Economy, economy, economy
Neither Gordon Brown nor David Cameron will be, well, stupid enough to be saying "It's the economy, stupid". These days it rather goes without saying.
They are, though, going to repeat again and again and again their analysis of what's wrong with the economy until you may feel you're being treated as if you were stupid. 
Thus this morning Gordon Brown's message at his jobs summit can be boiled down simply to - "It's the global economy, stupid". Or to quote what he is due to say directly :
"We are living through the first global financial crisis of the global age. We have witnessed nothing less than a worldwide failure of the banking system - a failure that began in America..."
You get the picture.
At around about the same time David Cameron will be making his own speech about the economy - launching not a summit but a poster. His focus will be on the damage that what he calls "the debt bombshell" will do to our children and our grandchildren.
His message, in other words - "It's Brown's economic policies, stupid".
Brown will accuse Cameron of leading the "do nothing Tories". Cameron will respond by calling Brown irresponsible. Labour say the Tories will slash spending. The Tories say Labour will hike taxes.
Each phrase will have been pored over, honed and message-tested in focus groups.
And what's more, both sides will seize on any evidence that others agree with them.
Thus, Gordon Brown travels to Berlin this week where he'll hail the German government's conversion to the idea of a fiscal stimulus. Thus, he heralds President Obama's plans for a massive stimulus of his own whilst his aides work frantically to get their man a visit to the Oval Office next month. And all this is but mere training for the day in April when London will host the G20 for a kind of economic Olympics at which Mr Brown will, no doubt, be awarded a clutch of rhetorical gold medals for his handling of the, you guessed it, global economic crisis. 
Meantime David Cameron will point out that the man who said he'd saved the world couldn't save Woollies. He'll quote those like the heads of Next and M&S who have said that the VAT cut didn't work. And he'll claim that shop sales, plummeting house prices and rising unemployment prove that Brown's economic policies have failed.
Underneath the soundbites and slogans there is, of course, a very serious argument going on which will affect the lives of all of us for a long time to come.
This, though, is set to be a year of elections - local, European and, perhaps, even the general election. So, don't be surprised if pretty soon you may feel you want to shout "I've had enough point-scoring about the economy, stupid"
This is adapted from the script of my piece on this morning's Today programme.
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Wow, balance! Albeit nothing more than lightweigth commentary.
We need some substance please Nick, it has been direly lacking for weeks.
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Wow, balance! Albeit nothing more than lightweigth commentary.
We need soem substance please Nick, it has been direly lacking for weeks.
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Nick
Any comment on the fact that when the tories suggested giving employers £2500 to take on those who had been out of work for 6 months or more the government said it was "complete fantasy" and "desperate stuff"?
Here is a story about the governmetns press release...
http://www.order-order.com/2009/01/mcnulty-slams-browns-desperate-golden.html
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Don't see this as point-scoring by David Cameron. He's merely drawing attention to the shortcomings of the way the government is dealing with the economy.
This is one area where there is disagreement between the two parties, Labour and Conservative - no longer sharing the middle ground?
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I like comedy
Our country is being run by the Marx Brothers.
Don't call me stupid stupid because you always say that.
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Well done Nick. Now you are reflecting what I believe is the majority view in this nation that NEITHER main party are speaking for the people of this country.
The economy is a mess. Brown did not start it, but his policies have made it worse in the UK than it should have been. The people that caused it were the politicians, in each country effected, that did NOTHING to end the irresponsible and unsustainable actions of the BANKS.
Solely blaming the Americans and the sub-prime sector for this is like blaming a car bumper for a car crash that in reality was caused by driving too fast on ice. The bumper is where the impact is felt first, it is NOT the cause.
What this has taught us, (I HOPE) is that the UK needs a diverse, dynamic economy built on more than just banking. We need to be able to massively increase our exports to bring IN money. We need much more inward investment. We got the lions share of EU inward investment in the 1990's. Our tax policies are leaving us less than competitive in this area now.
