It's the real economy, stupid
An MP who'd just been canvassing in the Glenrothes by-election told me that just one person had raised the financial crisis with him. It's a reminder that the financial crisis that has been gripping the attention of the political and media classes must seem not just baffling but also remote to many people.
If you're not employed in a bank; if savings are what you can muster for a decent night out on Saturday rather than diversify into Icelandic banks; if you're more likely to be found watching Ant and Dec than Peston or Robinson (yes, such people really do exist) then you'll be much more worried by yesterday's high inflation rate and today's big rise in unemployment than the movement of the Libor rate.
The stories that will emerge in the days to come will not be about bank rescue plans but plans to cut jobs and to cut government programmes to pay for the rising costs of inflation and unemployment (see today's Times front page, for example).
Gordon Brown has been presented by many as a Churchill figure in the war to save global capitalism. Quicker than he might wish, politics will now turn to dealing with aftermath. The prime minister, I'm told, wants to create a mood of national unity and solidarity to help us all cope with the trial ahead. He's hoping to create a spirit of the economic Blitz. His opponents believe that we're more likely to see anger and frustration in a period of economic rationing.
UPDATE, 10:00 AM: The Ministry of Justice say that the Times story refers to old plans to limit government spending in their and other departments, and does not result from the credit crunch or economic slowdown.
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No comment on brown returning to form lying about 'Boom & Bust' then?
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And that is when the people will really turn on him.
To create a mood on national unity needs leadership, passion and inspiration.
So NO chance then!
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Brown may wish to be seen as a "Churchill figure", but we should not forget that Churchill was warning about the impending danger long before the war began.
Brown on the other hand has been telling us for ages that everything is now OK as he had personally ended the years of "boom and bust".
The fact is, this tax, borrow and spend labour government (under his stewardship) has left us very vulnerable.
Where is all this rescue plan money coming from? Let me guess.....
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"Gordon Brown has been presented by many as a Churchill figure"
You must be joking. Churchill was everything that Gordon Brown is _not_.
What an insult.
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Socialism in action
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The banking crisis may not be part of the real economy, but the money needed to pay for it is.
It will be just-deserts when Gordon takes the blame for higher taxes domestically, while no-one actually understands what benefit they are getting in return...
Gordons reputation for throwing (taxpayer) money at things with out getting anything in return may be about to come back with teeth.
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El Gordo does really occupy space that isn't where we are.
I'd like to hear exactly how he's going to fund the blank cheque he's given the worlds banking industry, whilst getting the rate of inflation down (where he underying costs are outside domestic control), and provide more jobs or provide financial support to those epople without jobs, and improve the health service, and improve education, and resolve transport problems, and extricate us from Iraq and Afghanistan without further loss of life, and win the euromillions lottery.
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Gordon Brown would have more chance of assuming the mantle of Churchill in the eyes of the British people if we hadn't spent the past decade watching him being Neville Chamberlain.
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Talking of browns reputation and the real economy...
As we (the public) know - labour never lie, its just that noone ever quite understand what they meant.
Brown says he never promised to end "Boom and Bust" - he just promised to end "Tory Boom and Bust".
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article4944288.ece
Not quite as you remember it? Must be your memory, labour never lie.
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Gordon Brown miraculously just stumbled on an opportunity to cast himself as Churchill Mk 2, but of course the difference is that World War II was caused by Hitler, and not by Mr Churchill. In contrast, Mr Brown's debt-fuelled boomfest was presided over by...yep...Mr Brown. So who do you think you are kidding, Mr Brown? As we return to more sombre times during our 'Life on Mars' moment, perhaps the music will improve. More likely though is that the Beeb will have to dig out the old tapes of 'Boys from the Blackstuff'.
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I truly think the media are too ready to talk uip disaster. Something moves down half a cent and it's plummetting. It moves up half a cent and it's soaring. But I'll bet most intakers of news don't even begin to understand the web of fundamentals let alone the details. Some do, obviously, but all the media are doing is creating yet another climate of fear.
Nobody talks up the positive side: the drop in house prices for instance. If they fall another 50%, homes will be in reach of first time buyers. They'll need to borrow less, the banks will be less worried about how much they lend, stamp duty will be less, etc.
Brown is no Churchill. He's desperate to put right something that he himself allowed, even caused.
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A mood of national unity? Under Gordon Brown?
Read Simon Jenkins in the Guardian today to see how long this mood will last.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/oct/15/credit-crunch-banking
It's becoming clear on both left and right that bankers will be bankers, but government and regulators are to blame for letting the housing market and the mortgage market and consuner credit get completely out of control.
Gordon Brown was warned about this over and agian by the tories and the libdems but refused to take to punch bowl away before the party was over.
As a result of his disgraceful lack of oversight the credit bubble grew to enormous proportions and now we have bust and nationalised banks to show for it.
Shriti Vadera and Gordon Brown deciding 'lets' play banker' is a sight for sore eyes; neither have the talent, foresight or qualifications for the job.
The architects of the boom are now mending the bust? We are the laughing stock of the international community. US Nobel prize winners are flocking to Gordon Brown because they don't want their own architect - George W Bush - associated with fixing the bust.
Comparisons with Churchill only go to show what a vain and hubris ridden individual GOrdon Brown is.
The bigger they are the harder they fall, I suppose.
This one's going to be almighty crash landing.
Call an election.
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I agree with you, Nick. Much as I'm loathe to give the Tories any advice, they just need to keep out of the way and bide their time until the beginning of next year. The darts they're throwing at Brown at the moment have the air of desperation.
As we move out of the current firestorm-fighting phase and into the real, day to day impact of the crisis (job losses, rising price of basic goods, investment cuts in public services) the resentment towards GB is going to resurface and potentially be more potent than it was a few weeks ago.
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Whatever his other failings, Winston Churchill was a man of great courage - Gordon Brown is not.
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# 5 carrots
You are referring to the Yacht that NHS wants to buy for £400, 000.
Apparently, it's OK because the money is coming from its "surplus of £40m"
I think that really tells us everything we need to know!
Tax, borrow, waste....
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#5
Ah the Frugal NHS....
Never mind Life Saving drugs, cleaner hospitals or concentrating on improving itself.
Concentrate on something that isn't even part of the NHS Remit.
Someone no doubt will state that it is a drop in the ocean (no pun intended).
....thanks you've just set me up for the mood I shall be in today :(
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Nick
I may not be employed by a bank but I do want to keep an eyr on the current ecconomic situation, as an ordinary punter.
Also, I'd sooner watch you and Robert rather than Ant and Dec
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I think you're spot on with this comment Nick.
Gordon Brown has been saving the Universe on Planet Credit Crunch, and his every move has been reported by the media.
Meanwhile, back in Brown's Britain, things carry on pretty much as before eg house market in decline, inflation rises above 5%, now unemployment rising, and our lives blighted by petty regulation and political correctness.
Most people view the credit crunch as a rather etherial problem, played out on an etherial level by etherial people. Gordy will return to earth with a bump when reality eventually kicks in again. Will it all have fundamentally changed how he is, his view of the world, his fundamental beliefs and the way he works? Not a chance!
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To reuse an overused cliché.....
No one questions the Captain of the Titanic after striking the iceberg in his efforts to save the passengers
But.....
When the survivors are shivering in the lifeboats and watching the grisly spectacle of the one proud boat sinking fast whilst the crew high-five one another for a "job well done"; discussion switches to
- how come the Titanic was going so fast in a sea full of deadly icebergs?
- why didn't the Captain spot the danger and tell the engine room to slow down?
- why didn't the lookouts spot the iceberg?
- why did the Captain boast about how unsinkable the boat was when that was clearly a lie?
..and finally
- why didn't the Captain go down with the ship?
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Ooh I hope Labour are absolutely smashed at Glenrothes. The Scots tend to be quite canny--- we shall find out whether that's true in the early hours of Nov. 7th.
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Well at least El Gordo is able to use part of one of Churchill's speeches with a frightening degree of accuracy
"Never has so much been owed by so many".
Fill in the blanks.
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On the Today Program Brown was actually compared to Jim Callahan, except it was stated that Callahan was a better Prime Minister and Brown the better Chancellor....
...make of that what you will...
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Churchill was a man of immense character and strength. A real father figure to the nation. His speeches will live on forever and they were with passion and from his heart. Although he did not feel happy there he did receive a traditional academic schooling at Harrow. He served in the armed forces abroad. He had his downtimes - black dog - but who doesn't? The whole country was singing from the same hymn sheet.
He was not a big lumbering unkempt man who picked his nose in view of millions on tv .
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# 10 Backseat_Driver
"So who do you think you are kidding, Mr Brown?"
Very well said!
Harking back to the days of Dad's Army, isn't it a pity we don't still have proper bank managers like Captain Mainwaring?
I think Brown is off in the realms fantasy...
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Churhill Saved us from Destruction
Brown claims he may have saved us from economic Destruction
What happened after Churchill achieved victory, when the nation went to the polls?
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re: 14, Brownloather
Exactamundo.
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Inflation kept low by importing from China.
Demand kept high through house price inflation.
Public sector expansion partly financed by pension tax credit (clever, no one actually "sees" it)
Public sector expanded partly financed through private finance initiatives (buy now, pay later)
Public sector expanded partly financed by balance of payments deficit.
Looked like a boom didn't it?
You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time...
Now comes the correction and it's going to hurt.
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15. DistantTraveller
I do indeed.
No doubt NHS Titanic will hit the harbour wall as she leaves port and sink.
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I am completely unqualified to make any suggestions as to how the country should be steered through this economic crisis. On the other hand, by a lifetime's experience of the ups and downs in world markets, and the attitudes of men and women, I believe I can forecast the result of the next General Election. Despite a great personal dislike of Gordon Brown and Nu Labour, which is shared by many, I believe that the upsurge in unemployment will actually assist this government in being returned to power. Unemployment will probably grow, and the number of citizens on benefits will increase, bringing with it dependency on government offices and a growing sense of despair. Once families and individuals are caught in this trap, having basic needs taken care of, a roof of sorts over their heads, they will go for the "better the devil we know" philosophy and vote Nu Labour back.
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This argument is now building momentum:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article4944288.ece
Gordon Brown thinks he's pulled a trump card by saving the banks; actually he's just made the noose for the hangman to finally deliver his nemesis.
He is about to be nailed with the crime of letting the boom get completely out of control with his spendaholic ways and his half baked advisors.
He will be nailed for deregulating the regulators.
Lord (Eddie) George, the prior governor of the Bank of England has already come forth to say he was far form independent when it came to setting interest rates.
Interest rates were cut in 2005 to fuel Gordon Brown's boom.
Next it will be the Economist who will come out and give their withering verdict on Gordon Brown and Shriti Vadera's 'let's play banker' act. Then they will savage his claims not to have inflated the boom.
There is no way out for Gordon Brown.
He's boxed himself right into a corner.
Nice one, Gordon.
Now call that election and let the electorate deliver its verdict on your lies and damned lies.
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It's interesting to see the reports today about the loan books of Northern Wreck and BandB being amalgamated.
The comments from Mr Sandler would indicate that everything is not well at the Nulabour Bank with the best loans going elsewhere and the defaults rising by 50% on the poor ones. Add that to the BandB books and we are going to be left with our very own taxpayer funded Toxic Bank, overseen by an overpaid banker.
How long before this mess will be quietly shunted onto the government debt as unrecoverable and the social housing stock in the UK increased in size? My bet is that a Northern Rock Housing Association will be quietly brought into being to take on the defaulted houses and keep voters in Labour seats with a roof over their heads.
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Ref the update:
So if the times article refers to the governments plans to cut spending before the global economic crisis we can safely assume that the cuts will have to be even deeper post crisis.
So the message from government that says dont worry that was our plan before is not helped by that revelation it is made worse.
Cor Blimey Nick how did you fall for the "dont worry" line this time. Use your noodle man
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Mmmmmm, interesting stuff Nick. So it looks like Gordonbennet is still in choppy waters. Can't say I'm surprised. He and his woodentops thought we'd all just conveniently forget that they've been steering the ship for over ten years. Sorry Gordon, it doesn't work that way, you may strut the world's economic stage and you may occasionally smile and crack a joke, but oh dear, we're not laughing along with you are we? Nope we're not. Did you mean a mood of national disunity Nick? That's about all he'll achieve in the coming months.
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Too true .. the financial crisis involves numbers and banks that are remote from peoples lives. The question that should be answered is 'whay does this mean for me?'
When people either work out personal consequences or see the results of unemployment, reduced access to credit then I suspect that GB will get in the neck again for 'saving us for this?'
My personal suspicion is that Darlings speech on the Monday when shares first collapsed will be remembered.. this is good cleaning up , maybe, but in fact people will start to ask ' Iwonder how we got into this '
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vstrad @8 wrote:
"Gordon Brown would have more chance of assuming the mantle of Churchill in the eyes of the British people if we hadn't spent the past decade watching him being Neville Chamberlain."
Indeed.
And Chamberlain had the decency to resign in order to let Churchill lead a government of national unity.
I cannot see Brown resigning from anything. Come the General Election he'll have to be pried out of Number 10.
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Good topic and a surprising reaction.
At the time of writing there are 18 posts published and none of the 15 awaiting moderation are from the usual NuLab apologists.
Could it be that difficult to put some positive spin on "Duff" Gordon's situation? Where's grandantidote when you need him?
As I agree with all posts so far and have little new to add, I'll look back later.
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I see that we, the taxpaying public, will now have to stump up the money for the Olympic Village too because our Government has no money and sponsors are tightening their belts.
Tessa Jowell tried to gloss over this by saying that the British bid for the Olympics was won in one economy and we are now in a very different economy.
We couldn't afford to host the Olympics when the bid was won. How much more will we all have to pay for?
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Brown as a Churchill figure I don't think so
Never before in the field of British politics has so much hype been given to so much tripe
roll on the election
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If the good people of Glenrothes do not feel any empathy with the square mile in London, it is no surprise. If Brown wants to try and parade as a saviour it is no surprise. If Brown wants to tell the world how to solve its problems it is no surprise. However if Brown thinks that his actions mean anything to the good people of Glenrothes or similar towns up and down the UK he has to do something positive to change their lives for the better and it is doubtful he will be doing this. That is his problem. National debt has to climb, services have to be cut, or be at a standstill at the very least, probably cut. Unemployment has to rise. Businesses have to shrink or fail. Inflation looks set to rise, the squeeze on household budgets looks set to continue. Trust in institutions and the banks has evaporated. All of these factors have not really bitten yet. Brown has already lost the game. The pressures are all down not up. Can he pump up the housing market again, doubtful. Will he smile more or less from now on. If he smiles more he will be seen as a lunatic, if he is gloomy he will be seen as an undertaker. At the moment he has the look of a man tidying up after a party that got out of hand. It is difficult to see what Mandelson is supposed to be doing, other than wanting to be joined at the hip to Brown, a mistake of judgment some would think.
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#29
After you with the cyanide pills then.
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The government is to make an extra £100m available to re-train workers who lose their jobs as the economy slows.
The number of people on Jobseekers is 1M
Therefore £100 of retraining money each.
That wont buy ANY retraining. Except maybe a course in how to write your CV
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From Daniel Finkelstein in the Times:
In his book The Black Swan, the financial analyst Nassim Nicholas Taleb provides a useful analogy. In the months before Thanksgiving, turkeys begin to build up a theory about mankind. Man is benevolent. Every day he appears with more food, and the turkey is allowed to get fatter and fatter. And then, about a week before Thanksgiving, the turkey will, as Taleb puts it, 'incur a reversion of belief'.
Our view of the Brown decade is like the turkey's view of mankind, utterly destroyed by what has now happened. The stability was a trick of the light, the lengthy period of growth was fuelled by house prices and debt, the low interest rates (of which Brown is still, amazingly, boasting) were an error. The length of the good years is being paid for by the severity of the crisis we now face.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Gordon should remember what happened to Churchill when the war was won!
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Gordon Brown has been presented by many as a Churchill figure ....
By you he has Nick.
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@25 HarryPagetFlashman
Great point....this explains why even though we have had 11 years of unbroken growth and prosperity. The person largely responsible is kicked and booted.
Gordon Brown is 10 times the person, most of the posters are on here. He is disabled also, which in no means is a call for pity, but more to point out that he has more than most to cope with and he got to the top and has oen well.
the UK deserves Mr Cameron and nothing more!
i feel ashamed to be British.
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Anger, frustration and an abiding sense of helplessness are the emotions I suspect many feel as they see some family and friends succumb to these financial gales.
The people rightly look to the Government as the only organisation who are effectively capable of providing the essential long term strategic thinking and planning that is needed to ensure a stable society.
We are being buffeted by external forces and some self-inflicted actions.
The people will judge for themselves whether or not the Government had previously done enough to shelter us from its worst effects or exacerbated it through misguided policy.
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On the subject of the forthcoming cuts in public expenditure - which is in no way related to current problems - so much, much, more to come I guess. There is a wacky logic in cutting the number of courts and therefore not taking criminals to court, it would appear there just are not enough prisons for them to occupy, solves so many problems at once. Saves money, puts judges on the dole - saves on wig production so helps climate change targets be met, suddenly there is no prison crowding, and crime convictions are down so crime must be less. Can buy more CCTVs to monitor the members of the public who never break the law, or collect more personal data to lose and spend money investigating why these security breaches keep repeating, good for job creation. We will fight them on the breaches, we will fight them on the banks. So who is the oppressor in this.
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Reports today that the NHS wants to blow £400,000 on a yacht are accompanied by the news that NICE has decided breast cancer patients should be denied life saving drugs.
Equally worrying, people with Alzheimer?s are still denied anti-dementia drugs as recently highlighted by Terry Pratchett on Panorama.
The idea that an NHS trust has "a surplus" of £40m to waste on pet projects sums up Labour's whole attitude to finance.
They should realise, it's not their money. It's ours!
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So, the worst unemployment figures in seventeen years. And we're only at the beginning of a recession. This is just an amuse-bouche of a figure.
My wife, who does these Myers-Briggs personality type assessments, tells me there really are people out there like Gordon Brown. People who are so immune to criticism and blind to well-meant advice that if something good happens (even if proposed by somebody else) then they genuinely believe it was their idea. And, by contrast, if something bad happens they have no trouble at all identifying somebody else to blame.
I'm a different type so I just cannot believe that such people exist despite the evidence of my own eyes. I just figure they're simply insane. How could it be possible...? I ask.
But nope. She assures me that people like Gordon Brown genuinely cannot see how they're perceived or that their behaviour is so far outside the scope of normal as to be downright weird.
