobody had told him where he should stand. "I remember just before we pulled out of the ERM, he gave me the biggest cigar I've ever seen," Lamont recalls of his precocious aide. "There was a note attached: 'By the time you've smoked this, all your troubles will be over.' - unquote.
Special adviser eh. Special adviser eh!
All we have to do now is smoke a cigar and all our troubles would be over. Ha ha ha ha ha! What a farce of a Magazine Model we have for a leader of THE OPPOSITION!
By the way, the 1992 Cameron gamble was made in UK and not a GLOBAL FINANCIAL problem of today, which is being compared to the great depression of the 30s.
Good night Nick, and do say something nice about Cameron, next time you write, because the Tories are livid with what is happening to the fake opinion polls that they enjoyed during the last 9 months!
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I wonder if the writers of blogs actually read the comments. It would be nice to see their thoughts on some of the more intelligent comments.
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Good God Man (292.) You are scraping the barrel. Going back sixteen years. DC was only about 24 wasn't he?
Are you desperate?
What on earth has that got to do with a fifty six year old lumbering man who is trying to change the world?
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Typical Robinson - mouthpiece of the Government and typically biased against the Conservatives. Some balance, reflecting the views of the majority of the British people, would be welcome. Perhaps this will come with a change of government and a reorganisation of the BBC.
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re: 294, flamepat
Nothing to do with it. Nu-Lab's fanatically-devoted cultists are trying to throw sand in our eyes yet again, but they refuse to accept that the game's up and their lies aren't believed any more.
Nu-Lab:
10/10 for spin.
1/10 for effort.
0/10 for honesty.
0/10 for performance.
Election now.
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Nick, you're trying too hard!
Its not David Camerons economic problem, its Gordon Browns.
He's the one in power and it will soon be our problem as increaing numbers of us loose our jobs. This was always going to happen at some time but Brown was always boasting that he had abolished boom and bust. Well, actually, he had not. He couldn't and the real issue is that he has left the general public and the nations finances unprepared and uninsured for an economic shock of this scale. No amount of New Labour spin, from whatever source can conceal this reality.
When eventually Gordon does decide to call the election this will be remembered, along with the various broken promises, the lies, the spin, the ever increaing steath taxes, the wrecking of our pensions,the failure to secure our energy supplies, the future plans to curtail our hard earned civil liberties, the wasted lives of the Iraq war.
Then you can write a real blog.
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294# flamepat
Would that be a 56 year old lumbering man,that doesn't have the right "breeding" to quote your earlier post.
Speaks volumes, it really does.
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this country needs a government that will do the job make the hard choices fight for british rights, and most of all listen to the people they represent and not overseas beurocrats.
will the parties we have at the moment do the right thing?
i think not as they firstly do the bidding of there party above all else,
from what i have seen the party system in this country has become corrupt and greedy, thus it should be cleaned up or removed, both will never happen whilst voters are fooled into voting for them.
a complete system change may breath new life into it.
this country is in crisis and we need honest hard working leadership now.
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292. A young man of 25 on a learning curve anybody can accept.
An ageing man who is unelected to the role of Prime Minister picking bogies and eating them NOBODY could accept.
Vile!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6VaP1HB7Vew
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295#
See the balance from the Daily Mail at 268#
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232. ConManDave...
" I must live in a unique constituency"
No CMD..not unique! ..You live in a Labour constituency! ...Blessed with a far bigger ratio of public spending than Conservative constituencies. Remember Patricia Hewitt's list of hospitals to be closed? All in Conservative areas.
There is a name for it...Gerrymandering!
Oh! and as all those buildings are on PFI your grandchildren will have to pay for them...if they can get a job that is.
In the words of RobinJD; "Call an election!"
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Nick,
Cameron suggested recapitalising banks on 28 March!
Brown spent £250bn more than he got in since 1997, even taking into account the good years before 2001 - which was th elast time he didn't run up a deficit.
The figures are all on the ONS website if you care to take your journalism a little more seriously!
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#296 power_to_the_ppl
Give them credit where it's due - I think they're trying very hard to throw sand in the eyes of the electorate, I reckon they're worth a 3 or 4 out of 10 for effort ;)
Agree fully with the other three verdicts though!
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295 Agree with you totally.
Nick Robinson has become the propaganda machine of NuLabour / Gordon Brown.
There is growing public anger against the luvvies at the BBC for their left-wing bias, their low/dumbed down standards / moral standards, and their vulgarity. We should not be paying a license fee for this dreadful service. The BBC is past redemption. Hopefully the next Conservative government will rip it limb from limb!!
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283 balhamu
Government intervenytion on mortgage problems.
Well in some ways I think keeping people in their houses come what may is a good thing and in some I dont. You may well be right but it will very much be something new and I have to see it before I believe it. Somewhere in the picture by definition a house has to be bought by an agency at above market price because there is negative equity. At present with foreclosure all costs and shortfalls are recovered against the householders insurance. If you make people homeless and bust you end up providing social housing for them so you have a major bill, probably much much bigger. The key I think is to allow negative equity trading, but it is an unsecured sum so the banks wont like it. However if the government wanted to throw security behind it anything is possible with the sums being thrown around at the moment.
I get what you are saying about the obsession about housing in the UK and I agree it, I have always regarded it as dangerous. But the car comparison fails because you dont live in a car, well most of us dont. If you elected to keep your kids - if you had any - in a car social services would take them away.
I see you have posted 281 about the Conservatives etc and the City. You come across as leaning left and fair enough I have no objection, up to you. I have been accused of being Conservative which I find quite funny, but there you go. I have not voted Conservative in 30 years. I, and I think quite a few other people are not really that bothered what colour is current, it is whether the policies work and are seen as being reasonable, equal opportunity and meritocracy are important. I do not really care who started the City mess or who pumped up the volume, it always made me uneasy. The big problem has occurred in the last 5 years so along with other dubious events I look towards Brown who is forever saying how clever he is and has been at the helm. Blair having jumped ship.
With the housing market the question for me is where is the bottom, houses are still very expensive compared with 3 decade ago when 10 year mortgages and 10 percent deposits - of valuation, not price where not uncommon. The moral of the story is house prices rise to match the available money. If houses settle too low the effect could be devastating for an entire young generation locked into excessive debt. Any really large interventions such as you mention would only be made by a terrified government, or is that unkind. Could be more like the 'all deposits are secure' message, market reassurance than real.
Looking at the figures some pundits appear correct when they say things are not that bad, however it would also seem that we are in new terrain and things could slide off the cusp. In particular it is global. I really do think, whatever the origins or actions this is not effective government. I first had this discussion a very long time ago, the dichotomy between the need for democratic government which reflects public wishes and desires and the need for government to make decisions for the best interest of the public. There was no answer then and no answer now.
The 60s fringe concerns about the environment and about capitalism seem to be coming more establishment. Perhaps we need the Flower Power Party dude, and earth dwellings. Now that would be something, you can't even put a shed up around here without the planner, nice guy that he is, calling to check it out.
I know you have a great love of figures but most people are not as bright as you and are primarily interested in what they have spare in their pocket and if they are secure and if tax is not going to go up. Everything else is secondary.