Shaking electronic money backwards and forwards at ever increasing speeds was never going to substitute for a really strong and sustainable economy. Labour have failed to use the strong times to build a diverse economy based on exporting goods and services. Actually, in an act of working class treachery, they have allowed manufacturing in this country to stagnate and fail.
We need some way to reinvigorate this massively important sector of the economy in a sustainable way.
Answers on a postcard as to how though, as neither main party appears to have the answer, hence their descent into childish bickering.
At least this lates blog was not a labour propaganda peice. Well done Nick. Credit where credit is due, eh?
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the-real-truth
I read that this morning too, yet another Conservative policy adopted by Nu Labour. And still they continue to all the conservatives a do nothing party.
I expect the National Loan Guarantee Scheme is next on the cards for plagiarism, albeit 5 months too late.
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Hi Nick,
Seems to me that Gordon Brown is on thin ice claiming that this is a global problem (and, as such, we played our part) but then to blame the USA for it.
And his self-edification won't cut much ice with the electorate - when faced with unemployment, high fuel bills and a mortgage they cannot pay, they are unlikely to console themselves with the notion that they have a super-human Premier at the helm.
See you in the pub.
PS: Can you keep us posted on progress of the Banking Bill please?
Specifically, the Government's proposal to remove the clause in the law that requires the BoE to publish its weekly balance sheet.
This is important, since it means that the Government could simply print more money (as euphemisms go, "quantitative easing" is right up there) and we would be none the wiser.
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Brown says the Tories are the do nothing party. The Government is becoming the do something, anything, give me something I can announce now party. Lots of arm waving but not really anything working, is it? Prove me wrong.
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OK so contrary to one of my earlier posts asking why labour refused to copy tory ideas, when they really aught to now, I must give them credit for doing just that. The plan to give employer's a cash hand-out for taking on the long-term unemployed was originally promoted by the tories last year and roundly condemned by labour as unworkable and ridiculous. Now they are stealing it.
Well done, but, what they really should steal is the tory plan to guarantee loans. That is the policy that labour really really SHOULD steal. It is backed by the CBI, the IoD, the FSB and many leading banks too.
This is an issue that transcends party politics, for God's sake Gordon, STEAL THAT POLICY!!!
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I'm not sure if "extreme tedium" is an illness, but I certainly feel afflicted by it currently.
The continuing Punch and Judy show of our politicians is getting incredibly annoying. We all see that Labour is struggling to come up with effective fixes for the country's problems. We see reasonable alternatives being suggested by the other parties, and even though this is such a serious crisis we see no attempt at cross party solutions - I feel that at a time for justifiable political cooperation there is none.
The situation is being treated more and more like a battlefield for the oncoming general election and nothing more. Labour clearly want to be seen as the "we did it our way" party reardless of the outcome and regardless of the future cost.
I think Brown is not helping the situation by being so inflexible and sticking rigidly to a particular dogma.
I feel that the government has lost all credibility by not looking at the wider issues and is fixated on "saving" the economy at any cost - I feel the drive is to save Brown, not the economy, to save Labour and not Britain.
This is a huge gamble that the goverment is taking and the stakes belong to our future and not to this government. This crisis is not about one person or one party. We cannot afford to continue to be tricked in this way.
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You should finished this line:
"We are living through the first global financial crisis of the global age. We have witnessed nothing less than a worldwide failure of the banking system - a failure that began in America..."
with somthing along the lines of:
And was exasperated by the fact that as we thought that we had abolished boom and bust for ever. We spent all the spoils from the boom times and havent any savings to soften the landing.
So Im borrowing our soft landing from our childrens pensions.
Hey ho
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It is also a scandal that the so called "graduate internships" i.e. hide unemployed graduates from the unemployment total, will only be paid a little more than the current student grant of £2,835, that works out at GBP1.69 per hour.
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BTW I think the 2500 for jobs idea is tosh, its not going to work, will just be more millions down the drain.
Especially with companies knowing that NI is going up soon.
Quash the quangos, reduce tax on jobs (Employers NI) and incentivise companies to take on staff with some form of useful tax breaks.