Hence he prances through a decade of government and bank-borrowing fuelled boom and pats himself on the back. Immune to warnings that it's all a debt fuelled time-bomb. The Chinese flood the Western world with cheap electronics and he hails himself as a financial genius for defeating inflation. He doubles the national debt and claims to have reduced it.
And as soon as one of the wheels falls off his chariot of delusion he pulls out his pointy finger and suddenly it's all our fault.
We've been irresponsible. It was the yanks. It was the banks. It wasnae me.
Then, when Warren Buffet rescues Goldman Sachs he pulls the same stunt with the UK banks and proclaims himself a genius. Saviour of western civilisation. Uuuuhhhh?
Meanwhile inflation is out of control and he has to cut interest rates to afford the repayments on his borrowing. Which will only serve to fuel inflation. Unemployment just increased by more than the worst of the last recession. No doubt that's somebody elses fault too.
But don't worry. He'll just make the school leaving age 28 which will wipe out one million unemployed at a stroke of the pen. Why not? He's done similar before.
He's like a spoilt child in a toyshop. He's like a Viz character. Just wandering about, pulling stuff off the shelves, pulling it out of it's packets, playing with it to destruction and then leaving an indulgent mother to apologise to the staff and pay off the manager behind his back. Only the parliamentary Labour party is the indulgent mother and they're looting us all to pay off the store.
Gordon Brown is an absolute catastrophe. Has been since May 1997 and it's only now that the true extent of his destruction is being brought into focus.
Spiraling budget deficits, collapsing banks, inflation out of control, interest rates back under political control, unemployment rocketing.
Tch. Nu-Labour? More like Old Labour. Why is anybody surprised.
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Nick Robinson sums up very well the anticipated mood of the Nation. Aside from Politico's, Financiers, those individuals with affected investments and of course, the Blogosphere, the working public have little understanding or interest in high finance and it would be a huge mistake for El Gordo to expect a pat on the back at the ballot box for his recent efforts, the effects of which won't immediately be obvious.
I use these words without intending in any way to disparage that section of society I generically term "working public"
The real test of Gordon Brown's General Election credentials are day to day political decisions that have an immediate impact and often adverse effect. In this regard I think right now he would be found wanting by calling a rumoured early Election, and I remain to be convinced about his chances of success as late as 2010. Brown is beleaguered, what we need is Cameron or Clegg to step up to the plate and offer a credible alternative and high profile opposition that consistently challenges poor decisions and dithering by Brown.
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#37
wonder if I could use that excuse with my creditors, saying that I took out all these borrowing under one set of economic conditions, which have now become un.
I'd be told where to go, as will this lot once we get an election......
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Yes Lord Georges revelation is nothing much new.
Interest rates were cut to boost spending because at the time there were indications of a recession. All that cutting interest rates did was delay the recession. Infact had we had a recession 5-6 years ago it probably wouldn't be half as bad as it is now or is going to be.
Boom bust is inevitable in all economies, the governments position is supposed to be there to step in when busts come for the benefit of its citizens and support them.
Gordon cutting interest rates again this week is a shrewd move politically and economically.
Economically it should in theory trigger spending and further demand in the economy but again delay a serious recession. The political side he knows he is out and this will time an economic slump either mid way or towards the end of a new tory term. The labour party will then pipe up about how the Torys are no good with the economy and look to get back in to power.
Eitherway it highlights government should not get involved in markets, let them equate.
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#24 Distant Traveller
The rise in unemployment was just a crisis waiting to happen. The employment situation here in Greay Britain has probably, together with the global financial crunch, agitated am already sick economy. There is now talk of a huge rise in the unemployed, but many of these jobs are nothing more than make-work. Hardly any manufacturing to speak of, no heavy industry, no real apprenticeships, despite the claims of this government that they exist.
#24 Distant Traveller regrets the passing of real bank managers. This blogger is absolutely correct. Today, banks are run without real managers at the helm. Most are half-baked young men or women who have taken a course in Business Management/Banking or other allied discipline, but without real field experience. They rely on computers and statistics, but do not know their customers intimately. They do not spend time assessing their capabilities to control funds, nor do they actually inspect business premises nor make spot checks. They rely on 'business plans' which can be pulled off Google. Mortgages were obtained, and allowed by the most unsuitable simply by telephone or online. Again these Mortgages were often based on figures that were unstable and insecure.
Shops are staffed by shop assistants, often called Consultants, who neither know their stock, or who have received any training in retail practices.
Despite all the TV programmes on cooking and chefs, most eating places are still staffed by underpaid foreign workers.
Before everything came crashing down, plumbers and builders were used from the areas of Eastern Europe. How many times has anybody actually seen a young British born apprentice bricklayer, plumber, electrician, etc?
Care homes are staffed by barely qualified mostly foreign workers, I could go on and on.
Let's get real and face the fact that full employment has been a fallacy. A lot of people collected wages or a salary is more like it. Call centres, half-baked language schools, the whole realm of make-work. Easier to buy junk from China than to bring back the proud motto "Made In Great Britain."
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Still, never mind, at least we have robust manufacturing and agricultural industries to see us through.
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40. T'uga Mawilli (aka Duoteste)
#29
After you with the cyanide pills then.
I usually back losers, never win anything. So let's hope I'm wrong this time too!
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#46
Erm that wasn't entirely my point.
I think Brown is a bit of a Walter Mitty really, and has been lucky has claimed the credit for economic sucess, when he really had no right to do so
Now is being hung out to dry, due to the economic downturn (something else that he had no control over).
You can't have your cake and eat it Gordon (unless of course you have two cakes).
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So back to the subject of the thread, political reality after the "rescue".
I'm merely parroting Beeb headlines, but "Bail-out shows Union strength", had to be read to find that its aimed at the Glenrothes bye-elction, and is praising the rescue of two scottish banks. Maybe we should get the Scottish assembly to shoulder the financial burden?
The jobless rise last month is at the highest monthlky rate for 17 years, and the public sector (in future including banks) is still shedding jobs. Sound economy, eh?
Increased data collection plans when they can't secure the data they've got. Is that really going to work?
Little Ms Blears believes the governments advice to public bodies vis a vis investing in Icelandic banks was prudent, and will stand the test of time. I'll have a pint of what she's on please.
Harperson's just had a go at PMQs. She just made the astinishing claim that the government has increased investment (you betcha) whilst paying off public debt. Obviously the answers were written before the weekend, and the announcement of over 500bn pounds of new debt being announced.
So, what's the government going to do next?
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Nick.
PMQs today - discussion about the dire situation in the country.
Your immediate response is to put down the Conservative opposition saying they don't know which way to go. Some ten minutes later your final comment is again to question the opposition and their way forward.
Surely the question at this time is what is the Governments's way forward? After all, we are in their hands for the next eighteen months.
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National Union and solidarity
You only see that from the Welsh and Scottish nationalists!
You know, the ones Gordon Brown despises.
The view from the provinces - let the City of London burn
Oh and it's not too late to give the Olympics to Paris - at least they'll be able to afford more than a Tesco Value games.
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#46
I've felt ashamed to be British for the last 11 years!
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All that Gordon Brown did was get someone in The Treasury to pull together a deal based on one previously achieved in Scandinavia before the entire banking system collapsed.
This was a complete no-brainer really. The banks are going bust so shore them up. How do we do that? Well, they did something like it in Sweden a few years ago. Get it out of the file and see if we can use it?
This is nothing much more than what any reasonably intelligent person would have done. Even David Cameron could have done it!
No, the issue is why The Treasury and its very well rewarded regulators in the FSA did not see this coming? The signs were there as other people were pointing them out: even the Bank of England mentioned it!
The reason they did nothing was because there was no political will to do so, no leadership, no concern as to what was actually going on in the City. Just loadsamoney!
Was anything done about the progressive collapse of manufacturing in the UK? No, just lots of ringing of hands and questions as to whether we could afford the few pennies to save paltry working-class jobs.
The economic illusion is now over. The political illusion still exists: for now. Stalin did turn into Mr.Bean, now we have Superbrown whose reputation will in turn become something else of a similar colour and I don't mean a brand of wholemeal bread.
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#50 U9461192
He's like a spoilt child in a toyshop. He's like a Viz character. Just wandering about, pulling stuff off the shelves, pulling it out of it's packets, playing with it to destruction and then leaving an indulgent mother to apologise to the staff and pay off the manager behind his back. Only the parliamentary Labour party is the indulgent mother and they're looting us all to pay off the store.
A very credible explanation and a fitting analogy. There'll be tears before bedtime - trust me.
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Nick,
Any attempt to liken Gordon Brown to Churchill, only serves to erode in the public mind the achievements of Churchill pre, during and post World War 2. There is a vast and yawning gap between the two men.
Gordon clearly can't fight Glenrothes on the governments record of the last 11 years, that would be suicide.
I suspect that is why Brown has turned his attention to the break up of the Union and Scotland going it alone.
There is a strong chance that Labour will try and turn this by-election into a mini-referendum on 'Scottish nationalism' - the same way David Davis tried to run a by-election as a referendum on 42 days.
Personally I don't want to see Scotland break away, nor do I think it particularly viable option.
The problem is Gordon Brown and Labour are so appalling I'd like to see them defeated.
I hope the SNP (and Scottish Conservatives!!) are able to keep the debate focused on the governments track record and plans for the future - and keep the question of the real referendum off the agenda until a more appropriate time.
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Interesting analysis above, but I think Churchill can only be compared with our present PM in one respect.
Early in his career Churchill sent armed troops to persuade striking Welsh miners back to work (1910). Many might applaud him for his handling of the Siege of Sidney Street (1911), which ended in the death of two policemen and two suspected anarchists (no chance for them to prove themselves innocent!). Churchill was also held responsible for the losses of British, Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli (1915). He was opposed to giving India greater freedom and independence. He gave us the idea of an "iron curtain" a defining image of the cold war. But in spite of his aristocratic background and apparent distrust of working people, he proved to be the right man for the job of leading the country through WW 2.
Gordon Brown has a completely different background and track record. He can only be compared with Churchill if the apparent success in getting world governments to underwrite their banks is proved to work in a positive way on the global economy.
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Nick
'The prime minister, I'm told, wants to create a mood of national unity and solidary, in order to help us cope with the forthcoming trial'
Did I miss something, is Brown to go on trial then. Or is he just thinking that the election will be the equivalent of a trial and judgement on him. It's all a bit too Freudian for me.
Thought he was doing a good job of creating a mood of solidarity ready for the election though.
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50 U9461192
Good summary - sorry to be a pedant - but we do know at least one person with whom Brown shares a personality type.
You also debate whether we have seen Nu Labour or Old Labour. I'd vote for the 'third way' - and suggest we have had 11 years of:
Tru-Labour.
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so the system works and the government has ridden to the rescue saving the day.
putting the country further in debt,stealing ideas from overseas and claiming them as there own, unemployment up, interest rates up, media praise for the governments quick actions saving bankers and those on the stock markets from loosing there highly paid jobs.
whilst every one celebrates in the governments corner they fail to realise the end is near and the confidence of the public in the majority has fallen to its lowest point but are they bothered ?
no they know all they have to do is bamboozle the public with typical government retoric and spin, add a few cuts like petrol and booze and they will win round the mindless masses and not have to worry about there overpaid jobs.
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Apearing to be an effective "leader" in a short-term crisis is very very easy. All you have to do is avoid shouting "don't panic", "we are all doomed", "the sky is falling", or "I don't know what's going on", etc.
This is the one and only skill that Brown seems to have. It earned him his initial popularity blip (foot and mouth, terrorism) and he's benefited again in the short term.
WWII was not a short-term crisis. The comparison between Brown and Churchill is ludicrous. Brown has shown no ability whatever to lead for the long term. In fact his non-performance for most of 2008 has shown precisely the opposite.
Once the immediate panic is over, it's back to the real world of more stealth taxes, unemployment, inflation, falling house prices, lower pensions, 42 days, healthcare, education, Iraq, and everything else that Joe Public will blame (rightly or wrongly - that doesn't matter) on the last 10 years of government policy.
Brown's only hope of political survival is for another short-term crisis to emerge just in time for the general election. Personally, I wouldn't put it past his total lack of respect for the electorate, or the country, to deliberately engineer that situation - or to try to postpone the election indefinitely because of some trumped-up "national emergency situation".
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No one who currently bestrides the political stage can be compared in stature to the so-called "titans" of long ago.
Political reputations nowadays are regularly shredded by the media and so never become established, unlike "leaders" from an earlier age who were treated with over-weaning deference by the media of their time.
I have no futile wish for a new Churchill - just competence will do for me.
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@61. shellingout
"I've felt ashamed to be British for the last 11 years!"
John Major, Norman Lamont? made you proud then?
The Daily Mail has produced some pickled minds over the years...................
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#36
Yes - it's great.
This blog should be a political rally for the hard right-wing, unpicking the lies of Nue-Liebore, NuLabore PF, Gordon Clown and the rest rather than a place for evidence-based debate!
More satisfying that way.
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GB has staked his reputation on the Lloyds / HBOS deal going through...
He REALLY wants it to go through...
If it doesn't... where will that leave him?
So I say - "Stupid ! It's the economy... "
and the economy may kill the deal...
I stand by my previuos posts....
We are heading for....
FTSE less than 1000
Dow less than 5000
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Unemployment has risen by 31,000
however there are still 600,000 vacant jobs in Britain today.
3 million more jobs than there was during the tories reign.
Every major economy in the world is adopting the Brown plan for recovery.
A global crisis that started in America, will have an effect on our economy but I'm sure most people understand that the reality of todays markets cant be driven by an element of joy stick riders, the virtual reality of gameship needs a master of the universe to drive out the greed and coruption of the few fat controllers, as C.E.H. pointed out, the viruses and bugs are being smashed by the colossal analyst Mr Brown P.M.
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"Gordon Brown has been presented by many as a Churchill figure in the war to save global capitalism. Quicker than he might wish, politics will now turn to dealing with aftermath." - If Gordon wishes to be seen as a Churchillian figure perhaps he should remember what happened to Churchill in 1945 when victory was in sight!!
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Im puzzled by this Churchill analogy.
Can anyone offer just one personal comparative.
In fact this comparison is an insult.
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Derekbarker - I hand you my congratulations, your ability to spout the Labour Party line revaels you to be an individual devoid of any credibility whatsoever, a fine achievement, bravo!
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Is this Churchillian behaviour by Brown:
Courage
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Comparing Gordon Brown to Churchill is indeed a massive insult to the memory of Churchill. It's almost as bad as people who deny the holocaust.
To make such a comparison is simply obscene.
Nick; Gordon Brown is not the supreme being, the master of the universe, or a Churchillian hero. Only the BBC/labour party (I draw no distinction between the 2 now) could be biased/ignorant enough to say such insane things in public.
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Considering Brown is old enough to remember the social consequences of the last recession and given his declared stance on poverty, social justice his government have gotten off to a pretty pi** poor start to coping with the trainwreck that's coming.
Instead of seizing the initiative by introducing a 'new way' of coping with it, he and his cronies (like Harriet Harman 'the assistance given to the banks will benefit British business' etc etc) are just going to let the carnage of repossessions, foreclosures, court judgements, liquidations and all the draconian might of the British legal system run its course. As it unfolds he will hold court at No.10 like some ghastly mediaval bishop saying 'we're doing our best' and in reality doing - nothing.
Churchill at least - could get things done at the stroke of a pen. Brown seems to have to talk about everything for weeks and 'do it to death' before acting. My 3 year old could work out what this country needs now, it's not exactly rocket science, and though it might mean a lot of hard work, it would result in a better and more able. prosperous country at the end of it. Most politicians think we can now just carry on as if nothing had happened. Barmy, completely barmy. Worse: ignorant and blind to the issues.
I lived thru that recession brought on by similar crass stupidity under the last Tory Govt. It's taken 15 years of terrific effort and sacrifice to get back to where I was in the 90s and now I stand to lose the lot all over again.
GC
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#74
A random selection of factoids with a common theme.
If there are 600,000 vacant jobs and over 1.7 million people without jobs, why?
Wrong job types?
Vacancies are in places where there are no jobless, and no means of transporting them?
Wrong skill sets?
Vacancies are specifically being held for new economic migrants, who will work for less?
The fact that are 3 million more jobs now than there were 11 years ago is a corollary of the fact that there are 7 million more jobs now than there were 50 years ago. Its called economic growth. Without it there is stagnation, which is what we are all trying to avoid.
Face it, the number of people without a job is rising.
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#74
Every major economy in the world is adopting the Brown plan for recovery.
Buffet Plan or Swedish Plan if you please. He's had a year since the Northern Rock debacle and we're all supposed to be grateful because he lets the crisis drag on to the point where the UK banks are literally on the point of receivership before a couple of weekends of all-night negotiations.
Surely the job of the UK government was to get the handle on this as soon as Northern Rock reared its head and then sort this out behind the scenes, shore up our banks and, by extension the economy, with the minimum of fuss so that the UK and its institutions could emerge from the other side as a credible force.
Instead he dithered until some grown-up pointed out the obvious solution for the umptieth time. 'Do what the Swedes did. Do what Buffet has does done.
Then the BBC and the UK media obediently repeats the canard that we must thank Gordon Brown for saving the universe.
What's he been doing for the past eleven years? Doubling national debt, turning a blind eye to an insane debt-fuelled consumer binge and housing bubble and then, when the yanks and banks call 'TIME!' he goes off on one about how the recession is all the yanks and banks fault.
And what kind of continuous period of growth would he have enjoyed if the banks had just been sensible? How would the economy have 'grown' if Joe Public didn't feel good about their insanely valued house, borrow even more and splurge it into his Starbucks economy? ANd now the borrowing has to stop and he's acquired the UK banks for next-to-nothing his big macro-economic idea is to force his captive banks to re-inflate the borrow-fest.
As clear an admission as you like that this boom was solely due to borrowed money. But if you'd suggested that in 2006 he'd have just quoted some freshly minted tractor statistics.
Even now we apparently have his stand-in denying that he's doubled national debt at PMQ. Still denying that insane levels of borrowing and debt caused the boom and lack of borrowing is causing the bust. Total denial.
A global crisis that started in America, will have an effect on our economy but I'm sure most people understand that the reality of todays markets cant be driven by an element of joy stick riders, the virtual reality of gameship needs a master of the universe to drive out the greed and coruption of the few fat controllers, as C.E.H. pointed out, the viruses and bugs are being smashed by the colossal analyst Mr Brown P.M.
Pure insanity. We're utterly doomed.
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#59 jonties
Good point.
Although I didn't see the Daily Politics today, Nick, despite being a superb political correspondent, does allow himself to sometimes be drawn into the irrelevancies and machinations rather than the meat of the issue.
#50 U9461192
Superb description of GB as a spoilt child. LOL.