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Nu-Lab'll be cut down to size
If they tell any more of their lies,
(No it's not if it's when---
O, they'll do it again)
You can see the deceit in their eyes!
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288
What a marvellous idea - put more money into worker's pockets. This will also increase tax revenue (workers will be taxed at 20%/40% + 11% NI + 11% Employee NI and corporation tax reduced by only 25%)
Totally naive. Where does the money come from? From sale of goods - if staff costs go up then the cost of goods goes up. Result?
I N F L A T I O N
In 1979 - 1997 the Government reduced spending resulting at times into recession. In 1997 (1999 actually) the Labour Government said - let the good times roll - we deserve the best of everything - better education, better health etc etc.
The only trouble is: we could not afford it. Like the couple given a mortgage 8 times joint income we have lived the dream of a better livelihood.
Now the bills are arriving on the doormat - and we can't pay them.
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Brown's plans always go wrong
Cause he speaks with the devil's tongue,
His soul he has sold
Just like all our gold
And our country as well (for a song!)
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This is the man who told us the Tories were in a mess and power struggle after DD resgined
typical Nu labour Spin
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re: 304, djlazarus
Lol OK you may have a point there!
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please note the works of marx are selling like hotcakes in europe, maybe our leaders need to re-read his works and try to live by them.
it may be a good idea to squash this rampent capitolism bug for a while to help this nation fix the problems we seem to encounter at the moment due to poor leadership.
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287 shellingout
My black humour moment is that following the foreign policy debacle of Iraqistan G W Bush and Rice wanted to have an international acheivement in the middle east before the boot, hence all the shuttle diplomacy and being keen on Blair being a gofor in the middle east. Guess what Bush will be remember for - could it be the US domestic economy and a global melt. Guess you cant fool any of the people any of the time in the long run, can you George.
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With all this talk about Das Kapital may I recommend two other books which may interest people which could be read as alternatives, one is Mein Kampf which is now available in all good book shops, and the Nietzsche Reader. Both books are most interesting and offer an alternative to Karl Marx.
However, I must admit that although in my collection I do find them , to put not too fine a point on them, they are ever so slightly disturbing. However, I think that we all ought to be very concerned at the current Global Economic Climate, because it is during times like this that some individuals will attempt to use this for their own ends.
By all means read Das Kapital but also read the other two, and be afraid, very afraid. There is a political vacuum at the moment and let us not allow the far left, nor the far right to fill the vacant space.
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re: 312, delminister
Great idea, let's make everyone poor and miserable. Marxism is based on envy, not fairness as they would have you believe.
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#285 Rtistic
Iroinic for you to talk about people 'coming out of the woodwork' - your posting record rather seems to put you in that category.
I do hope I (as a tax payer) aren't paying for your excursion -- at least if labour are paying for it, it adds to their own internal debt. I do hope labour aren't looking to divert any of their massiive borrowings at taxpayers expense don't get diverted....
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I do hope that you will find the time to question Gordon Brown on how he thinks he can lecture the banking world about off balance sheet debts while introducing a new financial measure entitled ?National Debt excluding Northern Rock,? code HF6W.
It shows the figures Brown needs to claim that national debt is down - 43% to 37% - thus helping him claim he can afford the bank bailout.
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Read We by Yevgeny Zamyatin--- the novel that inspired 1984. Needless to say, the society depicted is of the kind very much to NuLieBore's liking.
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#287 shellingout
But where was the political pressure on the Government and the political debtate? It was around the Government's opponents saying "we have far too much regulation on financial firms and need to deregulate to keep the City interested in locating in the UK". That's important.
And it's important that Dave and Gideon were saying these exact same thngs when they try and convince us they were always in favour of "responsible" regulation, not necessarily less.
re Government debt - ok, it hasn't decreased as a % of GDP over 11 years, but we have a lot of new schools and hospitals to show for that. Should they not have been built? I guess if you think we should have focussed on reducing debt, your answer would be no. Should've kept the old ones. And this is without the benefit of a £350 billion windfall from selling off all of the UK's assets and further hundreds of billions from North Sea Oil at peak flow, which the previous government enjoyed.
#306 glenafon
The car metaphor is appropriate in my view. If you get repossessed, you will not be living on the street. You can rent a place that is more within your means. Not pleasant maybe, but that's what you get for over-stretching yourself.
But political needs must - it's important to be seen to be doing something, especially after bailing out the rich bankers in the City.
I guess I would be centre left-leaning in terms of the outcomes I believe Government should attempt to achieve, yes, but not a blind follower of the Government (see e.g. my comments on housing). A lot of my posts here aim to correct a lot of the, erm, more 'over-enthusiastic' posters on here and try and put some actual facts into the debate. Not something I'm successful at I have to say...
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You can't blame Cameron for not being able to find an alternative, useful response to the present situation.
It is a bit like Brown suggesting that all aboard the sinking ship take to the lifeboats and then complaining that Cameron hasn't got a better idea.
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Brown: Two plus two equals five
The Public: Call an election!
Brown: Two plus two equals five
The Public: Call an election!
Brown: Two plus two equals five
The Public: Call an election!
Brown: Two plus two equals five
The Public: Call an election!
Brown: Two plus two equals five
The Public: Call an election!
Brown: Two plus two equals five
The Public: Call an election!
Brown: Two plus two equals five
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#321
Intelligent contribution.
Where's your evidence that the public (i.e. not the Conservative politicians or their supporters on this blog) want an election?
You are confusing Brown with our formely celebrated bankers with the maths.
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I vill say zis only once .... Harold Wilson said " 7 days is a long time in politics" ... by gum, he was right ... 14 days is even longer... Gordon Brown has come back from the dead. .... the next election will be in autumn 2009/spring 2010 .... a re-vitalised Labour will win .... you heard it here first
...
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The Brown three-card trick will not work.
To put it simply, the country is overborrowed. All that he has achieved so far is to re-adjust where the borrowing lies. He has taken onto the government's balance sheet those debts that were formerly on those of its banks and the public - because households and banks can no longer sustain it. As of today, there is no cogent plan to actually REDUCE it.
Refaltion on the Keynsian model worked in a world of national economies of the 1930's to 1950's where additional money flowed into national investment by national institutions both private and public and ultimately into the pockets of the national population.
The same policies pursued again in a highly globalised market will just direct more money to where it has gone in the last 10 years, the sovereign wealth funds and resource suppliers in Russia, China and the Middle East - with the same fundamental results. The banks will just have to resume their role in negotiating the loan-back of these trade surpluses - and leveraging consumers at home - and get the blame when the whole thing collapses again. Furthermore, if the new regulatory regime interrupts that flow, the balance of trade deficit will just become an unsustainable outflow that will not be offset by capital inflows. And that way lies the rapid road to national bankruptcy.
The only way forward is to change the country's terms of trade and the level of value added that is developed by the "real" economy by producing more goods and services that the world wants to buy to match the value of the goods and services we purchase. This means a longer term movement to higher productivity accompanied by lower marginal tax rates linked to massive reductions of government spending on non-productive activities like benefit provision and military spending.
More £££'s sunk into the old Labour favourite of "schools n' ospitals" funded with foreign capital inflows just ain't going to do the business. We can't keep underpaying Chinese and Indian workers to fund shiny new NHS offices and aircraft carriers in the UK.