Scrap the VAT cut, increase the Personal Allowance to £10,000.
Scrap tax on savings up to £20,000, stop proactively taking the tax at source from savings accounts and watch the money poor into banks which will have strengthened balance sheets.
Legislate the banks to lend as long as they have carried out open risk assesment.
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Our political masters are still, by and large, playing politics, or fiddling while Rome burns, or reorganising the deck-chairs on the Titanic - choose your metaphor.
Whilst there's no question that the UK's unholy economic mess can be laid squarely at Gordon Brown's feet (the "let's all blame America ..." theme is an insult to voters' intelligence), our atrocious political situation can be laid squarely at David Cameron's feet.
The Tories have failed to carry out the duties of HM's Loyal Opposition for the past decade and they're now in a hole of their own making. Anything the Tories say these days will sound like a volte face after 10 years of desparately trying to look and sound like the Labour Party, in the wholly mistaken belief that we'd reached the end of left-right politics.
Now that we're buckling under 10 years of Brown's unreconstructed socialism (the "capitalist" banking crisis was fuelled by Gordon Brown's desire to see every Tom, Dick and Harry get rich quick and then for him to bask in the glow of the UK's fantasy prosperity), the Tories are struggling to make the case for right-of-centre politics and economics.
David Cameron is going to have to be much more radical in his attacks on the Labour Government (enter John Redwood?) if he's to stand a hope in hell of winning over the electorate.
Possibly only when the UK economy completes its inevitable slide into a screaming basket case, with GB firmly at the helm, might the British people wake up and condemn the Labour Government out of hand. Meantime, we have to hope that either David Cameron or some other politician (Vince Cable?) steps up to the plate, understands the true (disastrous) nature of the UK economy and, moreover, proposes and takes some radical and realistic steps eventually to lead us out of Gordon Brown's blazing building.
Once again, the Labour Party has betrayed the British people when let loose on the economy. One wonders if we'll ever learn? At least this time, Gordon Brown has crafted the mother of all economic failures so maybe we'll never see the likes of a Labour Government again?
I shan't hold my breath.
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#3 The-real-truth
That's why Labour is always bleating at The Conservatives "What would you do?"
It's so they can steal their ideas.
Labour - The Do Nothing Original Party.
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How about actually sorting out the lack of credit that is forcing companies to go out of business and losing jobs, rather than creating new job? As usual grandstanding and spin from this atrocious government.
Brown is arrogant, delusional and utterly mendacious. His tiresome repetition about all our problems "starting in America" is an obvious smokescreen to conceal the fact that UK plc is faring worse than all our competitors.
He took all the credit for the good times (mostly down to Ken Clarkes' economic groundwork and benign global conditions, most notably easy credit) yet stubbornly refuses to concede any responsibility for his many failings (constantly fudging employment figures, ignoring the debt bubble despite warnings from the IMF since 2003, off balance sheet debts with PFI, huge public sector spending that has patently failed to deliver, etc)
I despised Thatcher when she was in office but at least she sorted out the economy and I never got the impression she didn't follow her core beliefs. Brown, on the other hand, only seems to be concerned to clinging on to power after ten years of plotting against his boss.
Alistair Campbell hit the nail on the head when he said Brown was "psychologically flawed". It is plain for all to see.
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There are valid charges which can be laid directly at the door of Gordon Brown, whether this is a "global" recession or not. Firstly, Gordon Brown created the regulatory framework in his first term as Chancellor, which so failed to regulate the banks and building societies in this country. Secondly, Brown irresponsibly ramped up Government spending and borrowing during the boom years, further inflating the credit and housing bubble and leaving the Government finances in a terrible mess and completely unprepared to cope with the current slump.
So Brown is culpable, regardless of the "global" nature of what is happening!
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Surely not a balanced blog???
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What this country has had for the last eleven years of misrule is a
SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC CRISIS, STUPID!
They go together and the crash is synonomous.
Conservatives are up again in the polls.