#71 correctopinion
I would have John Major and Norman Lamont back today if I could. We all thought we were so badly off in 95-96 but little did we know we actually had it so good compared to now. 'New Labour - New Danger'. Why didn't we listen!
BTW Just because someone doesn't believe the spun lies coming out of Labour HQ as you seem to do, doesn't mean they are all Daily Mail readers.
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@78. jonathan_cook
dear me!
"Daniel Hannan is a Conservative MEP and blogs at www.hannan.co.uk"
WHAT DID YOU EXPECT TO READ?
"Courageous Gordon Brown defend UK savers from vikings!"
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Labour find £500 billion just like that to save the banks.
However, when pay negotiations commence again in 2009 we will all be told there is not enough money for anything more than a 2-2.5% pay rise.
The vast majority will simply not understand and ask why Brown can find the money for the banks and not them.
Inflation will be down by then but we've had over 6 months of higher fuel, energy, food costs etc which are way above the official inflation figure.
We were told financial armegeddon was just averted. No one really knows what that would have meant and that will be Brown's problem. The UK public will not see him as the alleged saviour but the person in charge for the last 11.5 years who has overseen boom and bust, housing price bubble, increase in unemployment etc. Basically all the issues he said he would avoid/prevent.
No amount of spin will get him out of these hard truths. He can save the banks but not our jobs.
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#76 carrots
They are both overweight. The similarity begins and ends there.
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74. Two more new jobs being created by this government, did you hear?
1.
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83. Jonno_79
"I would have John Major and Norman Lamont back today if I could. We all thought we were so badly off in 95-96"
95-96? when then what about earlier?
I think you are the one who is brainwashed sir...........
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74. Two more new jobs being created by this government, did you hear?
1. Yacht buying consultancy for the NHS managers. Courses held on cruises.
2.
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Gordon Brown is the Backdraft PM.
He spent 10 years utterly torching the UK economy and kept the firehoses and extinguishers out of everybody elses hands. Denied all signs of smoke, disabled the fire alarms and the phones and basically did everything possible to get the economy well alight.
And now he wants us to thank him for showing up just before the roof caves in killing us all and fire-axing the door open.
It doesn't work like that Gordon.
I know you've got much of the population suffering from Stockholm Syndrome with your repeated brutal assaults on our finances, our liberty and our common values but I for one am not grateful that the beatings have stopped (for now). I'm still furious about the beatings in the first place.
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74. Two more new jobs being created by this government, did you hear?
1. Yacht buying consultancy for the NHS managers. Courses held on cruises.
2. Minister for silly walks
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72. balhamu
36. Brownedov
.....Good topic and a surprising reaction.
.....political rally for the hard right-wing.
Oh absolutely, the people of the UK dont agree at all. Its just 30 odd fanatical anti labour posters here making a load of totally unrepresentative comments.
In your dreams
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Nick, if you want to compare brown to churchill, then ask yourself this:
Did Churchill create and actively encourage fascism?
Brown created and encouraged and failed to regulate the setups in the financial system which created the crisis.
From what I can see, Brown is simply a failed polytechnic history lecturer who never understood anything about economics, and who broke the whole economy, and is now using tax payers' money as a way to temporarily put a sticking plaster on a gaping wound that he created.
The other night on newsnight, the "Credit Crunch Trial" didn't allow anyone in scotland to see the case against the government (the failed banks mostly being based in scotland, obviously the bbc didn't want the Scots to know anything about what's caused their banks to go the way that they did), they switched off the signal for scotland once they got to the government bit.
I despair about the BBC; it's just a labour spin machine right now. I hope it gets abolished asap.
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Maybe Nick means Randolph Churchill. The one who died of a tertiary - um - malady.
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So if I spend ten years building a huge bomb, then watch it go off I can become a hero by helping sweep up the mess?
Financial terrorist not saviour is how most will still regard Gordon Brown.
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#77
Maddalo,
No need for denial, release your anxiety.
Going it alone, will not solve anything,
come and join the human race and the fight to make things right, for the majority, not the conservative idea of minority by wealth.
THATS WHAT CREATED THIS DOWN -TURN
conservative toffs from the planet Zorg-need to be re-educated.
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Brown saving capitalism? Bit of an anathema for a socialist I would have thought.
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The Brown and Darling comedy act in dealing with the financial mess would be funny if it were not so tragic! How anyone can compare Churchill with Brown is beyond belief!
I honestly believe that when these two turn from the camera after an interview, their lips must be bleeding from trying not to laugh at us full on.!
The deceit has to stop, parliament disolved, a new government formed across the political arena as in a 'hung 'parliament!.
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Amazing how all the anti-government contributions are being blocked, isn't it?
Churchill is far enough away in time to be viewed with distinctly rose-coloured spectacles. There is no doubt that he was the leader we needed in 1940, to use his amazing powers of rhetoric to inspire the nation and to have the courage to ignore the very attractive option of making an accommodation with Hitler when many of his colleagues (led by Lord Halifax) thought he was just being foolhardy. But his performance as PM subsequently was not consistently wonderful, and he made some dreadful decisions that cost many lives. It has already been pointed out that his performance in office before WWII was pretty awful, and that his reputation was much lower among people in the North of the country. As a peacetime PM he was largely a failure, I think.
But nonethelessI think that Brown is probably silly to compare himself to Churchill (if in fact he has), because the of the latter's status in the modern public mind.
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#74
What is all this nonsense newlabour spout about 'started in America'??
Every downturn of the last hundred years has started in America; we even have an expression for it "When America sneezes the world catches a cold"
These people are showing their basic ignorance of economic history and reality.
What did not start in America was the £117bn loan book of Northern Rock with only a fragment of equity and savings to backit; the absurdly high leverage at Bradford and Bingley in the buy to let market did not start in America; the foolishacquisition of ABN by RBS did not start in Amercai; the ridiculous ambitions of Andy Hornby who ran HBOS into the wall were not problems that started in America.
These problems were all home grown, ignored by the regulators, ignored by Gordon Brown and attempts to contain them were discouraged according to the previous governor of the bank of England; disocuraged by Gordon Brown, no less.
These problems are of Gordon Brown's making; they have his fingerprint all over them and like Sir Fred Goodwin and Andy Hornby he should be paying for these excesses by being fired.
Nothing else is enough for this tower of hubris who couldn't win his party a Blue Peter badge never mind an election.
Call an election now.
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#96 Del Boy
I don't think Toffs sticks with anyone any more.
The old socialist dream dies with Toffs like Bliar and Hardwoman
As illustrated in the Crewe & Nantwich By-election. A more modern tac is needed now.
You're sitting alone with Dennis Skinner.
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101
Blimey I tried to write Blair and Harman for the above and it got moderated!
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My post #80 referred to moderators. Do I get an email explaining why please?
GC
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#92
Carrots, do you think posters on this blog are representative of the wider world?
Many are uber-Thatcherite. Tax should be kept very low. Public spending should be a lot smaller than it is. There should have been no investment in schools and hospitals until the national debt had been reduced to zero. Regulation on business should be minimised. Public spend, by definition, is a waste of money, and public sector workers are lazy parasites. Anti-EU. Anti-Human Rights. Anti-Health and Safety. The sick, disabled and unemployed are just lazy scroungers. Benefits should be cut. The equality agenda (including social mobility) is just the politics of envy. Wide inequality is necessary to drive innovation. Poverty is the fault of those in it. All social problems would be solved if more people got married. The market is never wrong.
That's a fair reflection isn't it?
People had a chance to vote for these things in 1997, 2001 and 2005. They chose not to.
Indeed, Cameron's analysis of why people rejected these views over the past 11 years is that only a minority believe in them, which is why he is trying to rebrand (and has been quite successful at rebranding) the Conservatives.
He's pursuing the New Labour 1992-1997 project (we're not nationalisation, regulation and the big state) in reverse (we are not privatisation, deregulation, greed and we're not nasty any more) for these reasons.
That's a reasonable take isn't it?
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Confusion over; now I know the Churchill Nick was referring to
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#1
I don't know if this has been raised before, however I have just read in the Times (tirtled: "If this this is a triumph, I'd hate to see a disaster"; the only other papers available at the agent this lunchtime were the Star and Sun) that Gordon said in an interview on Saturday with the Daily Mail (which, as it turns out, is being extraordinarily generous to Gordon these days) that he never said about no return to boom and bust, but that he only ever said no return to "Tory boom and bust".
I wonder if this is true?
At the beginning I did actually hold out hope for Gordon. I always thought he was a principled politician.
Having said that, I first thought that Blair was sound too, thinking that it was Mandelson and Campbell that were the problem when it came to spin and deviations from the truth.
However I now think that both Blair and Brown are from the same mould.
This isn't how it should be.
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#46 correctopinion
"i feel ashamed to be British."
In that case tell your NuLab chums to stop destroying the union and think less about their failed control freakery but more about how to democratise Westmidden and finish their stupid asymmetric devolution by starting a new Bristish confederation of self-governing peoples.
Failing that, nice Mr Cameron will likely put you out of your misery and drive Scotland out of the union, with Wales soon following while Ireland re-unites. Then there won't be any British.....
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This is worth a read
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/daniel_finkelstein/article4944288.ece
Then decide if Gordon is having a 'good war' - as Churchill did .. and look what happened to him in the '45 election ..
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I fail to see how the next few years (decade??) are going to be anything other than pretty dire. Despite the soothing noises from Gordon Brown, his apparatchiks and those commentators determined not to 'talk down' the economy at all costs (fair enough), common sense tells me that this is going to hurt bad.
How can a government on one day tell us that committing another penny here or there will destabilise Labour's 'superb economic track record' (Labour's words, not mine) and the next day spray hundreds of billions of pounds (that it doesn't have) into the economy and say, 'it's nothing really; a great investment; we'll get it all back eventually .... blah, blah'. Que?
I'm not an economist/banker/chancellor of the exchequer, but I know when I'm being flannelled. Governments are now chucking stupendous amounts of good money after bad to stave off the inevitable.
I'm making all possible preparations for a very, very uncomfortable economic and social period - maybe an era - as the world struggles to deal with the effects of all this; we ain't seen nothing yet. Oh, and then there's the end of cheap energy to deal with in the same era.
Hang on to your hats people; we're entering a period of turbulence.
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Dear Nick
oNE THING bROWN AND bLAIR are NOTHING COMPARED TO CHURCHILL THEY ARE NOT EVEN IN HIS LEAGUE.
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Dear Nick
oNE THING bROWN AND bLAIR are NOTHING COMPARED TO CHURCHILL THEY ARE NOT EVEN IN HIS LEAGUE. OH and that includes Thatcher,
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#65 newtactic
Good to see someone trying to find a positive spin for "Duff" Grodon. and full marks for effort.
Unfortunately, your analogy with Churchill falls down because as well as being a good judge of his opponents (at home & abroad) he knew how to listen to those worth listening to. That the man hasn't developed this skill in 25 years as an MP tells us that in the unlikely event of NuLab not soon puttiing him out of his misery he will give us another maestro performance of his deafness to ideas other than his own.
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#71 correctopinion
Never in my 38 years of being a taxpayer, can I remember our economy being in such dire straights.
Our Government have given us very little explanation about what we are getting in return from the banks, only that their executives won't be getting their bonuses. There is no further information available to help the public understand what's happening or what will need to be done from now on, and why.
The interest rate cut will only serve to provide a temporary respite. Many more jobs will be lost and inflation will soar further. This is not going to go away any time soon.
GB has brought back into the fold Mandleson, Whelan and Campbell, who are notorious for disagreeing about critical issues. There is also talk about bringing David Blunkett back and, God help us all, John Prescott. I shudder to imagine what sort of further mess he can create, given responsibilities which are way beyond his capabilities. You will remember that Mr Prescott was in charge of the HiPS, which has been widely criticised as a complete waste of everyone's time and money - just like him.
As someone else on this site so aptly put it - This makes Black Wednesday look like a pale shade of grey.
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I've already commented that I get no sense of a recession and the government should have a business and social programme ready to roll. It's also a good thing that the "authorities" and "high attention earners" are moved off the front page as more talk will turn fears into realities.
The Tories have been trying to talk Britain into recession over the past year and are now opposing legislation that secures employment rights. The Tories focus is the type that creates recession and ruins lives, and suggests they will merrily ruin the country merely to get back into power.
The short-term and selfish view is what you'd expect of a dumb and nasty child but it's wholey destructive and self-destructive, and the Tory party remains incapable of seeing this. For a party that styles itself as "change" they're doing a remarkable job of remaining welded to the past.
If Labour can develop positive consensus and a better appreciation of the short versus long-term, cause and effect mechanisms, and how continuing to develop the "Brown Plan" will create a better alternative then "frustration" and "anger" will give way to happiness and contentment.
I commented a long time ago that people are angry merely because they are angry. Given a generation of fear and greed, it's not surprising that people lack the vision and tools to get over themselves, but as we move forward this will change and perspectives will change accordingly.
As more enlightened political parties, media, and businesses begin to "get it" the entities that don't make this leap will find themselves in the trailing third of the population as the power dynamic begins to shift. They know this which is why some are kicking and screaming so much.
The future is innovation and society built for the long-term, and by focusing on developing ordinary peoples success and communities in a lasting way Labour will help secure the general election. Regressive forces will fight this every inch of the way but you can't fight reality. Give up. Let go.
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#97
You mis-understand what "Old" Labour movement tried to achieve.
They never believed in abolishing capitalism, and have never attempted to do so. They tried to tame its worst excesses and share its gains more evenly between the capitalists and the workers, through a mixed economy with state intervention (including a welfare state and ownership of the means of production in strategic sectors of the economy) where necessary.
They were social democrats, rather than socialists in the Marxist sense of the word. They were not communists, hence why Atlee did not attempt to nationalise the whole economy, only strategic sectors of it.
So how part-nationalisation of the banks to make capitalism work better doesn't fit with Old Labour objectives, I don't know (wasn't this a policy objective of Foot's 1983 'suicide note' manifesto, for example). It fits less well with New Labour philosophy (though as the ultimate pragmatic party, it's not too bad a fit) and not at all with Thatcherite privatisation philosophy (though Old Conservatives 1949-1979 would have been pragmatic about it)
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#72 balhamu
Would you please have the courtesy to put user ids next to the comment numbers so we don't all have to check whether it was one of ours?
"This blog should be a political rally for the hard right-wing, unpicking the lies of Nue-Liebore, NuLabore PF, Gordon Clown and the rest rather than a place for evidence-based debate!"
Re-read my #36 and you'll see that wasn't my point at all - merely curiosity in wondering why your chum's allies were taking so long to rally around. Wasn't it covered in the morning briefing?
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Just where does this Brown Churchill comparison come from.
In the recent Newsnight poll of the PM's since the war. Churchill came top (I think many were coloured by his war perfomance rather than his post war efforts) And Gordon Brown came bottom. Yes bottom of the 12. Thats worse than callahan worse than atlee worse than that tory lord block who managed but a few months in office.
Yes Gordon Brown is the worst PM since the war and lord only knows we've had some pretty dire ones that he beat to the bottom
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oh I see the zen fanatic is on the conveyor belt to be uploaded by the mods. Hmmm that'll be a long windy one then so I won't bother.
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#101
As this global down-turn becomes more relevant in terms of cost to our society, so, the knowledge that an asset based economy is the future, rather than the tories idea of short term financial gains, have been the problem and now become the past tense, I look forward to the new flash Gordon projection of an asset based economy with a better distribution of wealth.
Harry.........I know your an old labour supporter
I know you will......come home to labour...
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Comparing himself with Churchill and Roosevelt shows the monumental arrogance of the man. He doesn't even compare favourably with the worst of the last four Labour prime ministers. It was his total lack of control of what was happening in the financial market that led directly to the unpreparedness of Britain's financial sector to face the current problems. Now the country has to face recession, not of anyone but his making, and again his reliance on uncontrolled debt to fuel the housing and consumer market to give the impression of affluence is at the root of the problem. Yet still he sees only the borrowing of money being the only way out of the problem.No mention of controlling or regulating mortgage borrowing, which will surely lead to more rises in the cost of housing, and more profit for developers and estate agents. Meanwhile ordinary taxpayers will be faced with crippling mortgages to buy somewhere to live. The sooner he and his awful regime depart the better for Britain.
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#92 CarrotsneedaQUANGO2
Maybe I should have used a footballing metaphor in my #36. It just struck me as a little odd that the "home" team didn't turn up for the first half of the match.
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#100
Which is why, at the 2005 election, you would have disagreed vehemently with political parties advocating further deregulation?
You would have disagreed with those who told us that the Labour government regulated too much, stifled innovation in the City and risked capital flight to e.g. New York, Frankfurt and Shanghai that would be disasterous to the UK economy?
You would have disagreed with those who told us there was too much regulation on mortgage providers and the state should just butt out of business affairs and keep their prying eyes out of their books and let shareholders do their jobs?
You would have disagreed with those who told us that the Government wanted to rob bankers of their hard-won bonuses by playing the 'politics of envy' and questioning whether they were really worth that much?
You would have disagreed with a party that wanted to abolish stamp duty completely and further encourage property price inflation and keep the myth that it was *a good thing*?
And yet you still voted Conservative? That's just irrational.
You must be the only person who doesn't believe that the credit crunch is a global thing. The house price bubble has some impact - yes - but it didn't cause the problems in refinancing loans, that was US sub-prime fear.
You are also persisting in the £117 bn NR debt fallacy - as I showed on an earlier blog, even catastrophic, four-horseman scenarios would give a max loss of £10 bn, and more realistic (but still very pessimistic) scenarios a loss of £1 bn.
Unless you really do believe that
1) All NR borrowers will be repossesed;
2) Their houses are worthless i.e. would have to be given away for free;
3) All NR borrowers have a 100% Loan:Value ratio
Trouble is, Robin, that you let your beliefs cloud the facts, and just become hysterical.
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#116 Brownedov,
"That wasn't my point at all"
Ok, so people are allowed to have a different opinion? That's charitable of you, and I thank you for the opportunity to go against this blogs conventional wisdom.
"Wasn't it covered in the morning briefing"
Oh. But if I do it means I'm on the Government's pay-roll.
So, it was your point then?
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#105 CarrotsneedaQUANGO2
"Confusion over; now I know the Churchill Nick was referring to"
Wrong - that one knows how to listen.
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Perhaps someone at the BBC can explain why they are ignoring the impartiality clause and still getting the licence fee from me and other poor members of the public.?
I would draw your attention to information about the number of BBC people in the USA covering the election and all points in between.
Nice little jaunt for some!
Guido has even more details for your delight.