Brown and his ministers are out of their depth and whistliing in the dark. They are about to do exactly what their Labour predecessors did in the 1960's and 70's in the belief that their more populist aim of full employment at any cost is going to paper over the cracks.
It will the the Tories' onerous task again to take the hatred and pain of dismantling the Never-never land of Labour economics again.
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Anyone posting here, who wants to blame Gordon Brown for the Global Crisis is clearly unaware of the definition of the word Global.
Taken from MSN Encarta,
glob·al [ gl?b'l ] : adjective
Definition:
1. worldwide: relating to or happening throughout the whole world
2. overall: taking all the different aspects of a situation into account
3. spherical: shaped like a globe or sphere
Given that, (in no particular Order) Australia, France, Ireland, Germany, Italy, Iceland, USA, Russia, China, Malaysia, Japan... and others worldwide, are suffering from the economic crisis, it is clear that it should be referred to as a Global Crisis(see definition 1), now, much as Tory party central office would like it to be a national crisis affecting just the UK they are failing to think Globally(see definition 2). and in fact are talking a load of Globals (see definition 3).
The political doctrine at play during the lead up to this crisis was Monetarism, i.e. let the markets find their own level, let the chips fall where they may, and let the devil take the hindmost.
C'mon, Hand's up who thought Monetarism was a good idea... No it's OK Margaret, we already know about you.
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in response to 315 please note i did say re-read them :)
as they seem to have read them and are using them for there own gains .:) :)
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@4 You are so wrong. Out of date already. Go and look at The Guardian. No Brown boost.
It was all media hype. They got it wrong. Again.
Its strange how the media commentators are becoming so dislocated from real opinion.
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re: 322, balhamu
I live in a Labour heartland. Labour are despised as much as Hitler. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
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328 power2ppl
"I live in a Labour heartland. Labour are despised as much as Hitler. You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows."
You don't need to be a Butcher to know tripe when you read it.
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I am stunned at some of the comments in response to this blog.
Nick and many others in the BBC have undermined and nibbled away at New Labour for ten years, initially with Blair and more successfully with GB. Even a Treasury official losing people's personal data last year was laid firmly at the door of No 10. If Cameron had got in instead of Brown the data would still have been lost.
Referring to Nick R as a government mouthpiece borders on the idiotic.
Some of you could do with removing your blue-tinted glasses.
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re: 326, delminister
Hmm OK then, I'll let you off this time ;)
Yep, damn those buffoons who call themselves our leaders. Corrupted by avarice they walk the crooked path.
re: 325, Rhubidium
Brown is being blamed (and rightly so) not for creating the crisis, but for denying the myriad warnings, for pretending there was no problem, for borrowing and squandering exorbitant sums, for selling our gold too cheaply, for failing to prepare Britain for what was coming etc etc. Yawn, read the posts
C'mon, Hand's up who thought Monetarism was a good idea... No it's OK Margaret, we already know about you.
So why didn't Brown do something about it? How much time did he have? Oh yes, eleven years.
No excuses.
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#331 pttp
"Labour are despsed as much as Hitler" in the Labour heartland in which you live?
1. Where is this heartland? What constituency? Who's your MP?
2. Would Hitler be at 31% in the opinion polls? A scary thought!
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#331 pttp
You say it doesn't matter what Cameron et al think - the decisions made were Labour's and so were all their fault.
I agree with you to an extent. Labour made the choice that rather than embark on the heavy-handed (but necessary) regulatory reform that would have stopped the current crisis but led to finance fleeing London (i.e. directly intervene to tell the private sector that they are under-pricing risk and holding risky sub-prime debt and prevent them from lending money to certain people, because apparently the market did not know best after all), they would operate a light-touch regime.
But, political pressure on the Government has been to make the decisions they have - the opposition have been pushing financial deregulation until the last few months, and warning the electorate that the City will vanish to New York, Shanghai or Bangalore if this heavy-handed regulatory approach continued.
And now they tell us that that's not what they meant. What they meant by saying that regulation was too heavy-handed and it should be reduced was that regulation was too light and it should have been increased. Labour ignored their cunning use of opposites to say what they mean.
If Cameron et al want to be seen as a viable alternative Government, surely their attitude towards regulating the City and embarking on serious reform should be questioned e.g. financial regulation, taxation of bonuses, corporate governance reform, getting involved in banks decisions over what LTV ratios they should lend at and their pricing of risk, in case the market gets it wrong again.
Why does Cameron et al believe that a similar economic crisis would be less likely to happen under their watch?
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re: 329, dhwilky
Indeed you don't. And funny how most of it's written by you: you even admit it. LOL!
The people will prove me right at the election wilky my darling!
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319 balhamu
If somebody is in the situation that they lose their house there is a good chance they are bust and will not be able to rent somewhere. In those circumstances they are probably going to go on the B + B roster or maybe find a DSS rental. They probably become bankrupt, lose credit rating and bank facilities. They are then not exactly at the front of the pick list with employers. There is a link between foreclosure and mental breakdown and job loss, or job loss can initiate the problem. Families break up and suicides occur. Kids can end up in care. It is not a accountancy excercise. In many cases the 3 months arrears which initiates the forclosure is relatively small compared with the potential social budget impact. In this I am not saying what the solution is I am saying what the problem is. It is too simplistic to say people are rash and should pay. In many cases the borrowing occurred in a different environment and the expectation was that stability by and large would be delivered, that after all was what was promised by a superior being. This government is basically on an IVA but nobody says they should be evicted now, it is accepted they should stay the duration and put their efforts in positively.
This government is 'overstretching themselves'. We all pay either way, you need to step off the one account, and no I am not suggesting the rash get a handout, I am saying it is a difficult problem. It depends how badly it goes and how many are affected but you could be looking at the very real risk of a damaged generation who when disenfranchised are likely to stay disenfranchised, not work dilligently for the security of an older generation or or a future one. The story so far is - however bad it is forecast - it is worse the next week. The so called experts all have vested interest in recovery so it is not clear however confident they sound just how accurate they are or if they are out of their depth. There are some signs the bottom has been hit but who knows. And recessions are indiscriminate in who they hit. My feeling is that negative equity trading to let people out, not off the hook, and efforts to stablise the housing market by encouraging buyers are badly needed. If you have an economy run on debt and inflated, you cannot both deflate the bubble and cut all debt, it is a double hit, so debt has to be reintroduced. The housing market is key. It is a very big game. Whether the government is up to it is another matter, they were not up to it leading up to the problem.
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re: 332
1) Stalybridge and Hyde, James Purnell. A careerist parachuted in by Blair and loathed by everyone.
2) If he promised to get rid of Nu-LieBore he would be!
Purnell needs a 12.5 percent swing (I think) to be unseated. PTTP predicts it'll be 15 percent at the very least.
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#336 pptp
Interesting you should say that.
James Purnell is on the outermost right-wing reaches of the Labour Party. He is implementing a welfare reform programme fully supported by Cameron et al (though they doubt he'll be able to get it through the Labour Parliamentary Party). In an interview with the Guardian on 28th September 2008, Michael Gove expressed admiration for Purnell (along with Hazel Blears and Andrew Adonis) and said it was quite possible they would be offered jobs in a future Conservative administration.