The Bouncer is waiting at the door to evict his namesake...
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Re: purpleDogzzz @ 6
An interesting post. I would say that ministers are not solely pointing the finger of blame at the US for the current crises. They are simply saying that's where the catalyst came from, the real causes - as you point out - are the inherent problems in the global capitalist system.
On manufacturing however I tend to disagree with you. If we are to have a capitalist economy we shouldn't prop up non-viable aspects of the economy just for the sake of it. Instead the workforce needs to be retrained to work in industries where we still can be globally competitive.
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Zanu-NuLabour will be going to the polls in May - I'd bet my mortgage on it, if it was worth anything anymore! The gap between government spending and its tax income continues to grow exponetially as the real ecomony shrinks and public sector costs expand.
This leaves HMG fundamentally insolvent, and is in many ways similar to the situation in the mid-seventies when Dennis Healey was forced to go cap in hand to the IMF.
El Gordo can't allow this to happen again before a general election, so the earlier this year the better for an election, while he can still say he is 'doing something', and in the reflection of Obama's honeymoon period in the US.
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Hi Nick,
Quote of the day has to be from shadow work and pensions secretary Chris Grayling, regarding Brown and Purnell's announcement on jobs this morning:
"It's ironic that the government are accusing Tories of being a do-nothing party and then adopting the Conservatives' proposals on unemployment."
See you in the pub.
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Governing party: "It's a global problem and we cannot solve it".
Opposition party: "The governing party cannot solve it".
I guess they are both right.
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Sorry, typo. Meant to write:
synonymous
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Strange isn't it that Brown claimed the credit for economic growth (even that achieved under previous Tory Governments) then deflects the blame for the recession onto America and the World.
The reality is that much of the growth achieved during the last 10 years was one achieved by inflating the debt. The measure of the government,s culpability will be the relative recession compared to other countries.
Gordon Brown nailed his colours to the wall when he said that Britain was uniquely qualified to have a shallower and shorter recession than others. We will find out if what he nailed to the wall was little more that artificially coloured jelly.
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Some Historian Gordon Brown..
What were the characteristics of the Great Depression? It was preceeded by an unprecedented expansion in global trade and an enormous credit boom.
What kind of fool uses this empty rhetoric to whip up hysteria about a global crisis caused by influences way beyond our control?An old fool called Gordon Brown.
But nobody is laughing anymore; people have had enough of Gordon Brown spending and spending and more spending. None of it is working and it's all our money.
There is a complete disconnect between the idea that we should spend our way out of the downturn and where the money is coming from. Newlabour apolgists, not content with twelve years of the public sector growing faster than the private sector without ever being able to pay for itself now demand more like the greedy cash addicts they are.
Stop spending. The splurging public spending and credit growth of the past twelve years will take generations to pay off. Not a single newlabour apologist oon this post has made the faintest attempt to expalin where the money is going to come from. Now is your chance.
Is Britain about to win the Euro millions?
Are we about to get all our gold back at cost price?
Did Britain's ancient granny die leaving Britain a fortune?
Did britain work really hard and get a bonus to pay off the overdraft?
When Gordon Brown drones on about it being right to spend more moeny in a downturn he means this; it's right to go heavily overdrawn. No-one who has ever had an overdraft is under the illusion that it can't be paid off and neither should we be.
This is money he should have saved while preaching about ending boom and bust, instead he carried on wasting vast amounts of public money and he's still at it.
Until this debt junky goes into rehab and spends the rest of his life repeating the mantra that he is a recovering spendaholic there will be no end to Gordon Brown's wasting of the taxpayers' money.
Just as eating the house turned out to be a flawed business model for so many ordinary people under newlabour who now have mortgages they will never pay off so the UK should stop spending now.
Gordon Brown's policies are dangerous and irresponsible. His new year pledge to build tomorrow today is a pledge to build a massive debt today to be paid off tomorrow by all our children. It is a reckless and self indulgent policy that is already failing and msut be rejected.