What with Mr Thompson telling us we should be extra sensitive to Islam , not Hinduism , Buddhism , Rastafarianism , Sikhism ,Judaism or indeed Christianity and an inordinate number of BBC staff sunning themselves in the US and a wee party for Obama organised, I'm beginning to feel that someone sure is taking the Michael.
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When will the BBC or any other organisation pick up on the fact that the Tory MPS consistently and persistently misrepresent what was said: the expression that Brown used in 1999 was 'the end of Tory Boom and Bust'.
I'm all in favour of reminding politicians of what's been said, but let's make them get the context and the quote right. Over to you Nick.
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#119
Sorry Del, I'm not,
And your "Harry.........I know your an old labour supporter
I know you will......come home to labour..."
It's a bit too Darth Vader for me.
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I don't think Gordon Brown is entirely to blame, let's not forget that grinning Cheshire Cat, Tony Blair, who made millions from pulling the wool over our eyes for a decade.
Brown is unbelievable. He struts around as if he were the saviour of the world, but the stock markets are still falling. In any case, the 'brilliant plan' he claims as his own, has been tried before, in Chile and other economies, when they had economic crises. So, he's pinched someone else's idea and claimed it as his own.
He must go down as one of the worst and most despicable PMs in this country's history. Let's hope that the good people of Glenrothes put another nail in his political coffin, if they can find room to drive one in.
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A reminder from the 1997 Labour manifesto:
Security in housing
Most families want to own their own homes. We will also support efficiently run social and private rented sectors offering quality and choice.
......
Labour's housing strategy will address the needs of homeowners and tenants alike.
We will reject the boom and bust policies which caused the collapse of the housing market.
No mention there of 'Tory' boom and bust.
No doubt now Brown will simply claim that they did reject those boom and bust policies. They just invented some new boom and bust policies of their own.
They really do gob phlegm into your face and then claim it's raining. Don't they though.
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#117 Pot_Kettle
LOL - he certainly had some stiff competition for the wooden spoon but that's one accolade I don't begrudge him.
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#122
your last point merits some thought. When NR was writing mortgages it had a number that were at 100 percent and some were above. The majority would have been at 90 perecnt or so of loan to value.
Tell me, in the past year have property prices gone up or down?
Is it not highly likely that the current value of the properties in question is below the value of the mortgage?
Whilst nobody is talking about repossessions, at least not of the scale of the early 90's, don't think its not possible.
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Andrew Graham discusses the imbalances in the world economy, how China may play a strong partnership role if it were invited into the G8 and opened up its purse strings, and ends with an interesting comment on the Anglo-Saxon versus Chinese approach to economics.
My general view is that the Anglo-Saxon model has failed and procrastinating over this just continues to drive Britain's broken economic fundamentals even harder into the ground. The Tories would give you even more of the same failed ways so they remain unfit for government.
The party of Toffs, or managers and shareholders, have hijacked the British character of independence and community. They sell their own ambitions to the electorate but this is a con as you're never really in the club: they're too scared to truly open their hearts and minds.
The Tao is very relevant to economic issues and has stood the test of time. But, the controlling and greedy mind cannot grasp this, so it is correct for Gordon Brown to criticise "Tory boom and bust". The Tories don't get success and society, and unless they really change they never will.
Ditch the Machiavelli. It's useless. Read the Tao.
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I'm all in favour of reminding politicians of what's been said, but let's make them get the context and the quote right. Over to you Nick.
But that disingenuity simply leaves the field open to Cameron to commit to ending Labour incompetence.
If you elect us we will end Labour incompetence.
Well of course you will. They'll be out of power. But that doesn't mean it'll be okay to replace it with Tory incompetence.
Same with this spit-in-your-face sophistry about 'end to Tory boom and bust'. Well, yeah, there can't be a Tory boom and bust if they're not in government. That doesn't give you carte-blanche to engineer a boom and bust of your own.
This from a party that routinely quotes 'no such thing as society' out of context.
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Citizens
In light of recent developments, the management feel it incumbent to reflect on the glorious results of our 11 years in power.
As you know, due to the previous 18 years of mismanagement we had to take urgent steps to educate our previously ignorant population, establish a police force to bring order to our totally lawless country, and provide an economic stimulus to our moribund economy. We also established a new era of openness and information providing, so that you would know exactly what we were up to.
So you have been told, on multiple occasions, exactly what money we provided for things yesterday, what we are providing today, and what we going to provide tomorrow. It seems, due to shortcomings of your comprehension, which is why we have spent so much on re-education, that you have occasionally misunderstood exactly what we have done, so now we plan to clear this up.
So since 1997 we have resolutely pillaged the investment industry of the ability to reclaim tax on dividends, where those funds were to be invested for the long term benefit of the people, in the form of savings and pensions. Since ?long term? is exactly the phrase that we want to use to confuse people in the short term, and therefore its use by others needs to be paid for, we have extracted this licence fee from them, to the tune of at least 5 billion each year. These funds have traditionally been used by our most benevolent chancellor of the exchequer, now our glorious and divine leader, to provide increased funding to schools, hospitals and police.
We have found areas of social and economic activity that have not previously been financially viable from the management?s perspective, but ingeniously, by the judicial application of taxes and fees, have turned these into profitable sources of finance. Now that we have laid the groundwork, our efforts in future years will be to maximize our revenue from these sources, and distribute it to increased funding to schools, hospitals and police.
Since 2001 we have been interfering at the behest of foreign governments in the affairs of foreign governments. This has required us to divert some of the money that we have previously been spending on schools, hospitals and police into funding our defence budget. Fortunately, we were able to identify that oil prices would rise so that, as they did, we could collect more money in the form of taxes and make that available for increased funding to schools, hospitals and police.
You, dear citizens, should be very proud of the contributions that you have made to the funding of schools, hospitals and police.
Last year we noticed that, due to some reactionary activities in other parts of the world, that the prices of raw materials, such as food and fuel, were rising and that some of our citizens were suffering financial privations. In order to counteract these iniquitous pressures, and in the pursuit of the principle of everybody sharing equally in the pain, it was decided to limit the pay rises of teachers, nurses and policemen below this artificial rate of inflation, thus enabling them to be self-financing, so that we could continue to provide increased funding to schools, hospitals and police.
We have recently had to ward off financial predators who were attacking our wonderful banking system. In order to do this we have raised the amount of government debt which is being purchased by our newly acquired banks, creating a virtual circle, and enabling us to increase the size of the government owned economy, and thus the number and types of job that we are able to offer favoured citizens in the future.
This has meant that currently we are not able to envisage increasing the amount of funding to schools, hospitals and police that we have done in the past, but these historic levels of funding that we have put in place up till now have ensured that we have the best educational results in the world, the cleanest and most modern hospital ward and operating theatre in the world, and some of the best police marksmen in the world.
We thank you, dear citizen, for your valued support and, don?t forget, we know where you live.
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We'll see if my latest post makes it and, if it does, how long it might survive.
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re: 114, CEH
...zzzZZZzzz...
re: 124, Brownedov
The Churchill dog's jowls looks cute, Brown's make him look like he's melting.
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The Tories focus is the type that creates recession and ruins lives, and suggests they will merrily ruin the country merely to get back into power
Huh? So the Gordon Brown boom and bust, doubling (trebling with the bank bail-out) of national debt, rampant inflation, politically dictated interest rates, unemployment increasing at a higher rate than the worst of the early '90's recession, collapsing banks etc etc.
This is all the Tories fault?
Surreal.
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I think that talk about de-regulation in the past has focused on tax and small company matters.
As far as I can recall, there has been no talk about deregulation in the financial services industry.
To the extent that deregulation of financial services is necessary, the only thing I'd say it that it was a common joke that the FSA handbook, fully complete, was nine feet wide.
It was once said that the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 was actually quite draconian.
The FSA has quite extensive powers. In enforcement, in making senior management responsible, and in regulating training and competence of staff involved in the financial services industry.
The problem is that their eye has been off the ball.
One thing I would ask, is whether the FSA does indeed intend to make senior management responsibile for the disasters that have been brought upon all of us.
Were senior managers "competent"? Did they undergo annual competency assessments? Who were the assessors? What was the assessemnt criterai?
When auditors were verifying assets on the balance sheet of such enterprises what were their tests? How did they get it so wrong?
In 2001, it was made very clear by the FSA that remuneration had to be linked to adherence to regulation - not just profit-making. How did HBOS etc. manage this process? How did the FSA police it?
By the way, in my own research on corporate governance, I found that in none of the random cases I looked at, did the auditors provide a qualified audit opinion on the previous year's accounts for a company that went bust in the following year.
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#114 CEH
Charles - you must be the only one on this blog who doesn't get a sense of recession. Maybe you're too busy inwardly digesting the thoughts of Zen to look at the daily papers.
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If Sir Winston Churchill had ceded to Hitler's demands for 11 years and then, with the Nazi invasion of Europe and the UK complete, negotiated that the Orkneys were to remain British and claim that as a victory, then Gordon Brown would be very like him.
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#123 balhamu
You completely ignore my original plea for grandantidote, who'll so often dare to tread where even CEH will not. It really did surprise me that it took so long for anyone to have anything positive to say on the man's behalf. Certainly a first in my experience.
Thanks for the courtesy. I'd have remarked positively on parts of your #122 if you hadn't made it clear you were only really addressing yourself to the other unionist Tories.
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# 114 CharlesEHardwidge
I ask politely, sir, which planet have you been living on for the past 6 months? And which apolitical, expert analyses do you read to conclude 'no sense of a recession'? May I suggest that you dip into the following sites, being a very small selection of analyses to which, personally, I give infinitely more credence than I do to most politicians, political pundits and red-top leader writers pontificating right now.
http://tinyurl.com/4vdnwe
http://tinyurl.com/4kxroa
http://tinyurl.com/3effzo
http://tinyurl.com/3oax6a
Where exactly do you look to see 'no sign of recession'? I need to know!!
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re #134
It has just been brought to my attention that we don't actually know where you live because the disks that contain that data have been mislaid.
We are currently looking for someone to blame for this.
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Can I add that I don't think that regulation actually needs to be stiffer.
The Companies Act 2006, and the earlier Companies Act 1984 and 1989 are actually pretty tough pieces of legislation. The possibilities for prosection and being disbarred as a director were actaully pretty endless under the old Act (I'm not up to speed on the new one). The Cadbury Code of 1992 used a "comply or explain" approach to governance, which enables investors to decide on whether they can trust their money to people who disregard good governance.
And then we had the Financial Services and Markets Act of 2000, which introduced the FSA, with its sweeping powers.
It's the policing and enforcement that is the problem.
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#140 Jonno_79
No offence to the Orkneys by the way. You could substitute any small region of the UK in my comment above.
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@113. shellingout wrote:
"Never in my 38 years of being a taxpayer, can I remember our economy being in such dire straights."
alzheimer's?
"Our Government have given us very little explanation about what we are getting in return from the banks, only that their executives won't be getting their bonuses. There is no further information available to help the public understand what's happening or what will need to be done from now on, and why."
Well i am no economics wiz, but its quite plain to see that the government is getting these things.
All the government has really done is this, instead of millions of people waking up on morning and saying "Today i think i would like to own some shares in RBS, they will make lots of money over the next 20 years and i wouldn't mind a share of it"
They have done it all for us.
Same as they did in IRAQ. We did not have to all wake up one morning and say "I think Sadam needs his ass kicked, lets do it!"
See that's what governments do, call it nanny state, call it anything you like and be tory, but i happen to think MP's and Ministers etc are paid well, so they should do some work. NOT on the board of some company or the golf course!
well done Gordon Brown, thanks for all you continued hard work.
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I've already commented that I get no sense
You could have stoped right there and nobody would have contradicted you.
of a recession and the government should have a business and social programme ready to roll. It's also a good thing that the "authorities" and "high attention earners" are moved off the front page as more talk will turn fears into realities.
This from the party that spend years going on about how the Tories were wrecking the NHS. And their solution? Pay the doctors so much that they can only be bothered to work three days a week and squander 110bn quid on shiny hospitals. Less hospital beds mind. But never mind that - look at my shiny hospital.
Labour has destroyed the country. Again. If you see no signs of a recession with unemployment rising faster than the worst rates of the last recession then you have your eyes firmly shut. House prices decreasing by 13% year on year. Worse than the last 'Tory' housing bust that you promised not to repeat.
UK banks falling over due to lack of effective oversight. Actually, that would be more acceptable than what actually happened. UK banks falling over because any oversight was actively disencouraged to inflate the debt-fuelled miracle economy. The 'independent' BoE was actively interfered with by Brown at every stage. From changing to an inflation proxy that deliberately ignored rampant house inflation to outright direct orders to sustain the housing bubble by cutting interest rates prior to the 2005 election. Eddie George has 'fessed up.
British banks falling over and being pushed into government control rather than slapped upside the head behind the scenes and supported as they cleared up their balance sheets rather than paraded as the scapegoats for failing to maintain Gordon Browns debt-fuelled 'miracle economy'.
This government is a catastrophe. And it will get a hell of a lot worse.
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@126 aswec1
Nothing like splitting hairs to win an arguement.
So you truly believe that Brown meant that it was only Tory Boom and bust that he was ruling out and that Labour boom and bust was OK. If that is the case why didnt he tell us then so that we could have not voted them in in 1997. Because Labour Busts are always way bigger than Tory Busts. Check history if you dont believe me.
You know I know and everyone else knows the only reason that he used Tory in that statement was to score a party political point to remind us that the last bust had been a Tory one and to take are minds off the history littered with Labour busts.
The worst thing about your statement is that it Gordon himself now beleives it the way you state it. Thats insanity!
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#128 brynt41
Well said. There's not been a properly poll lately, but even the scraps published in the Sunday Times showing a wee Brown bounce bode reasonably well for a little more humiliation from the good people of Glenrothes.
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#117
Where would a pre-Falklands Thatcher have come in a poll? Or a Poll Tax Riot Thatcher? I suspect quite low down.
You need distance from events to draw proper conclusions of their place in history.
For example, Thatcher did some good things (labour market and economic reform was required) and some bad things (she let ideology blind her too much in her decisions, was blase about driving millions of people out of work, and did not consider the unintended consequences of some of her policies e.g. long-term unemployment, social problems associated with inequality and poverty and the impact of under-funding core public servics).
She was a strong leader, a good tactician (see how she planned the dispute with the miners), good at getting her way and re-shaping things in the way she saw best, and not letting vested interests stand in her way.
Distance gives you a more nuanced view of things. A poll that places a current PM, unpopular at the time, in a list will inevitably come up with skewed and emotional answers.
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We did reject the boom and bust society of the thatcherite years,
we also acted in faith of the whole world when America went bust.
Your inner gut feelings, tell you to react (u9461192)your lack of self-control, sends you into a frenzy of trolling nonsense.
Calm down....remove the poison pellet from your lips......see the light....it shines for you to....let it guide you home, to a brighter future.
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104. balhamu
My point being: most people are anti Brown and most of the comments on here are just that.
Havent seen too many flog the unemployed comments today, but might have missed them
You interpret anti Brown sentiment as meaning they want a hard right government. This is not the case with many here. Its not true with me.
I accept your point about the people not wanting Old Tory, just as they didn?t want Old Labour.
I want a course correction not an about turn, I want to see my tax spent wisely and not wasted. I want to see smaller government. So I will vote Tory next time.
But back on topic?. Brown is an awful embarrassment as a leader, he in no way represents modern Britain, his policies of chancellor would have led us to recession on their own. He is merely lucky in that his tidal wave of a recession has been swamped by a global tsunami.
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84 Correctopinion
So what if the guy who wrote the opinion is a Conservative???
The move against Iceland was an outrageous and inflammatory abuse of the purpose of the law (just like kicking that old guy out of the Labour conference and stopping people remember the dead at the Cenotaph).
With respect Iceland - there were surely better alternatives available to the PM?
There is nothing courageous about Brown's bullying.
Churchill was the opposite and fought the worlds bullies.
Thankfully 42 days and secret inquests have been kicked into the long grass (you can just imagine how Labour would have abused these powers). Shame ID Cards is still in the pipeline.
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The party of Toffs, or managers and shareholders, have hijacked the British character of independence and community.
Finally my padawan you understand what Lady Thatcher was talking about when she said 'There is no such thing as society'.
Pleased to see you've come over from the dark side. No enough of the Feng Shui nonsense already.
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121. Brownedov
Copy that:
Apologies.
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# 128 brynt41
Here, here! From his days as a university student (read about them) Gordon Brown was always going to be, and has turned out to be a Machiavellian, scheming individual exhibiting all the worst characteristics of a politician and bereft of the leadership and people skills needed to run government and lead the country (ask members of his cabinet - in private of course).
He treats your money and mine as his own; he knows better how to run your life than you do; he is oblivious or contemptuous of views that go against his own; he wanted and now enjoys power, not to faciliate the betterment of your life and mine, but to direct and control our lives as he sees fit; he despises the armed forces; he despises elitism (without which there would be no brilliant surgeons, no Special Air Service, no Oxford or Cambridge ...); he is simply unfit for the job and, sadly, the good people of this great nation are about to spend the next 10 years or more paying the price of having an unelected, incompetent prime minister at the helm.
How did we let this happen?
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I hoper GB isn't basing his policies on the old socialist policies lauded by Tony Benn today.
Full nationalisation of banks and everything else as in the post world war two period
Alistair Darling was talking about things not being as bad since 1948.
Perhaps they do have a plan after all.
Go back to the 1940's.
Everyone should get out their history books.
What Tony Benn did not say in his interview was that the country was bankrupt after the war but the US lent us billions of dollars to build the country up again. This was only paid back in full recently.
I can't see the US being in a position to do that at the moment so perhaps GB can tell us who is.
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#126
Oh, I see. It's just a play on words.
When Gordon talks about no return to boom and bust it's just in relation to the Tories.
It doesn't matter if it's one he's involved in (or even helped create).
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#131 T'uga
I went through this on the Krugman blog yesterday.
I've assumed an average 90% Loan:Value ratio on all defaulters on NR mortgages in my £1-£10 billion estimate. A 100% Loan:Value assumption won't make much difference to it at all (would increase it by ~10% to £1.1 billion-£11 billion).
I've assumed house values of defaulters would have declined by 40% (apocalyptic £10bn) and 25% (pessimistic £1 bn).
And I've assumed 30% of the loan book is repossessed in the apocalyptic £10 bn (i.e. 15 times the 2% repossessed in 1991-93), and 6% in the pessimistic £1 bn.
Whichever way you look at it, there is little argument that the potential impact on debt is less than £10bn (as I say), rather than more than £100bn (which is what Robin would say).
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I think I preferred Brown as the bumbling incompetent widely portrayed a couple of weeks ago rather than the smug all conquering hero swaggering across the world stage.