My guess is that if he is hated it is because of these facts.
Are you a betting man? Labour have held this seat since 1945.
re Hitler - again, interesting thoughts. The Labour party, who have delivered 11 years of growth, but arguably taxed and borrowed to highly, would lose out to a man responsible for mass genocide of Jewish people amongst others. Very interesting. Is this your view?
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What a waste of a license fee this Labour-loving blog is.
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oakwoodbank wrote:
"It is a bit like Brown suggesting that all aboard the sinking ship take to the lifeboats and then complaining that Cameron hasn't got a better idea."
(Love the super analogy BTW, much better than the overused "house on fire")
With Tory policies, published so far, Fox Hunting, IHT and Stamp duty on Mansions, it seems that Cameron's idea would be that him and his millionaire friends get a lifeboat each, and the rest of you can sink or swim.
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#338 rejectedreject
What's Labour-loving about this blog?
The notoriously left-wing Daily Mail carries similar analysis, as has been pointed out above.
In all probability, David Cameron is going to form the next Government. It is right to question him on his plans for when he gets there, and what his views on e.g. regulation etc are, and how the U-turns on the deregulating and 'markets know best' philsophy fit into his broader narrative about personal responsiblity, and, well, deregulation and the state taking a backseat in many more areas of society.
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"On the banking crisis, he can't say "I told you so" because he didn't." BUT HE DID TELL BROWN HIS SPENDING SPLURGE WAS IRRESPONSIBLE AND ASKING FOR TROUBLE, DIDN'T HE?
"He can't say "we had a better answer" because he didn't propose one and he's given his backing to the Brown plan." BUT IF BROWN HADN'T WRECKED THE PUBLIC FINANCES PERHAPS THERE WOULD BE A BETTER ANSWER.
"On what looks like a looming recession, he won't say "let's cut taxes to stimulate the economy"...because he's already declared that "the cupboard is bare" and that as a "fiscal conservative" he's not prepared to borrow to finance tax cuts. QUITE RIGHT - THE CUPBOARD IS BARE BECAUSE BROWN'S SPENDING SPREE OVER 10 YEARS HAS WRECKED THE PUBLIC FINANCES.
The current crisis isn't Brown's fault. But the government's complete inability to help due to the already chronic state of its finances IS Brown's fault.
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#341 Adam_C_UK,
You say Brown went on an irresponsible spending spree.
So you think:
* We should have kept waiting lists in the NHS high
* We should have continued to tolerate high levels of child poverty and accelerating inequality
* We should have refused to regenerate the North
* We shouldn't have built any new hospitals
* We shouldn't have built any new schools
* We should have kept public sector salaries low to ensure the quality of state services were poor
* We should have kept long waiting lists for NHS treatment
* We should just write off the poor and not try and equalise opportunity - their poor because they are feckless and lazy
* We shouldn't have bothered spending money on adult skills
etc
What we should've done is reduce the level of debt (which, until the current crisis, was a lower % of GDP than in 1997). That would be the most important thing. Why invest to improve our future growth rate?
If you're going to use the 'irresponsibility' argument, you need to say exactly what you didn't want to happen. Otherwise it sounds rather like you just want the moon on a stick.
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334 power_to_the_ppl
"Indeed you don't. And funny how most of it's written by you:"(tripe that is)(see comment 329)
Quite right!. I wouldn't say most of it though there are a fair few spoilt little daily mail readers complaining about New Labour liberal left Bias at the BBC(see 338) and a few clowns using stupid Names like Zanu Nuliarbore PF. I have quite a lot of competition.
By the way I'm not your type. I am male, Human and have eyes ears and more than half a brain.
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re 331
"for selling our gold too cheaply, for failing to prepare Britain for what was coming etc etc. Yawn,"
Crystal Ball Politics, Has Dave got one ? , have you ?
What will gold be selling at in twelve months time ?, $1000... $830... thruppence halfpenny? , tell me, we could make a fortune.
When will Oil rocket in price again? when will Britain Flood again, When will the terrorists strike again ? will Lewis do it this year ? etc., etc., etc. (I'll spare you the patronising sleep metaphors and merely use an extra etc.).
C'mon power. you have foreseen all these things... haven't you ?. spill it.
And there is still no arguing with the "Global" thing.
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Steve Richards blows away the dangerous Tory myth that Gordon Brown wasted money.
The Tories are trying to "win" even if they have to damage the country to do it. So, they can sling all that "scorched earth" rhetoric. It's just another lie.
Thank you Mr Richards for bringing this issue to people's attention. It is important that people do the right thing and are kind, otherwise what are we here for?
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345
Yeah right. non of really see the waste and outrageous expenditure as part of our everyday lives. Its all Tory smoke and mirrors and bad press.
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The same Steve Richards who can't count?
So what, if anything, can Brown do to avoid a 1997 landslide in reverse? Currently, a fatal narrative is in place. It can be summarised in three words: "Brown is a disaster".
Indy, 6th May 2008
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Why, with regularity, has it again been demonstrated by Nick Robinson, a BBC employee, found it necessary to become a defender of this dysfunctional Labour Government.
I think he has lost his objectivity and is too cosy with receiving Labour hospitality when invited on political tours and favourably treatement when attending press conferences.
I do hope for the future of objective journalism, he removes his blinkers and reports objectively in future and gives a fair balance to the other Parties.
(I bet the BBC will not print these comments).
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re: 337 balhamu
An MP who got his job by being Blair's babysitter and who doesn't care for his constituency is an MP who got his job by being Blair's babysitter and who doesn't care for his constituency.
re: 343
I am male, Human and have eyes ears and more than half a brain.
The first two may be right. Too bad that you think snitching is acceptable. That in my view makes you a...
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...rat.
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320 oakwoodbank wrote:
'You can't blame Cameron for not being able to find an alternative, useful response to the present situation.
It is a bit like Brown suggesting that all aboard the sinking ship take to the lifeboats and then complaining that Cameron hasn't got a better idea.
This quote hits the nail on the head, well done oakwoodbank, simple analogy that even labour sympathisers, nick and the BBC might be able to understand, though my betting is they will choose not to.
To have any 'real' and clearly thought out intervention and policies ideas Cameron will need the 'complete image', at present he only has a vision of the outer image, what we can see and what we are told, when an election is called, Cameron will be given more layers of that image showing some of the inner workings, Cameron will then have a clearer vision of what the image is, enabling clearer vision to flesh up and adjust policies accordingly, It will only be when Cameron wins the next election will he have the complete image, Cameron then 'needs' to show all of us the British Public that 'complete image', so we all will in no doubt about what 'we' look like.
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re: 348, BGGarvie
Not just dysfunctional BGarvie, but infected and suppurating. The nicest thing for us to do would be to put them out of their misery. But I'd rather see them alive so they can suffer for their sins. Let's not forget that their avarice led them to start a war. Every criticism of the Tories pales in comparison to the magnitude of Labour's crimes.