Call an election
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Force those parasitic long term sick back to work - even if there are no jobs available. But at least they wont be scrounging!!
Give un-employed grads "internships" - to get them off the unemployment register whilst using their skills
Sounds like the Ministry of Propaganda (aka Mandelson & Campbell Puppet Masters Extraordinaire - pulling Gordy's strings) are working hard.
Perhaps the Tories and Lib Dems should also copyright any future ideas so that the Government will have to come up with ideas of their own.
Roll on 2010 when we can dump the dummies!!
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It seems each day while this country is going down the zubes Gordon is acting like a real plonker.
Its no good blaming everything on global economics, whilst he stood by an allowed this country to indulge in racking up credit way beyond its means.
That is why he are in so much doo-doo at the moment. With are left with the prudent bailing out the inprudent.
Gordon`s latest idea, which is obviously designed to appeal to middle england with an election due anytime, to get people off the dole is another headline grabbbing non starter.
In these days of economic gloom if you were an employer with the pick of the crop would you seriously want to take on someone who has been long term unemployed and has lost the enthusiam for getting out of bed everymorning and clocking on for work?
Long term unemployment is a problem that has been created by both parties; but it is Labour more than most who have moved people off the employed list and hid them on invalidity benefit. Which, by its very nature, has a whole host of add ons which has given people a reasonable lifestyle.
(Before people start shouting I live on a very large council estate and see it for myself everyday. It is real and not imagined.)
People have been consigned to a life where working for a living is a totally alien concept and have bascially been given early retirement by the Govt.
As a result many now have a drink or drugs problem; because of the company they keep and because idle hands make idle work many have also fallen into a life of crime. Their children, of whom there are many, are being brought up in households where benefits are the sole income and these children see it as their own future; because they are taught no different. They are no taught to have respect for others or how to get on in life.
It is rather ironic that today of all days that a report has been published saying that the Uk is an unequal place to grow up in.
When I was at school in the 50s 60s this sort of inequality did not exist to such an extent as it does today. If you wanted to suceed then you were encouraged to do so, your background did not hold you back.
Now it seems, it is this disfunctional family life, often referred to David Cameron that is causing the real problem.
As David Cameron said over the weekend we need a complete change. Gordon Browns only policy is to blame everyone else except himself. He was allowed by Tony Blair to dictate monetary and fiscal policy for this country for a decade and we are now all paying the price for his failures.
Another Labour Govt is utterly unthinkable; but David Cameron and Nick Clegg have really got to get their digits out and come up with the right policies that would make real social change across the whole of this country. If they don`t then unfortunately its more of the same. Then it would be a case of, "would the last person to leave this country please turn out the light".
The future looks bleak from where I am standing unless Brown goes and we have real change in his place.
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The cut in VAT was an expensive irrelevance.
The new scheme for jobs will be equally useless, but cost less, because employers are not taking on new employees just now. In case the government haven't noticed, they are laying people off.
What is needed is credit for businesses.
That is why, eventually, the government will adopt the Tories' guarantee policy.
It's tough for the Tories. If they propose something it's rubbished by the government and not adopted by the government until things have got worse.
By the way, one might ask our beloved Prime Minister how he proposes to pay for this. It would, after all, be the first question asked of Mr Cameron. But we know the answer: Mr Brown is not going to pay for it: his children and others' children are!
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I agree with others that it's a pleasant change to see balance from the author, but it rather misses the point.
The country has been hugely damaged by this 'World saviour, home failure' leader of the "did nothing then, desperately try anything now" party. Every day that passes that they fail to acknowledge their failings and blame anybody and everybody else for our problems, things can only get worse.
The Tories can't do anything yet so ripping their policies apart doesn't achieve anything. Rip the government's "policies" apart first, highlight their short comings and then maybe we can stop further damage. Stop them lying, spinning and withholding and then we might just be able to have a reasonable, balanced debate about what to do next.