The truth is he took his eye off the ball and smashed the family heirlooms. He is then trying to get praise for sticking them back together with superglue but the cracks are still there, things will never be the same again.
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81. At 1:37pm on 15 Oct 2008, T'uga Mawilli (aka Duoteste) wrote:
If there are 600,000 vacant jobs and over 1.7 million people without jobs, why?
Wrong job types?
Vacancies are in places where there are no jobless, and no means of transporting them?
Wrong skill sets?
Vacancies are specifically being held for new economic migrants, who will work for less?
It could be any and all of these.
Whatever the answer(s) it utterly negates any claim by Brown to be a capable manager of the economy.
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Moderator, by your own rules you are supposed to email me to explain the reason for referring my post #80 (which was posted 2 1/2hrs ago at 1.35pm)
I'm as familiar with the posting rules here as anyone else and I'd just like to know why it was moderated, thanks.
Guy Croft
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Dear Nick
The price of gold is rocketing,"Where's our Gold"? --- RESERVES?
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105 Carrots....
Ha! Very good.
Labour luvvies have first tried to associate Brown with the Falklands Victory and now Churchill - without success.
My guess is that the Spin Doctors will next seek to re-position him as Gordon "Gekko" Brown.......... in an attempt to leverage some financial kudos from the wreckage of the reality.
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#141 Brownedov
You're one of the more reasonable posters, so when I'm talking about the hypocricy of the hard-right "told you so" attitude about regulation on here, it's obviously not about you.
You strike me as generally centre-right in political leanings (much as pigeon-holeing in this way is limited except for those at the extremes of the spectrum), with some Lib Dem concerns about the failings of first-past-the-post democracy, where I completely agree with you.
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Yes, I'm a real horror compared to the 1001 posts of Tory bile spewing forth. Personally, I prefer the Zen brand but if the Tories want to market themselves as the nasty party don't let me stop you. If I wanted to make the Tories look useless and unelectable I couldn't persuade you to plough the furrow you're digging for yourself.
The Tories created the foundation for boom and bust, and fought change all the way down the line until the inevitable crisis. In government and opposition they've been a regressive force. Their "solution" to Turbo Capitalism is Turbo-Thatcherism which like some alcoholic sucking the whiskey bottle dry after a period of abstinence.
If you unpick bad management and greedy shareholders, the issue isn't necessarily regulation but attitude. This is true for any job, task, or person. Their attitude has been very resistant to change. The problem you and a few others have is I don't think you appreciate how difficult it is going up against power and affiliations: people don't just roll over.
Gordon Brown and some of the more savvy businessmen, financiers, and journalists get this subtley. If you just cut folks down you end up with an Iraq situation. It's better to identify the better managers and investors and promote them, and engage with and negotiate over time to bring around lasting change. Compare that to the Tories trying to sell you gold bricks for a fiver. It ain't real.
I try to avoid the nonsense, hysteria, and perspectives that can't see beyond their own nose. It's more important to focus on what you're doing now. The rest is just folks trying to get attention. Mayhem and blood on the carpet is an easy way to get attention but it's just so much Mugabe politics: it's not profitable and doesn't last. It may be raining down here but it's sunny above the clouds.
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@150 Balhamu
And then there is reality.
Maybe he isnt actually the 12th of 12 but he isnt much higher than 10th.
If the country and this blog exist in 50 years I'll be back to say I told you so
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Good to see that some things don't change about wonderful NuLab. Just got the email linking to the Government's response to the EU referendum epetition. No surprises in the answer, of course, but Bliar clearly trained his successor well in the art of the bad news day.
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#146
"Well i am no economics wiz, but its quite plain to see that the government are getting these things"
You got that one right - you are no economics wiz.
Please explain to me exactly what we will be getting from the banks since you are obviously privy to information to which the rest of us are not.
If you seriously think that us taxpayers will actually get any financial benefit from all this you really are deluded.
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Nu-Labour pretend that they care
But their falsehoods would make a saint swear.
We see through their lies
And we want their demise
And an end to their reign of despair!
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Glenrothes will be the defeat
That we finally need to unseat
The thieving Red liar
(He's just like that Bliar)
Oh, Labour's loss will be sweet!
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Enjoyed #105 had a quick oh yes moment followed by an image of gordon doing "here I go again" even more important it shed more light on the Times cartoon.
Decided to cheer you global crunch believers up with the good news that the white rabbit is back in chinese shops
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#161
Spot on, but El Gordo doesn't care whose clothes he wears. He'll do or say anything to keep hold of the brass ring.
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#159 Balhamu
I think we are pretty much agreed that NR won't lose 100 bn, and I also agree we don't know how much the eventual loss will be, but the total outstandings, which are now less than 100 bn since some has been repaid, must remain in the balance sheet, and that balance sheet is now "owned" by the state.
IF, and its a big if, the economy and the housing market recover and all the mortgagees of the bank get current with their payments, and remain current until maturity, then the whole thing can be unwound at a profit. Oh, look, there's a white rabbit disappearing down a large hole. think I'll follow him....
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its all ok people our government and the iceland banks(or lack of them) are working day and night to get this banking problem sorted(the one that never existed 11 days ago) so we are all ok now!!!! and also double great news 3 financial experts are on their way to sort out the 859 million shortfall of council cash in frozen iceland banks. great were all ok now......ha ha
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It's interesting how the Tories have tried to hijack my Jedi and reality pitch but they can't really pull it off. It's the same with any art or craft - unless you have the understanding behind it you just come over as a bad copy.
My view is that both the policy and character of Labour will get behind innovation and jobs. That's something that will make the risk averse and cost cutting Tories chew their own arms off over but it's where the smart money is heading.
If folks are doing a great job and feel as if they're part of something, they tend to be well motivated and less prone to bitching, and that's good for management and the bottom line. The Tories don't get this which is why they are the party of failure.
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See the stock markets today - so much for Gordy Clown and Nu Labour - he has RUINED UK plc - it only took him eleven years - we r BUST well and truly.
What a terrible Chancellor, P.M., and boring person - please stop all the BBC and other hacks treating him as if he is God - he is useless and all questioning should reflect the disgust at what he, and Nu Labour, have done to our once Great Britain - if I was younger I would emigrate ASAP.
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#balhamu
Can you kindly get this right? The assets fo northern Rock taken on by HM government were £117bn of mortgages.
I have never said they will all default or are all worthless. i am merely stating the size of the potential problem.
Misrepresenting non newlabour posters is a classic Gordon Brown tactic - assume enyone who is not newlabour is thick or not in posessionof the facts and will buckle under pressure.
How wrong can you be? As wrong as you are balhamu when you choose to misrepresent everything I 'would have' suggested.
These bully boy tactics have been tried for years by Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman, Yvonne Cooper and all the other newlabour apologists who believe they have a monopoly on knowledge, fact and power.
Well, welcome to the new world order... where even your tenuous hold on power is disappearing by the hour. And Gordon Brown's bank rescue package is failing with each tick of the market...... the shocking news we will all soon learn; it's simply not big enough to save us.
Call an election.
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Brown is a berk.
Cameron is Cool.
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Absolutley hilarious
The bone marrow of Scottish pride my derriere
Bet they get the dosh though, what da ya reckon?
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Are you all fed up with zen?
Me too.
I could do you a whole lot of scrolls on the apostolic succession, the meaning of Faith and why the Bible is biggest selling book of all time?
I am more than willing.
No? You sure?
OK then - well let's get on with the politics instead.
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So much for the puffs from the BBC blogmeisters re "Duff" Gordon "having a good war" as Mardell puts it....
Even this website's EU leaders seek broad bank reform now reports: "German Chancellor Angela Merkel backed French President Nicolas Sarkozy's call for better international supervision of the financial system."
Elsewhere on this website, we see in Salmond predicts Glenrothes win that "First Minister Alex Salmond has challenged Gordon Brown to a head-to-head debate in the run-up to the Glenrothes by-election." Worth paying good money to see, I'd say but does anyone here think "Duff" Gordon will take up the challenge? Or does anyone think the NuLab team have rediscovered the secret of winning, when "The BBC understands that campaign strategists - who just three weeks ago were warning the prime minister that Labour would lose - have now told him that the tide has turned in the constituency, partly the result of Mr Brown's handling of the banking crisis."
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149. At 3:24pm on 15 Oct 2008, Brownedov wrote:
' #128 brynt41
Well said. There's not been a properly poll lately, but even the scraps published in the Sunday Times showing a wee Brown bounce bode reasonably well for a little more humiliation from the good people of Glenrothes. '
Could this be , I wonder , that famous 'dead cat ' bounce - if so it's all down hill from now on.
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Beware everyone - Labour are at it again...!
Churchillian to Orwellian in 3 easy steps
Frustrated at not being able to detain people for 42 days and then try them in a secret inquest - the control freaks have bounced back with something new!
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The Glenrothes by election result will be a really useful monitor for No 10 on just what ordinary scottish people think and feel at the moment.
I do NOT think for one moment that our current Prime Minister is perceived as the hero of the hour in Scotland -neither for that matter in the rest of the UK.
Following a SNP victory next month and many fingers of blame emerging out of Labour Party HQ -the rest of the UK will have to wait until the spring of 2010 to be invited to give their views on recent events.
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Look what happened to Churchill after the war.
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1) Tony Blair: 1997 Conference Speech
I want this to be the New Labour Government that ended Tory boom and bust forever.
2) Tony Blair: 2000 Conference Speech
The first big choice: a government with the strength to deliver stability, or a government that takes the country back to boom and bust.
3) Tony Blair: 2005 Conference Speech
In the first two terms we corrected the weaknesses of the Tory years: boom-and-bust economics
4) Tony Blair: November 2003
If we want to contrast what we have done in the past few years on delivery with what the right hon. and learned Gentleman delivered, let us remember the interest rates at 10 per cent. to 15 per cent., the 1.5 million fewer people in work, the boom and the bust and the borrowing at 8 per cent. of GDP.
5) Tony Blair: November 1999
We have the best chance of ending boom and bust in years.
6) Tony Blair: November 1998
...examine the legacy that we inherited and what we did. We had boom-and-bust economics and a doubled national debt.
7) Tony Blair: 2006 Conference Speech
In 1997, we faced daunting challenges. Boom and bust economics.....
Now, for all that remains to be done, dwell for a moment on what has been achieved.
8) Tony Blair: February 1999
Moreover, for decades we have been prone to far greater swings in the economic cycle than our continental counterparts. It has been boom and bust....Under this Government, there is an entirely new framework for economic management in place
9) Yvette Cooper: May 2004
We know that they want to turn the clock back, but it would be foolish to turn it back to a policy of boom and bust.
10) Alistair Darling: January 2000
On top of that, we have a healthy and stable economy and an end to the boom and bust that characterised the Tory years.
11) Alistair Darling: March 2005
As I said, there are two approaches?first, a strong economy, stability and helping families or, secondly, the Tory cuts, the undermining of stability, and a return to the boom and bust of the 1990s.
12) Alistair Darling: June 2007
...acknowledges the outstanding performance of the economy under this Government with the longest unbroken economic expansion on record, in contrast to the boom and bust of the previous Government
13) Gordon Brown: March 2007
We will not return to the old boom and bust
14) Gordon Brown: December 2006
Boom and bust is a term that applied to the Conservative years and two of the worst recessions in history
15) Gordon Brown: March 2006
I have said before: no return to boom and bust.
16) Gordon Brown: March 2001
We will not return to boom and bust.
17) Gordon Brown: November 2000
Our approach is to reject the old vicious circle of the '80s--rising debt, higher long-term interest rates, higher debt repayment costs, lower growth, higher unemployment, then enforced cuts in public spending. That was the old boom and bust.
18) Gordon Brown: March 2000
Britain does not want a return to boom and bust.
19) Gordon Brown: November 1999
Indeed, Britain was set to repeat the old, familiar cycle of boom and bust. Since then, we have created and rigorously adhered to a new framework of modern economic management
20) Gordon Brown: November 1998
Britain was set to repeat the boom-bust cycle that led to 15 per cent. interest rates for one whole year in the early 1990s.
21) Gordon Brown: June 1998
rigorous financial discipline that, together with monetary stability, ends once and for all the boom and bust that for 30 years has undermined stability
22) Gordon Brown: May 1998
The Government have put in place policies to deliver that objective and are determined to avoid a return to boom and bust.
23) Gordon Brown: April 1998
We will not return to the stop-go, boom-bust years which we saw under the Conservatives.
24) Gordon Brown: November 1997
I am satisfied that the new monetary policy arrangements will deliver long-term price stability, and prevent a return to the cycle of boom and bust.
25) Gordon Brown: July 1997
Today, the Bank of England has agreed with me that, if we are to prevent the cycle of boom and bust, inflationary pressures in the economy, which the previous Government negligently failed to tackle, must be brought under control
26) John Prescott: January 2005
Labour economic stability has replaced Tory boom and bust
27) Alan Johnson: February 2000
The Government's first priority on coming to office was to secure long-term economic stability and put an end to the damaging cycle of boom and bust.
28) Douglas Alexander: June 2006
there are genuine questions to be asked about why we now have the highest level of employment in many decades, contrary to the position during the boom-bust years of the Conservatives.
29) Ruth Kelly: November 1999
The Government have rejected the boom and bust of the Conservative party
30) Ruth Kelly: May 2002
We must avoid a return to the days of boom and bust that manufacturers had to endure for a long time under the Conservatives.
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#165 balhamu
I do realise that, but - perhaps surprisingly - I do actually think that the UK might yet be made to work with a fully (con)federal polity.
Unfortunately, both the main sets of unionist posters here are so concerned with knocking each other (in the case of many Tories quite rightly) that the danger of the union splitting into the four constituent nations is increasing.
Ultimately it may well make sense four all four to be independent within the EU but I do think there's a very strong case now for real constitutional reform before it's too late.
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I just love the way people are using this supposed serious discussion as just another way to attack Gordon Brown and New Labour. I'm no apologist for either of them, but does anyone think that the Tories would have avoided this problem? Of course not, they're even more in favour of the free market and de-regulation than Gordon Brown. It is Tory attitudes going back to Thatcher that started all this, greed greed greed etc. Credit where credit is due though, it isn't Gordon Brown taking credit for creating the best bail out plan, it is the rest of the world acknowledging it and copying it. I wish he hadn't been so in favour of letting the banks run free and easy over all of us, but make no mistake, the Tories would have had us in a much bigger mess, and they haven't got any alternative to the Brown bail out plan. If anyone has any serious suggestions to add to this discussion then great, but if you only want to post another ignorant moan then please don't bother.
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Hey, the U Bomber is back! Yeah, good news, smoking those keys again!
But but but ... it's going wrong for U, isn't it? I don't want to redebate the thing, 'cos I can see you're in the mood to give me a good slapping, but of the following 2 perceptions:
1. it's a global problem and GB is leading the way in finding a solution.
2. it's a UK problem and GB is only acting first and biggest because we've stuffed up the most.
A consensus is developing around 1, isn't it? For all your (eloquent as always) raging, that's the way it's looking, am I right?
Not saying it's fair or anything.
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Carrots @ 5
But I told you that we had to cut Health spending and you wouldn't have it ... changing your mind now?
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#182 jabber_jabber
I certainly hope so - see my #181
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And Sagamix wonders why 1984 gets so much mention here.
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re: 181 Brownedov
I'd be extremely surprised if Brown ever had a public debate with anyone; he's too stupid and his logic is too full of holes for him to ever win any fair public debate and he knows it.
I've never seen him have a real public debate ever. The only time I've ever seen him debate is when the odds are stacked in his favour by a fawning person chairing it and where only specific questions are asked (if he doesn't like the questions provided in advance, then he won't show up)
I don't think a debate hosted by the BBC would count, as it needs to be chaired by someone who's independent and not just a labour sub-department.
If they let Osborne and Brown fight it out on an independently-chaired public debate, now for that I'd pay for front row seats. But it'll never happen; Brown will always lose any public debate because his logic is invariably so flawed and twisted.
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You can tell this blog is done by a political commentator, not someone who follows employment issues. The elephant in the room that no one is mentioning but need to is, of course, the Government's welfare reform programme, which is happening at the same time.
Unemployment, which concerns today's announcement, is actually a technical term. What the man in the street thinks of as unemployment is actually these days referred to as "Worklessness". I wish the BBC's coverage would make this clear. The distinction is very important and what the man in the street will really be concerned about is the change in the level of "worklessness", not the level of "unemployment".
This is because previous reforms by Labour allowed a lot of people the Tories would have classed as "unemployed" - and therefore suitable for Job Seeker's Allowance - to be given Incapacity Benefit and thereby taken out of the unemployment figures. That policy is currently in the process of being reversed.
One can argue about whether/how far that is a good thing, but the consequence is that a lot of people are moving off Incapacity Benefit, or claiming JSA rather than IB, and that complicates the issue.
I don't recall the economy in 1997 as being in that bad a shape. So, if we just went back to the 1997 position it wouldn't be a big deal. I'm not saying that is where we are, but you get my point.
I hope that as the media continue to cover this story, they will make clear what is really happening. Otherwise by talking up the problems, there is the danger of damaging confidence and talking us into a worse recession than would otherwise be the case.
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re: 183, jonathan_cook
I'm sure I'm not alone in being prepared to go to prison to resist this corrupt regime. We must fight back no matter what the cost.
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Big business and their Tory shareholder pals are actively working to snoop on peoples internet data stream without a warrant and informed consent. This is the same old CBI and Tory pitch of talking themselves up as saviours while behind the scenes they're ripping people off more than ever.
There's a case for better signals intelligence but no case for the likes of marketers hijacking peopes privacy and the internet to profit a few. The Tories are selling the security of the nation down the river but go above and beyond that to turn a coin for themselves and their pals.
It's pretty clear that Labour are creating real solutions to real problems while the Tories are selling a con trick that ordinary people will never profit from. The Tories had no response to the economic crisis and no plan for creating a recovery, and more and more people are beginning to see that.
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yes #176 dont emigrate to iceland....my god if were bad what must their chancellor and pm be like?
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re: 186, carrots
Classic stuff. They've got some nerve haven't they?
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#177 RobinJD (Jack Daniels?)
Ok - point taken on the £117 billion (I'll trust you on it - another right-wing poster suggest £57 bn mortgages + loans) - £100 billion is just easier to work with without a calculator.
You say, on the one hand (as the ridiculousness of your previous position has been exposed), that you don't think they will all default or are all worthless.
In the 2nd half of the SAME sentence, you claim £117 bn as the "potential" liability (i.e. if you were to be ridiculous and claim they will all default and were all worthless).
The two statements are logically inconsistent. Three questions:
1. How much, in a worse case scenario, do you think house prices could fall?
2. What proportion, in a worse case scenario, of NR borrowers will default and be repossessed (bearing in mind the 2% of homeowners who defaulted in 1991-93)?