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Interesting how any comment expressed by the BBC which is vaguely to the left of the Daily Telegraph is seen as 'labour-loving'. If the BBC were really labour-supporting we wouldn't have all these doom-and gloom headlines every night, Robert Peston would be tied up and gagged in the BBC basement and the credit crunch would be dismissed as just a minor correction to an otherwise upward trend of prosperity. In reality, as long as the BBC gets attacked from all sides, it's probably got the balance about right.
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tory @ 241
... "During the bubble, having your mate from public school who has never had a real job as Shadow Chancellor was not an issue. But now Osbourne's lack of gravitas risks leaving the Party looking lightweight" ...
Think this is right. You can have Cameron or Osborne but not the both. A tough Fabio Capello type decision is required but I'm not sure who's going to take it.
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Well said Eatonrifle!
Your correct, don't let any self interest Tory tell you different.
Wealth is all relative, hence.
Tory Boom and Bust, where we go into our own self made unnecessary recession all alone, because of economic mismanagement.
Is why the Tories are opposition and why they will stay opposition for many many many more years.
A Global Downturn, is like a natural disaster, you can stop it and you try to make it better again. Well Done Gordon Brown, i appreciate your efforts.
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Nick,
I can't help but laugh at those pro-Labour bloggers who try to compare 1992 with 2008 as if it was a football match. You can hear them now ? Oh our recession is bigger than your recession! Our recession was caused by nasty people from overseas, unlike your recession. They simply do not have a scooby.
The world recession in the 1980s was triggered by a sudden rise in oil prices, with stock markets across the world dropping like a stone over one weekend. Do you honestly think the Conservative government caused that to happen? Why don't you just accept the fact that both crises have some element of a global problem?
Neither should we forget that during our problems in the 90's, Labour jumped up and down blaming the Conservatives for everything, yet now they expect everyone to adopt a policy of national unity. Talk about inconsistency!
Could it be that they know how badly the Conservatives were punished last time, and realise that it is now Labour's turn to be punished? I would suggest that the Labour fanatics train up to become masochists because a lot of punishment is coming their way?
In the meantime, the pro-Labour posters might want to sit down in a dark room and ask themselves just why it is that we have borrowing at a 62 year high BEFORE we go into a recession. They might also want to give some thought as to how high they expect it to be when the recession is finally over, and just how they expect us to repay those borrowings. When they have finally calmed down, they might want to come back on to these pages and tell us why they no longer believe in Brown or his policies.
Alternatively, they can carry on with the same factual (and fatuous) inaccuracies as before.
All the best.
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#342,
But Browns spending:-
* on New Hospitals and new schools is nearly all off book. IE total PFI debt is approx 280billion but only 5 to 10billion is shown on our national bedt.
* For 90% of public sector jobs, pay is currently BETTER than private sector equlivants, public sector workers now have MUCH better terms and conditions with on average more paid hoildays and sick leave. AND they have a cast iron garanteed solid gold pension that is TOTALY unfunded and not shown on our national debt.
The spend spend over the last 10 years is shocking, my local NHS trust has rebranded it self 6 times, has a monthly newspaper telling us how wonderfully they are spending our money, spends a fortune of managerment consultants, but has cut back so hard on cleaning such that it has the higest deaths.
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#342 balhamu:
I don't recognise any of the things you listed. Personally I see:
- Schools continuing to crumble and standards not rising
- People still dying of MRSA and other infections acquired in our dirty NHS hospitals
- Waiting lists reduced by having "waiting lists to get on the waiting list"
- Billions spent on the tax credits fiasco
- Private sector pension schemes, once the envy of the world, wrecked while the public sector sails on with gold plated retirements at taxpayers' expense
- Off balance sheet borrowing to pretend government debt is lower than it really is
- Waste, waste and more waste
- Britain itself heading for bankruptcy once again under Labour
- And all the while, Labour's failures covered up by spin and even downright lies
I don't want to live in your New Labour "paradise". I want my country back.
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Message 273 flamepatricia
I never understand tactical voting. I don't believe it even exists. What I believe is that most voters cast their ballot on the basis of what they feel is best for the country. There are many who confuse their interests with the interests of the country as subjectivity is very common within the general population. For it to be identified as tactical voting is to consider the public to be more sophisticated than it is.
Message 259 John from Hendon
What a delight! There is another person from Hendon who has read Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Sadly, I could never get on with Fourier.
Message 314 TAG Griffin
Mein Kampf as an alternative to Marx? I would agree that both share a similar turgid Germanic style but even an anti-Marxist such as I would say that Marx is at least interesting. The guy who wrote Mein Kampf is clearly barking mad and should have been locked up for longer to write a number of sequels. People like that should not be allowed out. As for Neitzsche, he is too tricky and too open to subjectivity to have any social or political relevance.
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I hate to say it, but the first person since 1997 to predict that if you have uncontrolled borrowing and house price inflation was G Brown.
In his first budget and its associated white paper he identified that allowing house prices to rocket and for eqirty to be withdrawn from the market was THE recipy for boom and bust. With the bust offten hitting due to an external factor.
Well in the following ten years we had the largest run on houses and increase in borrowing against them. He even allowed the borrowing model to be moved via heavily leaveraged buy outs into the business sector such that accourding to todays reports the majority of the top companies now no longer pay any corporation tax.
So about all Brown can claim is that his external factor was the sub prime sales, every thing else about that Bust is as he stated in 1997 due to him!
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345. The country is already damaged by New Labour.
It might not seem that for you in Japan but that's what has happened here over eleven years of misrule.
Ah, so!
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342. balhamu
The schools and hospitals have not been built with tax payers money.
They have been built by private companies who are now renting them to the state at a premium along with lucrative maintenance contracts.
They have not been funded by traditional, visible debt.
Yes, we should have kept public sector salaries lower, we now have a situation where, all perks considered, it is more lucrative to work in the public sector that the private.
We now have high salaries and public service are still poor to awful.
That is sheer madness.
And your last point should be turned around, if the feckless and lazy cant be bothered to turn their lives around, why should my tax buck be thrown at them.
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ok its time to admit it i think new labour is great they have worked miricles made every one in the country happier and richer they have started to bring about world peace, they listen to every one and they help the needy.tony blair who left before his time has even converted to roman catholic so he can be sanctified so we can start calling him saint tony, gordon brown i hear is to become a jew so he can become the new massiah. gordon brown has taken over and lead us to even greater heights of pleasure.
all the other parties look on in averice knowing they could never do as good a job.
people will look back in to this period of history and realise it was the start of a golden era of properity and harmony where peace and love went hand in hand globaly around the world.
neu labour will be the only government we need all others would be pail immitations, the people will continue to prosper and gain more freedoms under neu labour.
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#342
balhamu
NHS waiting lists have not come down; they have merely been shifted out of hospitals and into GPs surgeries. This is a bit of clever accounting accepted by anyone in the NHS.
The North has not been regenerated; it was flooded with cheap credit and this is now going inot reverse. Northern Rock is accelerating its repossessions programme which will throw your 'regeneration' argument into sharp relief.
Brown's spending spreee was irresponsible because it was so chronically unbalanced.
It was misguided to pay doctors more in exchange for working shorter hours.
It was misguided to spend all the money on schools and hospitals and ignore the infractructure of the economy - power stations, roads, railways and bridges.