3. What will be the average loan:value ratio of those who default?
Multiply these 3 percentages together, multiply it by the total £117 billion debt, and you have your potential liability. Use this and then you can stop sounding quite so ridiculous when you talk about it.
And, Robin, I do not misrepresent what you say at all. Give me an example of where you have been misrepresented. In this case, you use the £117 billion figure as 'potential' debt, despite it being shown to be ridiculous and despite acknowledging yourself that this is only 'potential' debt if a potential scenario you are considering is everyone defaulting, everyone with 100% mortgages and all houses being completely worthless.
And stop saying 'New Labour' with the pronoun 'you'. Everyone who disagrees with your often rabid rantings is not New Labour. You are far, far to the right of Cameron and the rest of the Conservative Party, for example.
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"government agree pay deal with the police unions!
2.65% increase backdated to september, with further increases over the next two years"
- i see the financial crisis money is already being syphoned off to other areas.
"we are very pleased with the outcome of the discussions" says jaqui smith
- funny how for months the money was not there to pay the already agreed pay deal in full, but less than a week after extra borrowing is permitted by the IMF, its a case of.... "the money will be in police service paypackets by christmas!"
labour are so obvious, its embarassing!
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I would love it if Nick could name - say - half a dozen of the most public figures who have compared Gordon Brown to Churchill. If they are not prepared to be publically quoted on a simlple thing like this, then a journalist should ignore what they say.
And are they comparing former Chancelor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown to former Chancelor of the Exchequer, Winston Churchilll who disasterously (in my opinion) returned Britain to the Gold Standard in 1925?
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# 54 warning123
"The rise in unemployment was just a crisis waiting to happen"
I watched the lunchtime bulletin on BBC today as the story about unemployment unfolded. Needless to say the newscaster was quick to reassure us things were still not as bad as in the 80s. So that's all right then!
Unemployment was inevitable when we started exporting jobs instead of goods. Unemployment is the price we pay for being able to buy a pair of jeans for 5 pounds at the supermarket (possibly made by child labour).
Surprisingly, no mention in the news of the Yacht the NHS wants to buy instead of drugs.
No mention either of Brown's assertion that when he said "no more boom and bust", he didn't really mean what we thought he meant. (as mentioned in #9 by the-real-truth and reported in The Times.)
I don't get any real sense that Auntie wants to hold Brown to account....
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as per usual the comments made are from frightened Tories. They know Gordon Brown has masterminded a plan to save the world's banks and they see the praise heaped upon him by the leaders of these countries. Now all they can see is the next election going down the tubes
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178 Flame Patricia
sorry Patricia but that sort of post makes you look almost as silly as ptpl, it does you no credit.
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# 186 carrots
Come on, be fair! You're quoting out of context...
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180 Flame Patricia ,
Please dont I have had enough fantasy off theTories on here today with out you quoting any more,
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153 jonathan_cook: "The move against Iceland was an outrageous and inflammatory abuse of the purpose of the law"
I am no lawyer, but I understand that this is based on something of a misunderstanding shared by almost all the media. The problem is that the Act in question has 'Terrorism' in its title, but it covers more than that (the full title is the Terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001). Part of the Act (dealing with security) makes provision for action to be taken against other governments whose actions threaten the rights of UK citizens, or the UK economy. It was under those provisions that the government said they would act against Iceland, and I have seen someone who really is a lawyer say that it was indeed the most appropriate piece of legislation to use.
As with newspaper headlines, you often have to look a bit further than just the title of an Act to understand what it covers.
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186 was that a party political broadcast on behalf of this current inept government?
if so its not a bad bit of written spin but sadly of no consequence or relation to what the monkeys in the house of parliment are doing to this once great country today.
party politics is a flawed concept and too easily corrupted by egotistical megalomaniacs who will play the high spin card gathering media behind them.
the peoples of this country deserve a government that will be honest and work for the people.
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I know the Tories in here sniff their own gases a bit but even the most casual of eyes knows the mildest of fact checking would rip through some of the most emphatically presented Tory opinions presented as fact in here. And, I suspect, most of them know that.
The Tories talked up a general election but everyone knows they were relieved it never happened. Cameron talks up that he would "save" the country from this crisis, but we know he couldn't. Osborne is a serial liar and would get shredded, so you'd better hope you never get that wish.
The Tory mentality has a lot of "Yang" to it - it's all about control and acquiring wealth. It may look glitzy and macho but it's very fragile and has no sticking power. Yin is more subtle, resilient, and persistent. Labour get this which is why they remain best placed to govern in these times.
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Nick,
Gordon is wasted on this country. He should be elected as the new President of the United States of America, he should also be the non elected President of the United States of Europe, and the new Head of the United Nations. Furthermore, the task of heading up the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank is also surely not beyond his capabilities.
May I suggest that Gordon immediately ask the Queen to come to No. 10 so that she can hear his proposals and that she accepts his resignation with immediate effect. He can also head up the NATO force in Aghanistan and Bin Laden should surrender immediately, because he now stands no chance.
Nothing is beyond the capabilities of Gordon, he is a colossus, he is a nose picking Aspidistra!
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#194 getridofgordonnow
I can't say I've seen him try proper debating either, but a public hustings would be hard to avoid if he does visit Glenrothes. I think Salmond is just doing hid best to make the decision to campaign or not as hard as possible for "Duff" Gordon.
If he doesn't visit his neighbouring constituency, you can be sure many will mark him down as a coward.
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#176 bubblingmaximoo: "See the stock markets today - so much for Gordy Clown and Nu Labour - he has RUINED UK plc "
Brown is even more influential than we thought, because he appears to have ruined the economies of the USA, France, Germany, Switzerland, Russia, Spain , Belgium, Holland, and South Africa. To name but a few, all with big stock market falls today.
Or is your analysis flawed in some way, perhaps?
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#197
On the proposals you referred to, the Tory spokesman said (as quoted on the Beeb):
"These proposals would mark a substantial shift in the powers of the state to obtain personal information on individuals," he said, adding: "The government must present convincing justification for such an exponential increase in the powers of the state."
In other words: the Tories are against this coalition of Labour and their Big Business pals until this increase in State monitoring is proven to be justified.
I find your twisting of the facts of the case wholly disreputable and unnecessary.
Why on earth steep so low?
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#194 getridofgordonnow: "I'd be extremely surprised if Brown ever had a public debate with anyone"
You have perhaps not heard of a place in London called Parliament, where they have public debates all the time. The Prime Minister occasionally takes part, you will obviously be surprised to hear - in fact I think he is on stage again tomorrow. You can watch live on BBC Parliament, or on the Parliament website.
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Carrots @ 186
And your point is? ...
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@ 192
... "And Sagamix wonders why 1984 gets so much mention here" ...
Mmmm, and how many of you people have actually read it? C'mon, be honest with me now.
Apart from CNAQ I mean, who obviously has not only read it but (in another life) wrote it.
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People @ 196
... "I'm sure I'm not alone in being prepared to go to prison to resist this corrupt regime" ...
back?
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That's pretty much true. Both the Tory polls and media circulation figures are equally soft. Most of that is down to the fact that both use shrill tactics to get attention and draw people into a fight but it dumbs things down and is corrosive, and not very profitable over the long-haul.
The media might like to reflect on that and consider that the short-term game of flogging a few papers and generating website hits is small compared to the losses they may suffer if the economy collapses. If nobody is in work there won't be anyone around to buy their products.
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re: 218
I have read it. It's terrifying: the Liebore party seem to be using it as an instruction manual.
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re: 219, sagamix
Beg pardon?
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sol @ 163
... "The price of gold is rocketing,"Where's our Gold"? --- RESERVES?" ...
'erewego again with this one.
You know that gold pays no interest, don't you? In fact, it pays a kind of negative interest (of around 2 pc) being the costs of security and storage.
So, let's say you sell gold and put the proceeds into an asset that pays around 4 pc interest, okay?
Right, now allowing for that weird and wonderful thing called compounding, the price of gold would have to keep almost DOUBLING every ten years in order for the decision to sell it to be financially disadvantageous.
Do you see? Can we drop this one now, please?
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180. At 5:28pm on 15 Oct 2008, flamepatricia wrote:
Are you all fed up with zen?
Me too.
I could do you a whole lot of scrolls on the apostolic succession, the meaning of Faith and why the Bible is biggest selling book of all time?
-----------------
Do you mean that all those copies were bought by individuals or just that they appear in churches , hotels and missionaries ?....
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#224 sagamix: "Can we drop this one now, please?"
I admire your optimism, but I think you are going to be disappointed. There are certain 'facts' that are held by some as articles of faith, no matter how often they are debunked - the great pension grab is another.
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#216 jimbrant
"You have perhaps not heard of a place in London called Parliament, where they have public debates all the time."
That may be what Westmidden calls debates but they are certainly not public and scripts are allowed. The US televised debates are one of the redeeming features of their quaint electoral system and there is a long tradition of public debates on the UK hustings along with a tradition of PMs lending their support to the campaigns in person.
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It's funny how some people behave like spiteful little children when they can't get their own way.
What you don't get is it just reinforces the Toxic Tory brand and innoculates Labour folks against abuse.
That's a double-whammy, dear.
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re: 180/225
I agree. If people want to talk about religion, go and find a religious forum in which to do so. While you're on NR's blog, talk about politics or shut up.
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195. At 6:15pm on 15 Oct 2008, jonathanashton
I am of the age when unemployment meant just that - there were no jobs to be had , not the unwillingness to work . Also there was a large reservoir of social housing which enabled people to move around following employment wherever it could be found . This had the effect of keeping wages for workers up as they had the skills/labour needed. Now we have the situation where most of us own our homes/houses following Thatcher's disastrous policy of selling council houses . This created a class of people who were so tied to their house that it was difficult to move - so in effect tying them to one place ( it takes a long time and lots of money to grease the palms of those who 'help' you buy and sell houses) . We now have an 21st century version of serfdom - you cannot afford to move so you take what is on offer locally - including depressed wage levels. Evictions are carried out on the orders of the local money lenders not the Barons - although the distinction is blurred...
Thatcher wanted to return us to Victorian values but I'm certain we have now regressed to Mediaeval Britain..
We have replaced freedom for slavery.
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61 shellingout
"I've felt ashamed to be British for the last 11 years!"
That says more about you than it does the government.
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175 Charles_E_Hardwidge
I'm not entirely sure what you are going on about there - but have no fear - I have no interest in copying you when speaking for myself
Although, to be fair, I did do a dodgy parody of you the other day when you got into 6th form condescension mode about something I posted.
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re: 205, grandantidote
Come on grandy, you're in your dotage. Take a few deep breaths and you might stop seeing Red.
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#186 carrots
and your point is?
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186 Carrots
We all know they have been banging on about halting boom and bust for years..........
.....but after Brown's monstrous lie - that Labour only ever referred to a move away from "Tory Boom and Bust" - it is comforting to see the evidence in black and white.
Why does Brown lie so blatantly? Also why don't the media crucify him for such blatant lies?
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196 Power-to-the-ppl
If it came to it I would go to prison to demonstrate about this dreadful government, however, I have faith in the British people to demonstrate en masse in public - and hope that I won't need to be banged up just yet!!
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ppl @ 223
what?
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Without a properly regulated banking system, the wheels of the "real economy" can't be oiled.
But, I'm still really puzzled.
On 17th September, Brown/Darling announced a coup. I was impressed at the time. After a little light cocktail party smooching, Brown was happy to allow Blank (Chairman of Lloydes TSB) to push ahead with the takeover of HBoS.
This was apparently NOT dependent on government injections of cash.
That sounded like a win - although with some concerns about competition strategy.
On Monday, this seemed to change.
1 Lloyds was to receive up to GBP5BIL as new capital.
2 Lloyds would buy HBoS for approx GBP7BIL.
(So it sounds as though Lloyds would only need GBP1.5BIL of their original resources to mop up HBoS.)
3 HBoS would receive GBP11.5BIL in order to "stabilise them".
So what I thought was a good deal - a bank consolidation, with NO state (tax payer) funding, turned into a GBP17BIL injection.
How come?
Was Lloyds NOT big enough to embrace HBoS without help?
Were the projected, combined Lloyds/HBoS
financials not as good as Brown / Darling had thought?
Where was the risk analysis from Treasury, FSA, BoE - and banks? If you called in a builder and received an estimate for a couple of hundred quid that translated into GBP 700,000 in three weeks, you'd probably check if he had spurs on his boots.
The French Finance Minister called Brown a "magician".
In three and a bit weeks, we've gone from "hands-off" to GBP 17BIL exposure.
If that's magic, I know lots of folk who could do it.
Sounds more like Voldemort than Merlin.
Where's Harry Potter when you need him?
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#228 Brownedov: "That may be what Westmidden calls debates but they are certainly not public and scripts are allowed"
I am interested in your definition of 'public'. I would have thought that the admission of members of the public, and live television coverage, is fairly public. In fact I'm not quite sure how they could be more public.
Scripts of a sort are allowed it's true; but by the nature of debate, it's difficult to work from one when dealing with an intervention (of which there are many). I am sure that you must have watched some of the live coverage, but your comments do make me wonder.
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197 Charles_E_Hardwidge
Well we are in agreement for once. I'm no phan-of-phorm.
Especially since, I understand, that BT conducted a trial in secret on unsuspecting members of the public.
You are clearly wrong, however, by trying to link this to the Conservative part - that is just mischievous.
Whilst we are on the subject - I request that you put yourself in your natural anti-Phorm state of mind and consider if the following are justifiable:
- 42 days detention without charge
- Secret inquests
- ID Cards
- National Database of Mobile phone records
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re: 238, sagamix
Nah nevermind, doesn't matter!
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209 Jimbrant
You are right - the 'terror laws' applied to Iceland date back to 2000 or so - I can't recall the exact bit of legislation - and are 'weaker sounding'.
The problem is that perception (Iceland's that is) is 9 tenths of the law. They, like we know that Gordon loves to exert excessive control over people 'in the name of combating terrorism'.
If you take a look at the press in Iceland and what people are saying there- well they are livid that they are branded as 'terrorists' by association.
Gordon - I believe - is genuinely impervious and has no idea how using this legislation could upset people and cause a diplomatic incident.
In this country - we are used to the current government wanting to snoop on us and control us - yet even we rise up with unbridled anger each time the government try and launch a new 'power to combat terrorism' on us.
No matter what they say - the government misuse these powers i.e. the old guy being chucked out of the Labour conference and people being banned from reciting the names of the dead at the Cenotaph.
Presumably the proposed new powers to track mobile phone records will not be used to keep an eye on Icelandic bankers or people who disagree with Derek Draper and the gang ;-)
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To be in Gordon Brown's gang
You must tell the public go hang,
Lie like a cheap watch
And reek of old Scotch:
For Brown the fat lady has sang!
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Most of my comment is as accurate and relevant as anything. A good portion of it leads events and media reports if you're paying attention, and you bunch rip enough off when it suits you. Personally, I reckon, you're just feeling the heat.
The CBI and Tories encourage gaming of the system for profit. Big business bullying and shareholder greed is their ethos - the City and ISP's are the same, and the Tories are their partners in crime. So, it was fair to make that connection.
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244 good point but gordons gang is that neu labour or the secret communist party that elected chairman brown big boss.
we all know that to proove you are fit to be prime minister you have to lead your party into and win a general election, do i see one coming?
i doubt it gordon knows how people feel and is busy doing every thing he can to bolster public oppinion even though he has no respect for public oppinion.
thus he will stay in his over paid underachieving job untill the very last moment.
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#240 jimbrant
Have you never been to a real public debate? If not, the ones held for the London mayoral give a flavour of them. Otherwise, watch or record the last US Presidential debate tonight - a bit tame by traditional British standards but real nonetheless.
At Westmidden, the public are off-camera and cannot heckle, comment or ask the questions - even applause is not allowed,
while the participants have aides and stooges from their own side, are allowed to read scripts, have no compulsion to answer the questions and usually don't.
Chalk vs Cheese
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#229
All I have said within my small insignificant effort is to say what a wonderful fellow Gordon is. Of course he should head up the International Monetary Fund and the World bank, what's your problem do you actually disagree with me that Gordon is somehow the greatest individual now alive on the planet.
It is obvious that with his popularity labour must win the Glenrothes bye-election. Surely it must be agreed that there is absolutely no way that Gordon Brown will not go to Glenrothes and that with his immense intellect and popularity labour will win. I mean he has saved the Scottish banks and Scottish jobs, don't even try to insult my intelligence by saying otherwise. Oh, and please stop putting the clocks back for Scottish farmers, put them forward to save energy!
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Iain Dale writes:
Someone I know who used to work at Labour HQ has told me a tale which goes some way to explaining why Gordon Brown isn't hugely popular among party staffers.
Just after Brown became Prime Minister, the then General Secretary of the Labour Party thought it would be a good morale building exercise if Gordon Brown payed a visit to Party HQ to meet and rally the troops. The PM agreed and so one day last summer he turned up at Labour's Victoria Street offices to deliver a pep talk. All was going swimingly. He made a short speech, then toured the open plan offices, stopping at each person's desk for a quick word.
After he had left, the excited party officials, still high on the adrenaline of meeting their hero, compared notes on their respective conversations with the PM.
"He said 'how's your desk?'" said the first woman. "That's funny, that's exactly what he asked me," said someone else. "And me," said a third. And so it went on.
It turned out that the only thing Gordon Brown could think of to say was to ask everyone if they were happy with the position of their desks.
I was telling someone this story this afternoon and they made a very telling remark. "Of course, stories like this could be apocryphal, but the fact that I can quite believe it to be true says it all.". As Shane Greer constantly reminds me, perception is everything.
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So the markets are collapsing in spite of WONDER GORD the new hero of the world....
It was inevitable.
The problem in the global economy [massively and overly simplified] could be compared to a tyre that has a big puncture. There is a great big hole in it. Brown's answer? Blow more air in. So he borrows billions and billions and a few hundred billions more (and he could not find a few million to pay our police, remember) and keeps on a blowing. The air is obviously going to leak out into the same places that the other air went. But this is reported as some brave and brilliant saving of the tyre.
Why has it not occured to anyone to FIX THE BLOODY HOLE???
Obviously that is too much for the fool Brown to understand. Anything not written in the book, "Creating massive structural debt and hyperinflation for dummies" that Brown uses is clearly beyond his limited understanding.
But the cause of the "lack of trust" in the banking system is because the inherrant flaw in fractional reserve banking of fiat currencies means that the triple A rated securities filling the 1.2 QUADRILLION DOLLAR global derivatives market are FULL of loans made of NOTHING.