It's becoming increasingly difficult to work out what on earth newlabour did while they were in power except go on an extended PR and ego trip to persuade us all that we were better off and twist the arm of the banking system to provide vast multiples of salary to people who couldn't afford a home.
Credit booms always end badly and Gordon Brown presided over the biggest credit boom in history; bigger than that experienced in the UK. It is logical that this credit boom will end specatularly badly.
City centre property values in the 'regenerated north' are already down 50%. Some regeneration.
Gordon Brown.s opinion poll rating is sitting exactly where it was after the tory party conference; at 30% vs 42% for the tories. Some bounce.
If I was part of the newlabour spin machine I' be feeling pretty hacked off by now; we've spent all that money; we'e brought back all the old faces; we've rescued the world from banking meltdown....but got nowhere in the polls.
That result is because the general public has had enough of Gordon Brown's grandstanding on the international stage and wants him back here to:
Call an election.
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Cameron is only interested in tax cuts for the rich - as Keynes said, the only way to get ouot of this looming recession is to borrow and spend. Brown has got it spot on.
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Glan, Balham, UK House Prices:
I've noticed that, when something bad happens, the Authorities often overreact - dangerous dogs, sarbanes oxley, NHS spending, 42 days, Guantanemo Bay, you know the sort of thing.
With our property market, my fear is we will now see way too much regulation and aversion to risk - a return to the "good old days" of needing a rock solid job, a 25 pc depo and a less than three times income multiple in order to get a mortgage. If that happens, house prices will be locked into levels around 40 pc (or more) below the peak of summer 2007 and a large number of people will be financially devastated.
If we keep faith with the democratisation of credit seen in recent years, then I am sanguine about house prices. Interest rates are going to fall a long way and the cuts will eventually be passed on, once the banks have got their act together. Even in a severe recession, average incomes should not fall by more than a few percentage points. So long as we don't strangle the market with restrictions that weren't there before, house prices should stabilise at 2006 levels and, from spring 2010, should start ticking up again due to fundamental factors of supply and demand. We will have seen a correction of about 20 pc - enough to blow off the froth but not so much as to cause widespread hardship.
I like to look at this from the opposite angle. Property in the UK was UNDERVALUED for many years due to restrictive lending practices and uncompetitive mortgage rates. That this got blown away in recent years, and the market opened up to lower income people, is a very good thing. Okay, there were excesses on some of the self cert stuff, and the spivvy side of BTL is an unfortunate phenomenon and okay, people shouldn't have borrowed against their house to buy a plasma telly ... but, still, let's not now get swept into an unthinking consensus to go too far the other way. I'd prefer an alternative to the obvious cliche around babies and bathwater but it serves as well as anything.
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According to many on here this Government have been irresponsible with their borrowing.
I think many also believe the previous Government was responsible, and that this Government destroyed the golden legacy left by Thatcher, Major and Clarke.
So was the previous Government responsible in their approach to the public finances (ignoring any views on whether creating long-term unemployment and deliberately destroying people's jobs was irresponsible or a necessary part of economic change)?
At March 1979, public sector net debt was £98.2 billion (47.1% of GDP).
At March 1997, public sector net debt was £348 billion (43.3% of GDP).
At March 2008, public sector net debt was £529 billion (36.9% of GDP).
Net debt increased by £259 billion during 18 years of the previous Government (average of £14.4 billion per year).
Net debt increased by £181 billion during 11 years of this Government (average £16.5 billion per year).
So, this Government have borrowed £2 billion/year more than the last (on average), but decreased the debt as a % of GDP (i.e. they used their greater success with the economy to invest a bit more in infrastructure).
Also, all the additional borrowing funded investment in infrastructure. The current budget has been balanced (or almost balance). Contrasting with the cumulative £350 billion current budget deficit of the last government that they invested in long-term unemployment, sickness and social decline.
The last Government made in excess of £350 billion from selling off large chunks of state assets (and that's ignoring the discounts they gave to the buyers). I ask, why did we even have a national debt in March 1997. Why didn't they use this £350 billion to reduce the debt to zero? Or even make it negative and given us a soverign fund?
But I know facts and figures are boring, and the truth doesn't matter. Perception is all important - and if you say something enough time it becomes true, doesn't it?
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#364 Robin,
The general point holds, regardless of your views of the efficacy of the spend that happens.
If you say irresponsible/wasteful spending occurred, you have to pinpoint what it was and say what wouldn't have happened (e.g. we wouldn't have increased pay for teachers and nurses, we wouldn't have built new hospitals, we wouldn't have built new schools, we wouldn't have introduced the working families tax credit etc).
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@ 240 - guycroft
"Gordon Brown in the Commons this afternoon:
'we will do whatever it takes to help mortgage holders and small businesses through this difficult time'
Whatever it takes? Yeah?
Do you KNOW what it will take Prime Minister? Have you any idea what you just promised? Is that a contract or another empty pledge. I have 10 days to raise min ?7k due to lost takings at my firm this month alone. Instead I am writing on a BBC blog because it's one of the few mediums where I can speak out because my MPs are interested.
So, can I have ?7K please to make up for what you've taken from me? And can I have my mortgage, loan and cc interest frozen too until my firm starts to function profitably again as it did for every other month of the last 7 years till 3rd qtr 2008"
- sir, this is why i personally thought a better approach to the bail out would have been to give the money per head, directly to the people themselves.
its estimated that the bail out for the banks (so far) is equal to around £8000 per head of voting population.
rather than give this to the banks directly, to "improve liquidity and get the financial system moving again" giving it to the people would have worked better.
* those that were able to budget during the bad times, would have been rewarded and would see better savings interest, as banks compete for savers money now in the economy, or they could have spent this on the high street, which would help the business' that are struggling and "oil the wheels of the economy"
* those that had small amounts of debts, the odd credit card for example, would have been able to save some of the payout and pay off their cards
* those that had larger amounts of debt could have paid some off each, lowering their interest payments, easing the burden on their household income, this includes debt with charging orders against their home, or court judgements, giving them more time and taking the pressure off.
regardless of circumstance, the money would have filtered its way back to the banks, wether retail receipts or debts being paid off or in new savings accounts.
this would keep competition healthy between banks and heaven forbid, all us normal people could have benefitted?
as we will all be paying the interest on the government's huge borrowings, isnt it about time the people got something out of it?
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365.wellington4
Cameron is only interested in tax cuts for the rich - as Keynes said, the only way to get ouot of this looming recession is to borrow and spend. Brown has got it spot on.
Oh spot on! The wise son of the manse remembers that as you sow, so shall you reap. The trouble is he will have been gotten rid of, whilst we the poor citizens will still be around to reap the whirlwind.
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balhamu @342,
In an attempt to change my evil ways, I wrote a detailed response to each of your points. For some reason it was swallowed into the bowels of the BBC blog system and not published.
(Foolishly, I neglected to make a copy prior to hitting 'send')
I guess I should stick to what I enjoy best: Chuck-bashing.
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#363 delminister
What are you on?
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#367 balhamu
You forgot one thing. Stealth taxes. Without these our greedy government would not have had the money to spend. We've all paid for it in one way or another.
It would be interesting to see your statistics on Conservative taxation during their government as against the Labour taxation levels since 1997. I'll bet the Conservatives don't even come close.