Until that elephant, nay, herd of mammoths in the room are addressed, the markets will continue to fall. WHY? Because the 1.2 Quadrillion dollars that are tied up in that global derivatives market is greater than the total amount of all the "money" available in the world today. The only way America and Europe can pay their debts, is for the printing presses to go into overdrive to the extent whereby the American/European economies will be transformed into a good impression of the Zimbabwean economy.
Successive labour and Conservative Governments have done NOTHING to stop this, although the worst of this bubble has been created in the last 10 years since the dot-com boom and bust.
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229 Charles_E_Hardwidge
You were commenting on an e-mail which referenced the famous Gordon 'pick-and-eat-bogeys' video.
When re-reading that little exchange - I had just been reading some guff on politics in the US.
Switching between the two - I realised that if the Conservatives wanted to - they could major on that nose-picking video - and that would sway a huge volume of women voters away from Labour.
That video of Gordon eating his own bogeys (I know I'm generalising - I apologise) would really turn womens opinion. Women are more likely to 'think about who they vote for' than vote the same way always, unlike their male counterparts. That is why Women are always the primary target for any aspiring party - that video is dangerous for Gordon.
I do hope, however, that the Conservatives don't do dirty tricks campaign and fight on policy only.
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#210
Carrots. you left-wing New Labour spinmeister you ;)
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207. DistantTraveller
Just quoting what was said.... draw your own conclusions.
Me... Im neutral on the lies of politicians, they all lie equally.
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#251
Sadly, as you know, it won't be the case. Take, for example, the "Brown Annual Report" personal attack document released this summer, in which "Jonah Brown" was blamed for e.g. England losing the rugby world cup final and Arsenal not winning the league. 'Miliband eats bananas' was also a valid political attack around conference time. Brown is "strange" and "faintly autistic". Not like you and me. You can expect a lot of personal attacks.
Take the nose-picking video - the allies of the Conservatives are sure to make sure that the public has attention.
But it's politics. Politicians fight dirty. It is only to be criticised when the words "toff", Bullingdon club" or "silver spoon" are used. Then it is really out of order.
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trumpets.
trumpets.
bring out the trumpets.
:)
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252. balhamu
LOL
How easy was that.
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239. At 8:44pm on 15 Oct 2008, fairlyopenmind wrote:
So what I thought was a good deal - a bank consolidation, with NO state (tax payer) funding, turned into a GBP17BIL injection.
Well, it was better than Alex Salmond's comment that he would have given 100 billion to prop up HBOS!
Closely followed by one of his MSPs raising a motion to return Mary Queen of Scots to Scotland.
Shows what a wonderful parliament we have up here.......
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235. derekbarker
Try and keep up Derek.
This is not exactly a fast moving debate
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I notice the Tories are bigging themselves up and trying to sow fear again. Really, it just goes to prove how deeply welded they are to the Toxic Tory mindset. Any fool can parrot policy but what matters is attitude, and bad attitude will unravel the Tory campaign as surely as the Republican campaign is beginning to unravel.
Osbornes small perspective and Cameron's attitude made them incapable of handling the economic crisis. Simply, they didn't have the architectural and flexible mind that Gordon Brown has. The general election campaign is equally unreachable for them as the Tory mindset is out of touch with the underlying fundamentals.
From what I can tell, Tory Central Office, the Tory front bench, and the Tory grassroots campaign are locked in. They don't get it nor can they change in time. If they could change in time they'd still have a problem executing that change and convincing people. Those polls are very soft and when Labour closes to engage the Tories are going to be in a spot of bother.
Don't say I didn't warn you.
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#253
Such a sad thought "they all lie equally"
If we dont have trust,then what can we trust.........certainly not carrots..chill out "KID"
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Re 218.
Until they rebel (the proletariat) won't become enlightened. Until they become enlightened they won't rebel.
If you want to imagine the future - imagine a steel boot crushing a human face - for ever.
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117. At 2:36pm on 15 Oct 2008, Pot_Kettle wrote:
In the recent Newsnight poll of the PM's since the war. Churchill came top (I think many were coloured by his war perfomance rather than his post war efforts)
Apologies for 2 posts in quick succession.
Churchill was inspirational, but also bloody dangerous. He nearly got us in conflict with Russia in 1940 for starters. Added to his Gallipoli plan during WW1 the man add times gambled a lot on his own ideas. Don't want to take away what he did, but he nearly dropped Britain in it a few times.
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218. sagamix
.....Mmmm, and how many of you people have actually read it? C'mon, be honest with me now.
You people!... thats not very socialist... is it citizen?
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[quote]I've already commented that I get no sense of a recession[/quote]
[quote]The Tories have been trying to talk Britain into recession [/quote]
If you ever wanted a precis of Brown's attitude to power and the preservation of it then you would have to look no further than the above quotations.
That is, simply deny even the most conspicuous of awkward political facts up until the point at which they are forced to concede them. At which point attempt to construct an extraordinarily tenuous argument to try, in any way possible, to deflect the blame from themselves.
I have always had the impression over the Blair and Brown years that the Labour Party has had real difficulty in grasping the nature of governance. Even now, 11 years on, their default dictum is the criticism of economic policies 15 or more years ago. The denial involved in ignoring that it is the same fundamental economic policy which has been followed for the last 11 years has reached epic proportions. And you can see this psyche, rooted in opposition, running through (in particular) the second half of the last decade; policy based on the effect it has on the opposition. At the lowest ebb of Brown's premiership the line from the cabinet was effectively "well what would the Tories do? What are their ideas?"
Hopefully they won't have a long wait to find out.
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217. sagamix
Well it was sort of a response to real-truth at 9 about whether Brown lied in his interview. (see link at 9)
Brown denied he ever said boom or bust, and that he just said Tory boom and bust.
These quotes show that he did not and even when he did say Tory boom and bust he meant .... ah what ever....
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Have the notting hill bankers gone bust on ideas.
Has anybody seen Camera On Cameron over the past few days.
Last I heard, was he and the notting hill gang were moving their stash of cash into a publically owned bank.
Ken DoDD still prefers hiding his stash under the mattress.
Cilla Black has a blind date with her bank manager to...0'ooooo.to be a tory Eh...
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260. derekbarker
No idea, but I do know you cant trust any of them.
Actually they dont all lie equally. Some lie a lot more than others.
I think a carrot would make a much better PM. (not me.. a real Carrot, Im a fake)
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Yes you are right, Jonathan, no woman I know would vote for a man who does this:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6VaP1HB7Vew
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#264 Ed2003
If you want formatting on these blogs, you need to use HTML not the [] type of formatting. For what works and what doesn't, see my #84 on the New ways into blogs thread and my #75 on the same thread containing more about HTML.
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Does the ex Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone have no shame? He keeps on turning up at City Hall to haunt Boris.
We voted Boris in with a fantastic majority. Ken just doesn't get it does he? Hasn't he got a home to go to - after all he has five children by three different women, surely one of them will take him in?
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Nice one Gordon
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#267
Yes! indeed you are a fake.....
sssssssuperb.......carrots(another magna carta moment)
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#251
This is a very valid point. The thing is I really don't think the tories would use the bogey card. But on the flip side the Labour party have already tried, unsuccessfully, to use the toff card. I think at this stage the Labour Party would do anything to win favour with the electorate using dirty tricks.
Contrary to popular belief in grass roots ground work, I have tried to get some information from my local MP Janet Anderson and haven't heard a thing. No doubt nearer the election she will be knocking on the door.
On a national level Labour make themselves look like they're with and for the people and paint the conservatives with the brush of the 80's and early 90's. They blanche though when compared to Labour of the 70's.
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I prefer your earlier rounded economic view over some of the more distorted views I've seen and, I believe, Labour are tilting more in this direction. I find that that mature position more appealing and digestible than the boom and bust campaign mentality of the Tory party.
The near splintering of the Labour party and sustained Tory attacks have just helped make Labour more coherent, purposeful, and resilient. Cameron is inexperienced so was a little brittle and pushy. Ultimately, this strengthed Labour and weakened his own position.
The Tao comments on the 'low road'. By getting under a problem and pushing up, Labour are more connected with creating real solutions and jobs. This will naturally appeal to men and women concerned with home life and livelihoods.
Gordon Brown's personality is similar to Hannibal of Carthage, but he's learned from Hannibal's mistakes. Meanwhile, the Tories are playing copycat and have crossed the Alps. Hannibal could've taken a deal but ended up committing suicide. Unless the Tories let go they will share this fate.
They're actually doing rather well at the moment. I get the impression that pennies have dropped in a few minds and they're getting their sea legs. Meanwhile, the Tories keep betraying their lack of humanity at every turn. In such an unfair fight the Tories should be grateful that Labour are being so kind about things. Perhaps, in time, they will learn to be kind as well.
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jcook @ 251
... "they could major on that nose-picking video - and that would sway a huge volume of women voters away from Labour" ...
Yes it would - but, by the same token, a fair few men would probably move the other way. You know, as in the Freddie Flintoff effect.
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carrots @ 265
... "Brown denied he ever said boom or bust" ...
Well that's none too clever of him, if it's true, because he's on film saying it approximately sixty odd times.
But I don't see why he should be cagey on this one. This is not boom and bust we're seeing now - it's more bubble and slump, which is a totally different thing.
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There is no way Gordon is a new Churchill.
Gordon is the Chamberlain of the Banking crisis. Both uttered platitudes to a complaisant parliament,and press, while through inaction and misguided action leaving this country in a near-hopeless position.
For Brown to claim credit for the last few day's actions, wile ignoring his errors as Chancellor, is like Chamberlain claiming credit for declaring war in September 1939, while disclaiming all responsibility for appeasement and his failure to re-arm. Both Brown and Chamberlain even spun headlines, in Chamberlain's case rewriting his sacrifice of Czechoslovakia into a headline of "Peace in our time", while Gordon spins six months dithering into "decisive action".
Don't sully a war hero's reputation. Brown is the spiritual successor of the idiot who was responsible for much of this country's grief in the world war.
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weej @ 261
... "If you want to imagine the future - imagine a steel boot crushing a human face - for ever" ...
That's a very powerful sentence. It's extremely evocative and not a little frightening - is it from a book or something?
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259 this only shows party politic for what it is.
any member has to think party first then any thing else. party politics as a form of country leadership no longer works and should be removed.
the parties working for power will do almost anything to get what they want labour will borrow ideas from anywhere and call them theirs, liberals and tories do the same so to be honest they are all as corrupt as each other. as a country we would be better off with out party politics.
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PTTP @ 242
... "Nah nevermind, doesn't matter!" ...
Mmmm maybe not but I'll tell you what does matter - at the risk of seeming to be obsessed with trivia, I am starting to get very spooked by the fact that GB wears only purple ties. It's not the same one, the shades vary a little, but his tie is ALWAYS purple. What's happening there?
It's not just Gordon either, the Darling is getting up to exactly the same tricks with his tie - any colour so long as it's purple.
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# 253 carrots
"Just quoting what was said.... draw your own conclusions"
Yes, but surely when Brown was repeatedly saying "no return to boom and bust" (# 186) obviously he didn't literally mean "no return to boom and bust". I mean, Brown couldn't have been wrong about this, could he?
He was obviously talking about a different sort of "boom and bust", wasn't he? Either that, or it was a slip of the tongue.
Anyway, he's stopped mentioning it now. At least the BBC still shows him the proper respect that is rightfully due to a great leader, and doesn't keep tormenting him the way some of the other news channels do.
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#277
cyborgs and the cynosarges
That does sound odd....are you also about to burst out with the swan song.
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When the Lloyds HBOS deal looked like being a success Brown claimed all the glory for the deal - now it is in doubt Darling has just said on Newsnight it was arranged between the chairmen of the two organisations.
I don't fullly get the economics of the "Brown Deal" but what incentive is there for a shareholder to give up their rights to dividends for as long as the government hold preferential shares, naively I assumed that dividends would be paid to all if the bank were profitable but at a reduced rate and the loans would be repaid over a period of time for stability.
If people starting bailing out of the banks we will be back at square one.
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#261
Weej.....what..steel....what.....boot..what..
Rebel without a clue...........................................
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278 - Yes from 1984 George Orwell.
O'Brien - the Government agent provacateur speaks it when discussing politics with the main Character Winston Smith
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"balhamu wrote:
#251
But it's politics. Politicians fight dirty. It is only to be criticised when the words "toff", Bullingdon club" or "silver spoon" are used. Then it is really out of order."
If we have the picture of Gordon Brown picking his nose on placards during by-elections then I can see your point.
There is a world of difference between the Tory supporting bloggers bringing it up and the local Labour party dressing up as a "Tory toff" at a recent by-election!
With that mentality I am surprised they didn't turn up at Scottish by-elections in ginger wigs and kilts!
Labour bloggers will call Tories toffs (ignoring the fact that the last Labour PM was an ex-public schoolboy and the last three Tory PMs went to Grammar schools) as if somehow being privately educated should be a barrier to serving as an MP.
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280. sagamix
Wasn't purple the preserve of Royalty ???
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Hmph. That old one. I note, the ones braying loudest are hiding behind anonymous names and a mob.
Maybe it it's just me, but I find the lack of insight and rudeness just confirms how broken Britain's economic fundamentals are.
The British have the economy they deserve. If you want a better economy you have to be better people.
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274. At 10:40pm on 15 Oct 2008, Charles_E_Hardwidge wrote:
'Brown is "strange" and "faintly autistic". Not like you and me.'
I have been unable to find the original - albeit at this time of night my concentration is diminishing..
But - whoever wrote the piece and I do not believe in censorship so no moderator for this - should take into account those who are autistic.
My younger son is high end autistic - his socialising needs help but he has a keen mind - he has a very great interest in the outcome of the US Presidential race and is a strong believer in fairness and justice . His 'hero' is Martin Luther King and he hopes for a world of peace and fairness . Perhaps we would all benefit from being like him .
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This comment has been referred to the moderators. Explain.
# 251 jonathan_cook
"I realised that if the Conservatives wanted to - they could major on that nose-picking video - and that would sway a huge volume of women voters away from Labour."
Gordon will always be the bogey-man for some of us, but to be honest, I would rather he was picking his nose than picking our pockets.
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re: 280, sagamix
Maybe it's to save him the trouble of having to think for himself?
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4 of the 113 letters about the government's new diplomas have been supportive
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281. DistantTraveller
Oh quite right he meant an end to the Tory version, and the only way to end that was to end Tory rule.
What we have now is a Labour bust. its completely different.
So mission accomplished.
(As another great man recently proclaimed)
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Outstanding, #186, 'Boom and Bust' !!
GC
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weej @ 285
... "Yes from 1984 by George Orwell" ...
Sorry, never heard of it.
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jabber @ 287
... "Wasn't purple the preserve of Royalty ???" ...
Yes, for the Romans, I believe. When a new emperor was annointed, the saying was that he had been launched "into the Purple".
Hail Caesar!
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276 Sagamix
Ha! Gordon would be proud of you!!
You say this is not a "Boom and Bust" it is a "Bubble and Slump".
Gordon likes to do the same doesn't he?
This is not "spend" it is "investment". This is not "increased taxes" to help the NHS it is "an additional contribution", this is not a "recession" it is "difficult economic times".
10 Red Lenin points to you and a smiley face - Karl Marx House wins!!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
275 Sagamix
Well - it is an interesting tactic - get Brown drunk, stick him in a pedalo and then video him.
I'm not sure it would win him any votes - although the blood pressure of the public would improve if Brown pedalled off into the sunset of course.
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so balhamu finally concedes hat Northern Rock has 117bn of assets taken on by the government.
Hpw far can house prices fall? How long s a piece of string? But these were the people offering 130% mortgages so I suspect this will take some time to sort out.
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@ 298
Bubble and slump is a whole different sack of spuds to boom and bust. B&B is for amateurs ...
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#289 jabber,
Cameron called Brown "that strange man in Number 10" in an interview last year - google the quote and you should find it.
George Osborne's (shadow chancellor) insult was less direct, in that he didn't say the words himself. He was recalling his ability to memorise obscure facts at a seminar with some journalists, they joked that he is "faintly autistic" and he replied that "we're not onto Gordon Brown" yet. Google "faintly autistic" + Osborne and you should find lots of articles about it.
Whether the latter counts as a slur on autism, or light-hearted banter on the spur of the moment is for you to make your own mind up about.
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#289 jabber,
Cameron called Brown "that strange man in Number 10" in an interview last year - google the quote and you should find it.
George Osborne's (shadow chancellor) insult was less direct, in that he didn't say the words himself. He was recalling his ability to memorise obscure facts at a seminar with some journalists, they joked that he is "faintly autistic" and he replied that "we're not onto Gordon Brown" yet. Google "faintly autistic" + Osborne and you should find lots of articles about it.
Whether the latter counts as a slur on autism, or light-hearted banter on the spur of the moment is for you to make your own mind up about.
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#289 jabber,
Cameron called Brown "that strange man in Number 10" in an interview last year - google the quote and you should find it.
George Osborne's (shadow chancellor) insult was less direct, in that he didn't say the words himself. He was recalling his ability to memorise obscure facts at a seminar with some journalists, they joked that he is "faintly autistic" and he replied that "we're not onto Gordon Brown yet". Google "faintly autistic" + Osborne and you should find lots of articles about it.
Whether the latter counts as a slur on autism, or light-hearted banter on the spur of the moment is for you to make your own mind up about.
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The simple observation remains - the country is not "well placed to weather the economic storm" as Darling, Brown and other ministers have parroted since the beginning of the year, it is uniquely badly placed to weather the storm. Having made that observation, you then have to look at the reasons why:
1. Chancellor Brown deficit spent throughout the good times - that was totally irresponsible and has left the Government finances in no fit state to cope with the economic crisis.
2. The Government failed to regulate the banking and mortgage industry properly over the past 10 years - the blame for this lies squarely with Gordon Brown, since he created the regulatory framework in 1997 which has failed us.
3. The Government actually encouraged the irresponsible lending practices which got the banks into trouble in the first place and the even want to start it again (a condition of the baliout is that the banks resume lending at 2007 levels). The Government allowed this mess to be created, because they wanted to ride the feel good factor of ever rising property prices and cheap credit.
Brown is guilty of gross mismanagement of the UK economy and he should take no satisfaction from the bank rescue, which is only necessary in part because of his failed policies as Chancellor!
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224. sagamix
A great little video about gold, banking and debt
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Today is as good a day to reflect as any other, and this is my Hardwedge moment.
We are in the middle of a storm and things are happening that might not all add up.
Stock market prices are falling suggesting that investors are getting into cash, that good old fashioned commodity that used to get stuffed under the mattress.
Prices of government securities are falling because interest rates are high, and underlying inflation rates are increasing, suggesting no immediate let up in the pressure, and investors are getting into cash.