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The next election is still Labour's to lose and they are certainly out-foxing the Tories at the moment.
Cameron's lack of 'big ideas' to solve the financial crisis are not doing him and his party any good. His proposal to help small businesses sound like organising throwing cups of water on a forest fire and reinforce the perception that the Tories are mostly concerned with business and not with the problems of the average person - no change there then, one is inclined to think.
The Lib Dems suggestion to cut National Insurance and taxes for the lower paid to get people spending again sound much more relevant.
Think big, Mr Cameron, otherwise your party is looking at yet another election defeat.
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at 372 im a believer in them, only untill i have had my first cup of tea then my brain kicks in and i feel human again.
i fear my humour levels are defunct at the moment.
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Robin @ 364
I think you're wrong in blaming the Labour government for the global recession. It was triggered in America by sub prime and spread around the world via Wall Street financial engineering - principally around securitisation and credit derivatives. The fuel was interest rates set too low for too long and the blame for that lies with the US Federal Reserve. Mistakes made by Gordon Brown (and of course there are plenty) are on the margins of the problem. There are some deep structural forces in play to do with the limitations and contradictions of the laissez faire capitalist model - for example how it, for a time, allows developed countries to prosper at the expense of developing countries but then, when that turns around, it leads to turbulence and dislocation.
Things are going to be bad, for a time, in the UK but they are not going to be significantly worse than in most other western countries - countries that have not had the pleasure of Gordon Brown at the helm. Yes, we have a housing correction (but see my post @ 366), yes we have more debt than is comfortable (but see balham's post @ 367) and yes, we are going into a bad recession ... but not because of Brown. He's no more than a passenger.
So, I think your take on the situation is the wrong one. I am, however, appreciative of how you've stopped saying "strapping on the afterburners" ... means a great deal to me, that does.
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322 - balhamu
and you are presenting a false argument by writing off all those who want an election as merely conservative politicians or supporters
i seem to remember some polls indicating the majority of people to want an election, and the lib dems also want an election, although I'm sure at this time of crisis it's the wrong time to hold an election - it is temporarily, but next spring would be a good time
and indeed if you added those who voted for lib dem or tory there would be a whopping majority - if you honestly think only a minority don't want an election you're living in fantasy land
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Max @ 371
... "I wrote a detailed response to each of your points. For some reason it was swallowed into the bowels of the BBC blog system and not published" ...
Oh really?
And were they good responses?
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366 - sagamix
speaking as a trainee accountant sarbanes oxley is a piece of american legislation, whilst it does have an affect on us due to international trading it's nothing to do with our government
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shelling @ 373
... "You forgot one thing. Stealth taxes. Without these our greedy government would not have had the money to spend. We've all paid for it in one way or another" ...
Only called "stealth" taxes because the public wouldn't wear an increase to the headline rate. Bit silly really, but there you go, that's the public for you.
Furthermore, without tax increases, government borrowing would have gone higher in order to fund the increases in public spending which were mandated by the electorate. That would have been irresponsible, would it not?
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#342
You think public sector wages are high? Are you kidding? Have you ever worked in the public sector? Ever seen the atrophied, passed over, decision fudging managers the civil service is riven with? And you think they're well paid? Apart from the Guardianista non-jobs in the public sector such as the Outreach workers earning a sum disproportionate to the effect their posts actually have?
Im sure theres not going to be many grumbles about building new hospitals and schools etc, but there sure as hell should be about giving GP's contracts that allow them to do half the work but receive double the money; There should be grumbles about depite building new hospitals that the trusts are pathalogically incapable of keeping the things clean, leading to the proliferation of MRSA and C-Diff. Not to mention the postcode lotteries about receiving treatments, the ridiculously dogmatic situation regarding top-ups where people have paid into the system their whole lives in good faith and when they need the NHS or the state it kicks them in the teeth in favour of buying a boat or renting a £1M house in Ealing or giving prisoners benefits.
To bring it down simply to waiting lists is disingenious. Why are there still people pursuing dental treatment abroad for instance? What has New Labour done about NHS Dentistry apart from line the pockets of the dental profession?
And regenerating the north has brought precisely what benefit? Apart from buying votes that is?
Adult Skills? All well and good, despite most of the new jobs being created going to immigrants because a significantly higher number will work for less. Not exactly addressed rampant immigration and this imbalance, have we?
The Feckless Poor? Well, if you insist on buying their votes by maintaining a bloated welfare system where it makes more economic sense for them to be out of work claiming benefit than working - in some cases because the immigrants will work for less - what do you expect?
I think we're lucky that as a nation that we are as feckless as we are. We ought to be a heck of a sight angrier with what this short-sighted, power-hungry megalomaniac has delivered us.
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@365
Keynes advocated that but from a starting position of close to zero debt.
Our start point thanks to Brown is from having the highest debt for 62 years plus future debt to PFI off balance sheet.
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#371 maxsceptic
That's a shame - would be interested to read your response. Can you back up your browser to retrieve it?
#373 shellingout
But is selling off state assets to pay for current expenditure and tax cuts for the rich (e.g. utility companies - water, gas, electricity, telecoms, railways, defence contractors, council housing) and squandering receipts from oil reserves just another form of stealth tax?
re Tax
Net taxes and national insurance contributions were 33.4% of GDP in 1978/79 (£57.8 billion), 34.6% of GDP in 1996/97 (£269.3 billion) and 36.9% of GDP in 2007/08 (£516.2 billion).
Tax as % of GDP did reach a trough of 32.3% of GDP in 1993/94, but had been rising consistently since then, reaching 36.2% of GDP in 1999/00 (the last year that Labour stuck to Conservative tax and spending plans).
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364. How on earth can some silly Kevin and Tracey borrowing one and half times their income to buy a house and then borrowing again for a designer kitchen but not cooking in it, having takeaways and eating out, and buying designer clothes on credit and wearing them once and taking three or four holidays a year to Tenerife and Dubai, actually be caused by America?
Some people are SO naive!
I expect you drink Evian water. Evian - spell that backwards......
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Todays headlines about 25% of the top 700 companies not paying corporation tax is disgusting. That is 135 companies! Why are the public not given a list of these companies so that we can systematically avoid their service where ever possible.
The goevrnment, whever one, need to solve this issue without a days delay. One can safely assume that close on 1 billion pounds in taxes are missing - that is a lot of school dinners, hospital beds etc etc. It is time to get real. Taxes are needed from all in a fair and decent manner.
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tarquin @ 379
... "speaking as a trainee accountant sarbanes oxley is a piece of american legislation, whilst it does have an affect on us due to international trading it's nothing to do with our government" ...
Yes, I know it is. And so is Guantanemo, another of my examples.
Good luck with your PE2's (if that's still what they're called).
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366 sagamix
Cant disagree with any of that.