Gold prices, and those of other precious metals, which are normally the investment of choice in troubled times, are falling, suggesting investors are getting into cash.
The oil price, and the price of other commodities, is falling, suggesting investors are getting into cash.
So where?s all this cash going, since the world?s collective mattress arrangements won?t be able to accept it all?
Actually it isn?t going anywhere, otherwise the banks would not be needing a ?financial bail out?.
What is happening is that speculators, who have future positions in these instruments (futures, options etc.) are unwinding their positions, lowering the prices without physical trades and reducing the pressure for banks to lend. Eventually this will transfer itself into an actual reduction of the banks? balance sheet, rendering a rescue totally unnecessary.
We are experiencing a phenomenon that is unique, in that the world?s financial systems seem to be imploding, but think. The price of oil has come down, but has our need for it diminished in the past two weeks? In any case, once the dust settles, the producers will just rein back production till the price goes back to an acceptable level for them.
The price of raw materials may now be low, which includes foodstuffs. Has our overall requirement for them diminished totally? Yes there is a cyclical cut back by the Chinese manufacturing sector, but is that viewed as permanent?
So our gallant politicians have come riding to the rescue with vast amounts of OUR money to throw at the problem. Are we better off now than we were this time last week? I think not.
Now, however, we have inserted some extra problems that we didn?t have before, and the meddlesome fingers of societies? dead weight are stuck firmly in our pie.
Is this whole thing the fault of the traders who lost sight of the extent of their trading versus the real world?
Is it the fault of bank management who didn?t fully understand the magnitude of the risks they were running?
Is it the fault of the regulators who were supposed to oversee what was being done, but had absolutely no understanding of what it was, and no powers to intervene, even if they knew how?
Is it the fault of the bureaucrats/civil servants whose only ability is to organize committees, conduct inquiries after the event, and appoint inept individuals to run regulatory bodies, and have no concept of what it involves?
Is it the fault of elected politicians who set the policies that the regulatory framework interprets and palpably fails to apply effectively.
You might think that blame can be fairly apportioned everywhere, and those at fault will pay a price, normally by losing their job.
Traders and management of banks are either gone or going. We can get rid of the politicians at the next election. Now we need a clear out of failed regulators and inept bureaucrats.
Wonder if El Gordo is still regarded as the saviour, and if the rest of Europe really thinks he is Wonderwoman, Batman, Superman and Spiderman all wrapped up in one cosy little bundle? Or is he known better as Blunderman?
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#301 Robin,
I 'conceded' nothing. I was merely saying that, even assuming you are right (i.e. the book value of NR mortgages is £117 bn), it makes little difference to the potential debt. It's funny how there is little pressure on you to source the figures you use compared to those who disagree with you - I've seen the £100 billion quoted in several places.
I note you side-stepped my questions as you always do. I ask again:
* What % of NR mortgage holders will default in a worse case? (is it 100%)
* What decline in house price value do you think we will see? (is it 100% - could houses be worth £0 in the end)
* What will be the average LTV ratio of defaulters? (is it 100%). I have some more stats on this now - the average LTV ratio on all NR mortgages was 77.4% in September 2007.
Only if you answer, 100% to all 3 questions, is the potential debt the full amount.
I'm interested to see if you can sustain a potential debt above £10 billion in a plausible worst-case scenario.
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302 Sagamix
I think you are probably correct in one sense....
....you do indeed get the feeling that this "Bubble and Slump" is going to be far more catastrophic in terms of numbers unemployed, houses repossessed etc than any normal old recession.
You sort of wish that Brown hadn't escaped the last recession that impacted most of the rest of the world by fuelling lending and stoking the housing market don't you?
Of course - politically it would have been a disaster for Brown to allow a "boom and bust" during the last round of recessions when he was Chancellor - so the alternative was to pour petrol on and fuel the boom.
Now, however, the bust is inevitable. We have had not 'correction' in the financial or housing market, since we dodged the last recession, for a long while. That means that the current fall will be far harder than if Brown hadn't falsely stoked the boom period.
So when you start to see the numbers of unemployed increase, more houses repossessed and the level of poverty and anger on the streets rise - ask yourself this question:
"Was protecting one mans political reputation over claims of ending boom and bust, worth the pain inflicted on millions during the subsequent larger collapse?"
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re: 216 jimbrant
If you think that the house of commons is a place where the PM has real debates then you're even more deluded than the rest of the labour apologists.
PMQs is nothing more than a sick joke. The PM never answers any questions, the speaker never enforces the rules (ie never forces the PM to answer, and never chastises him when he tells blatant lies).
Similar situation for ministers in parliament; no real debates happen there. Similar situation when it comes to BBC interviews, which are also a joke.
I'll give you an example; if a real member of the public confronted Brown on the 10p tax band doubling, then Brown would be forced to admit that:
1) He's a liar
or
2) He's an idiot
or
3) He's a lying idiot
But he won't put himself in that situation where he has to answer a question to a real person, because it'll illustrate to everyone listening that he is indeed a lying idiot.
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Sagamix
The job centre shot at the top of the page is definitely from the period of Tory boom and bust.
If it were Labour bubble and slump then the guy would be wearing a nice little number from Savile Row.
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To all those labour supporters who keep telling us that Brown is the saviour of the planet, and that everyone's following his lead.
You should have watched the newsnight interview last night with the french finance minister.
In that interview, the bbc (with it's labour sub-department hat firmly in place) told the french finance minister that Brown was the saviour of the world, that everyone else had followed his lead, and that he had therefore saved the whole world, including france, who otherwise would have collapsed in a heap of quivering jelly without his supreme assistance.
The first time the BBC said that, the minister was more than a bit annoyed, because they were at the original meeting and knew it wasn't true. The second time the BBC said the same thing 5 seconds later the minister was starting to understand what the BBC is all about.
In fact, she said that the reason the rest of europe had to act so urgently was because some (implying the uk) economies were so badly prepared/effected for/by the crisis, that the rest of europe had no choice but to act in the way that they did. So, in fact, she was saying that europe was bailing out Brown's failed economy, but that most of the other economy's were relatively safe/fine because they'd been run properly.
Suffice to say, perhaps bbc/labour think that brown is God, but the rest of the world most definitely do not. The french minister seemed to think it was mostly Brown who personally created the entire crisis in the first place, and they're far from happy with him.
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#232 grandantidote
"That says more about you than it does the government"
If being ashamed to be British means that I think our soldiers should be much better equipped to fight wars, that our hospitals should be clean and free of germs which could kill us, that our pensioners should be looked after and given a decent standard of living, and that every man, woman and child should be able to walk the streets at night without fear of being attacked, then you're right - I am ashamed to be British.
By your own volition you obviously don't think these points are very important. 'Nuff said.
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#311 getridofgordonnow
I think you forgot the 4th option, as used at the NuLab conference: YOU are an idiot for not understanding that I was very concerned about you.
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When I try to castigate
A pompous poster called Chuck
No more than minutes after it appears, my post's
Knocked off by some censorious critic
Elated by his sense of power, he
Remains a target of just ridicule.
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Not sure whether or not 'strange man' is an insult....
We should recall, however, that the phrase 'psychologically flawed' did not come from the Tories, but from deep inside Nu Labour.
And even they, on occasion, can hit the mark.
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#313 getridofgordonnow
Watched the same interview. Felt that the interviewer very much pressed the point to get agreement from the interviewee. That pressure was withstood with polite firmness and not a small degree of disbelief.
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#316 MaxSceptic
I have acquired the useful habit of skipping past everything Fraudwidge writes here. Not ideal, but on balance great, because I save my time and his by not responding therefore he has no reason to arbitrarily involve the Moderators on spurious pretexts.
Job's a good 'un
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#316
Maxsceptic - are you power_to_the_ppl, or do you just share a great talent for entertaining poetry?
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#317
What about "faintly autistic" - that was more the point.
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S'wonderful. Now the audit commission admits to having 10 million in the Icelandic banks.
I don't know who's dominoes we are playing with, or who's stacking them up, but we've lent money to Iceland, we're lending them more to help them repay us, they in turn are borrowing from the Russians (any strings attached, I wonder?), and the Russians have closed their markets altogether.
Now I wonder how much the Russians might have to start charging end users (us, in case you haven't guessed) for oil and gas coming down their wonderful pipelines?
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#322 T'uga
This really is just the thin edge of the wedge. Have we borrowed all this money from other countries, or have the government just printed more? One of my friends (who's in the finance sector) says it's the latter.
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~balhamu
of course I don't asnwer all your questions as most of them are dull and irrelevant and this is a discussion not an exam.
The amount of assets taken onto the government books in the rescue of Northern Rock is 117bn pounds.
This is a combination of mortgages and 'together' loans (unsecured).
The LTV figure you give is as irrelevant as it is wrong... the whole reason this bank got inot trouble is it did not have enough equity to support the enormous loan book and it funded the difference in a wholesale credit marekt that is now defunct.
However, Northern Rock chose to add another layer of stupidity to this exercise and give out money in unsecured loans to people who had just bought a house with a 100 percent mortgage. Your LTV is fictitious.
House prices could fall 40% according to the Halifax; change the assumption of your schoolboy calculations and the tax payer is on risk for multiples of those you allege. Surprise surprise... this is the way with newlabour; every mathematical calculation has been made using the most fragile of assumptions.
Time to call an election.
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#288
Please note that I do not hide from anybody or anything. I have my own family experience with a member of my family being given an honourable discharge from the army because of his beliefs, no court martial for him.
If a soldier is going to kill anybody because of orders from above then those orders must be, above else, honourable and based on an explicit trust. It is my belief that those orders were neither of the aforementioned.
Everybody has to understand that we have occupied a foreign country, Iraq, based on a premise which was not absolutely honest. I am of the firm belief that the sending of our soldiers to war should not have been sanctioned. Our soldiers signed up to protect their Queen and Country, not to kill innocent women and children, and possibly torture freedom fighters who are attempting to remove foreign invaders from their country.
People are right to criticise Tony Blair for what he has done, but there are many others who share his shame, they should not be allowed to escape. The main individual I now hold in complete contempt is Gordon Brown who paid for this war, and has done nothing since coming to power, except to authorise our ignominious retreat from Basra, and who now allows substantial sums of money to be given to our former enemies. Why have so many died, what has it achieved.
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288
Maybe it it's just me, but I find the lack of insight and rudeness just confirms how broken Britain's economic fundamentals are.
The British have the economy they deserve. If you want a better economy you have to be better people.
So we have an utterly trashed economy and it's all our fault. Well, to a point it is 'all our fault'. We, as a people, elected this government three times in a row despite beaucoup evidence that they were borrowing and squandering our future and spitting in our face. Iraq war. Pensions plundering, increased taxes.
They have doubled national debt. Gordon Brown, while claiming umpty quarters of continuous growth as entirely due to his economic brilliance managed to borrow and squander more money than all British chancellors in history added together.
More even than right incompetents like James Callaghan and Dennis Healy.
And still, by a cynical denial of plain truth about the true nature of this borrow and squander miracle they managed to get re-elected and continue with their scorched earth economics.
Which is why we are where we are. Even now though, for Brown, it's all about blaming somebody else. So, after 11 years when he was quite happy to claim the reflected credit from an insane government and consumer borrowing binge when the banks eventually stop lending whose fault is it?
The banks! The yanks!
If only they'd keep on leveraging even more debt out of weird mathematical constructs we'd be able to borrow even more money and march heroically, ever-onwards, into a perpetually borrowing future.
Others have pointed out that a few weeks ago when the initial LLoyds-HBoS merger was announced to temporary stock-market relief he was puffing out his chest and claiming credit. No mention of 37bn at that stage. Kidding on that it was something he'd got into his head over the weekend when we know that the two banks were being forced together months before that. So either he was only informed very late on and somebody else has taken charge behind the scenes (which is what I suspect) or he's being his customary disingenuous self. We'll have to examine the exact wording to find out where he's left room for sophistry.
Now he's claiming credit for an idea that worked for the Swedes even though Merkel has been trying for months to get global agreement around precisely the same idea. Ex-CEO's of banks have been banging on about it for months. But no. It's got to be an all-night session to avoid systemic meltdown on Monday morning. Meltdown and negative sentiment being faithfully bled into the system by Robert Peston. Hurray for Gordon, saviour of the free world. Eh? Wot?
The proof it wasn't his idea at all comes from the conditions attached to the 'deal'. Demanding 12% interest and that banks return lending rates to 2007 levels. Those will be his ideas all right. The ones that demonstrate complete lack of financial sense. How can the banks generate 12% interest when the problem they have is that whoever they now lend to - other banks, corporations, individuals clearly has very reduced ability to repay them the money in the first place. And return lending to 2007 levels?
Helllllloooooo. It was lending at 2007 levels on dodgy collateral that got us to this over-borrowed gates-of-hell position. We need to turn our back on the gates of hell not ram-raid them with 37bn of tax-payers money.
What was he doing for the previous 11 years? How did we get to this point on his watch?
He really is the Backdraft chancellor. Locks us in the house. Pours petrol through the letterbox and congratulates himself on igniting a really good blaze and then, at the last moment, throws an axe through the window so we can climb out over the broken glass and expects us to be grateful.
I don't think so.
The UK is on very dangerous ground with this catastrophe of a PM. I cannot stress enough how he is uniquely responsible for the unfolding disaster befalling the UK. It saddens me greatly that he has any support at all in the country. Sure, hate Thatch if that's what floats your boat but to imagine for one second that Gordon Brown, the man who poured petrol through the letterbox, is the man to save the UK economy is beyond me.
The man is utterly off the high-board.
He has destroyed the UK economy single handedly through a combination of neglect, deliberate destruction and machiavellian sophistry and the only question now is will the 18 months he has left enable him to grind it into fine sand or will we still have a few rocks left from which to build a shelter by the time he's finished.
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#313 To all those labour supporters who keep telling us that Brown is the saviour of the planet, and that every one's following his lead.
The "Master of the Universe" plan had nothing to do with Gordon Brown, he should thank Peter Sands and Richard Meddings of the Standard Charted Bank for the plan.
But then Gordon Brown was always the last to admit his own mistake and acknowledge the contribution of others.
Now the recession; that's Gordon Brown's. Too much private and government debt allowed him to think he was the Master of the Universe.
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#313 getridofgordonnow
Just listened to it - perhaps unsurprising was how many times the interviewer tried to get her to say something nice about "Duff" Gordon ultimately without success.
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balhamu @320
No, I'm all - and just - me.
Thanks for the compliment.
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#323 Shellingout
Its a bit of both actually. Whilst the government hasn't actually printed the billions it has hurled into financial maelstrom, it has introduced them into the money supply, and that's the worrying thing.
These boys and girls actually think they're untouchable, and that we, the thinkiing and voting public, are in fact morons. Well, some of us may be, but the majority........
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@ 278:
"weej @ 261
... "If you want to imagine the future - imagine a steel boot crushing a human face - for ever" ...
That's a very powerful sentence. It's extremely evocative and not a little frightening - is it from a book or something?"
Yup it is from the liberal version of the new labour security for dummies handbook AKA 1984 by George Orwell.
The labour party are going much much further in oppressing the people than that book ever dared venture.
Travel forward to Charles_E_Hardwidge's favoured future, January 2015. Labour (being the zen geniuses that CEH knows they are) have mysteriously won the 2010 with only 25% share of the vote.
They are already monitoring every single thing we all do at all times. It started with all our phone calls, emails, web-browsing habbits, went on to all our journeys. and now all our medical details and purchases are stored on the national Identity register. We have to swipe our ID cards every time we make a purchase.
Why are they doing this? Remember what the ID card was ORIGINALLY to be called?
That's right, an ENTITLEMENTS card. and now it is compulsaryWhy?
Well after the state had tracked all our activities for a while, it built up a threat profile on each of us. That is being used to grant our entitlements under the growing fascist state. All our purchases, travel, communications, personal friend and family networks, our work networks etc etc are being constantly monitored for evidence of "terrorist" activity. Trouble is, ANYTHING this state disagrees with is branded as terrorist, or potentially terrorist activity. From riding a bike on the pavement, to reading names of the dead at the cenataph, to complaining that another home office department has lost your personal data again and you have been the victim of ID fraud AGAIN!!!
If we are good compliant little slaves, then we will are entitled to a reletively quiet life of servitude to the state. 13 hour days in another quango, editing and copying files and losing them, just to earn enough money to pay for the Government's 55 trillion pound debt to the central bank. (it was smaller but with inflation at 200% PA...
However, if we are so troublesome as to still believe in anything as dangerous as individual liberty and freedom. (Other than you are free to do as the state tells you), then you will find you can no longer access any of the essential government services that you may require. Your entitlements will be restricted. Your ID card no longer opens the door at casualty!
If you visit the wrong websites, or buy the wrong books, or write a letter of complaint to the BBC, You will be branded a potential terrorist. If you complain further then your entitlements are restricted further and further until, the headlines report another suspected terrorist has been detained, without charge or trial.
I am going to vote Conservative to HOPEFULLY avoid the above scenario, as I cannot possibly believe that we can avoid the above with a continuation of labour in power.
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Market Data elsewhere on the BBC is awash with red figures. The Dow Jones dropped almost 8% yesterday. Is this an indication of the faith or otherwise investors have in El Gordo's rescue plan can anyone advise?
If the downward trend continues would that replicate the 1929 crash where people stampeded to liquid at any price driving stock values even further down?
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#324
Why is it dull?
Because it shows your £117 billion figure is completely ridiculous as 'potential NR debt'?
Come on. Answer the questions. By not doing so, you accept my £1 billion (pessimistic) to £10 billion (apocalyptic) is correct. Fight back, Rocking Robin.
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@326, BRAVO!
I could not put it better myself.
Cannot believe HOW the media can find any words of praise at all for Brown.
The ONLY reason I can come up with at all, is an utterly ridiculous one, but bear with me as it is the ONLY one that makes any sense at the moment and that is that David Icke would have to be correct.
Allow me to explain:
The media are just as much the puppets of the Illuminati as both mainstream political parties. The Illuminati need the people to vent their frustration on the politicians so that the public leave the Illuminati alone.
With Cameron destroying Brown and building up a 20 point lead in the polls afew weeks ago, the Illuminati got scared that they would lose a loyal puppet. So they get their media puppet to applaud their labour leader puppet.
Who are the Illuminati? The elite banking families that are wrecking the global economy right now. Who are both political parties spending trillions of dollars to help? The people who will lose their jobs and properties in the current recession? Or the banks?
The puppets scramble to the aid of their masters.
I know that sounds ridiculous, but it is no more ridiculous than claims that Brown is in any way shape or form like Churchill!
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