4.5 x ave earning was considered stable for a long time, that is much higher than 3 decades ago. It was the overshoot to 6.5 which was the problem. All I'm saying is economic recovery is linked to house prices bottoming out and at present nobody is selling if they can avoid it so there is only the distress market which is a false market. The lower house prices go the greater the negative equity numbers grow which is unhealthy, at the same time the market has to adjust. The drop in price is also likely to overshoot the wrong way. The problem is the treatment of householders who cannot cope. If they cannot cope in a big way they are lost, but there will be some who cannot cope in a small way who risk the loss of everything through no fault of their own. Coupled to that is the likelyhood of a high social services cost for some. A drop from 6.5 x to 4.5 times is still a massive drop, approx 30 percent, you cannot plan on that if you are young buyer. 4.5 does not have to be the bottom. In an ordinary market you can sell to get out if no negative equity is present. If negative equity is present you cannot sell and are locked in. Either uplift in house prices or a negative equity mechanism to change the negative equity from secured to unsecured is needed. It is going to take years for house prices to recover via inflation and there is little motivation for the banks to introduce the negative equity trading as all foreclosure costs are covered by the householders insurance policy that the bank claim against. The householder cannot act and the bank does not want to act, all that is left is government intervention which is a political issue with 'freckless people being helped'. In the US after the depression people were, and still are able to, throw the keys in and walk away without major problems. In the UK you are potentially pursued by the insurance company and made bankrupt, figures not available. Brown knew what he was doing, that is the tragedy. He just thought he was better than the market. The current situation is damage limitation within a capitalist system. You cannot have capitalism on the way up, socialism on the way down, and capitalism on the way up again. If the route is housing association purchase and rent back, the negative equity problem still has to be dealt with. If the recession is shallow and short then the problem is that much less. There was a case reported in the Reading area (from memory) in the 90s where a less than 1000 quid council rent arrears problem changed into an ongoing longterm 10,000+ pa social services bill with the same council. Not a mortgage but the same type of problem, the council knew of the range of likely outcomes but said it was legally bound to proceed. Some sort of uplift at the start of 2009 is badly needed.
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#380 sagamix
Interesting to see that indirect taxation is called 'stealth tax' under this Government.
The last Conservative government relied on these 'stealth' taxes to decrease rates of income tax for high earners and business taxation (e.g. increasing the rate of VAT).
The tax reviews that they commissioned emphasise the need to shift from direct (non-stealthy) taxes on income, to (stealthy) indirect taxes on expenditure and externality-causing behaviour (e.g. producing rubbish) and removal of economically distorting tax breaks.
One example - the Conservatives criticised the Government for floating the possibility of bin-taxes to try and incentivise people to recycle more. They called it a stealth tax.
What should happen instead, said the Conservatives, is a council tax discount for those who recycle more.
A very smoke and mirrors argument! The portion of council tax the discount applies over is the same 'stealth' tax in the Labour proposal.
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glan @ 387
Yes, potentially tricky ... you've obviously thought about it in more detail than I have.
Two distinct issues, aren't there?
1. The value of property being lower than when purchased (and maybe lower than the mortgage too)
2. People losing their jobs and being unable to service their mortgage (facing loss of home and real distress)
As regards the first, I think that, as long as reasonable credit is not regulated away, and as long as interest rates fall substantially, then we'll be fine. Prices will stabilise and slowly recover. In a couple of years or so, prices will be back to where they were, minus the froth. They'll be within 10 pc of the 2007 peak. The negative equity will be removed by a mixture of the price recovery and people paying down their mortgages.
But the second issue is potentially a big problem and some creative solutions (part equity, interest discount, freeze on repossession, benefits top up) may be needed. Depends, I guess, on the scale of the recession ... I have a feeling that it will be long and quite deep.
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balham @ 388
Mmmm it's a very emotive issue, taxation. In the eyes of many, the mental image is of the governement reaching into wallets and nicking people's hard earned. And if that's the way you see it, you'll always be unhappy with how it's spent because it will never be spent as well as you think you would have spent it. The government wastes a ton of money in the same way that every man is a good driver, every woman has good taste in curtains and everyone who's successful thoroughly deserves to be, whilst those who aren't don't.
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388#
Don't forget also in their panic to bail out of the Poll tax fiasco they also increased VAT again from 15% to 17.5%.
hose Stealth taxes hve been around for a while.
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Indeed, the Tories are at best disgruntled spectators at the moment,
Much needs to be improved for the Tories to act as watchdogs of the incumbent government, let alone the next government in waiting.
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#321
In Browns world, sorry Globe, it is very hard to be sane.
Now, exactly how many fingers am I holding up, and at that moment, for just one fleeting moment he saw five.
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#387
When I worked for one of the banks I had a subsidised mortgage of five times salary, fixed for life at 2.5%. Yes, 2.5%. Also, a thirty thousand pound dealing account, in the eighties I grant you. Times were hard then. By the way my bank was taken over and I was made redundant, does that surprise anybody. Did you feel my pain, thought not. Oh, and I became entitled to a full pension after working for them for just over twenty years. Still feeling my pain. Again, thought not.
Now, from my earlier posts I wonder just how biased, or objective, Sir Brian Pitman was on the Andrew Marr show, being interviewed by the delectable Sophie. Ask the questions guys, just ask the questions!
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This is not news.
There is no news - no money changed hands - end of.
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A little of blog but it deserves a mention, did anyone see the film "Rendition" Last night,That will certainly make you think of mans inhumanity to man and quite a bit about religion.
I thought it very thought provoking it made 42 days look like a holiday on the Costa Del Sol.
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395:
Agreed. The Corfu boat incident is a red herring!
Hi grandy. I'm back ready to do battle with a new lens and a rested body! misswaldorf is at work wrestling with Yr 5 kids.
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Gordon Brown is winning praise but not votes for his handling of the financial crisis, according to a Guardian/ICM poll published today. It shows the Conservatives maintaining a double-digit lead, enough for a Commons majority, despite the transformation of the prime minister's reputation at Westminster.
Labour has been hoping for an electoral reward from the prime minister's new found confidence and international standing, but so far voters seem unimpressed. Six out of 10 think he has done well, but there has been no bounce in Labour's fortunes.
Asked whether Brown's response to the crisis makes them more or less likely to vote Labour, only 13% say more, against 27% who say less. Most, 60%, say it has made little difference.
Brown's actions appear to be strengthening Labour's core support, but are making little impression among opposition supporters. Among Conservatives, only 3% say they are now more likely to think of switching to Labour and among Liberal Democrats only 11%.
Even among people who backed Labour in 2005 - some of whom now back other parties - only 25% say the crisis has made them more supportive of Labour.
Today's state of the parties poll puts Labour on 30%, 12 points behind the Conservatives, who are on 42%. At a general election, that would leave Labour around 100 seats behind the Tories. David Cameron would have a small, but secure parliamentary majority.
Today's figures for the two main parties are identical to those in the last Guardian/ICM poll, which followed the Conservative party conference and showed a small boost in Tory support. Since then, the prime minister has launched his high-profile bank bail-out and made a series of national appearances, while the Conservatives have struggled to make a mark.
The big shift in today's poll is in Liberal Democrat support, up four points to 21%, possibly at the expense of other smaller parties, whose collective score has fallen four points to 7%.
The rise in Lib Dem support will relieve party leader Nick Clegg, who has seen his party's rating drop markedly in a series of recent surveys. Today's Lib Dem figure is the highest in an ICM poll since June.
The poll reflects the findings of research carried out by other pollsters in recent days and suggests that talk of a sharp recovery in Labour fortunes is overblown. Voters seem to have made up their minds and hav