The media and the BBC in particular are letting us down badly. The electorate must be still sleeping off its debt fueled hangover. Time to tell it how it is and wake them up. Wake up Britain, we are in dire straits and the enemy is within. The sooner we pull together to fix this the sooner we can look to some respite, but be under no illusion. It's going to be a long and hard haul.
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21 Chris
Whoah! Whoah!
Are you now saying (at last) that Complicance Managers, Global Warming Awareness Managers (God Help Us), Street footballe Exces and all the rest of them are viable or not viable?
I'm no economist but don't you need to make money you do have to produce something that someone wants to buy for more than it cost to make. I'm sure the above such jobs do none of that, apart from make the people who undertake them feel important, and take money for could be classed for old rope.
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I've reached the conclusion that if Party A proposes to promote mum and apple pie, Party B will immediately condemn the policy as unfair to fathers and promoting unhealthy eating of too much sugar. There always seems to be a "gob on legs" to rubbish whatever anyone else proposes, leaving the rest of us bemused as to who is really interested in UK plc, as opposed to themselves.
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Nick
Much better a far more balanced piece.
Though it could be said the last sentence was more aimed at spiking the most powerful weapon of the conservatives but no nit picking.
Jeff Randall in his advert for his program to night has the tag line “what would I do if I were the Government? RESIGN”. So he believes that the situation is bad.
I for one will not get sick of hearing the “point scoring” on how much debt we are running up.
I have 3 children and it is my concern for their future that made me turn into a blogger.
What I find most terrifying is the lack of any sound evidence for the headless chicken actions of Labour.
3 months ago (3 months) in the PBR the Government said we would be out of recession and seeing growth by the third quarter of this year.
They based the catastrophic borrowing figures on this ridiculous assumption. This can now be seen by everyone to be a recession that will go on far longer. Two years is now the duration that people are quoting but it could be even longer and deeper. They’re now saying that the contraction in the economy could be 3% this year. It only reached 1.75% in the whole duration of the 1980’s Thatcher recession.
This is the question of the age. What levels will the final extent of Government debt & Enron liabilities rise too?
Can we sell and service all of this debt? There are many signs coming out that investors will not buy all of the GLOBAL bonds being created by the GLOBAL stimulus countries. Where is all of this money going to come from?
Obarma is now going to spend money that he cannot afford and could destroy the American economy if you don’t believe me then I suggest you look at this.
http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-12-debt
Nick I will never get bored with people who try to avoid the Armageddon we are riding to.
Please watch this and lets have some serious questioning of the Government on where they are taking us.
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#6 PurpleDogzzz
A great post that I think does summarise many people's views.
What annoys many people about Gordon Brown's attitude to the current crisis is his simple inability to accept a portion of the blame after over a decade of claiming the credit for the growth in the economy.
As you say, we need a more diversifeied economy and a priority to any Government in power should be to heavily push science and maths to help create a 21st century manufacturing/engineering economy alongside the existing financial services sector. Create a tax system that attracts investment in these types of industries.
The main failure of this Governement has been to believe its own spin about the end of boom and bust; the failure of the last Conservative Government was not to re-establish a modern manufacturing sector after ridding the country of the burden of outdated industries.
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#21 chrisleopard:
Look, sorry and all that, but that sort of temperate post just won't do on here. No slagging off of Brown, no knocking Cameron, no accusations of bias against Nick, and even Osborne and Mandy get away without a kicking.
Pity about your views on Iraq, but we can't all be perfect.
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Gold medals at the G20 meeting for GB (Gordon Brown)??
Come on Nick - please don't even suggest this and try and inflate his ego for doing anything right during this crisis. The government acted too slowly and in the wrong manner. In order to move this forward we need to start some of the projects that are ready to go that will use large amounts of government money - and we need to cut the waste. Even though we are insolvent, we have to find a way through this quagmire that is our economy, and if Gordon is still there he must do this, and he must show what is being cut from government in the process.
Also it is not for the opposition to dictate policy, even though it appears they are and a bit of Mandelson spin is showing itself again and again. Milburn back now so it will be Campbell Milburn and Mandy all working in their duplicitous ways for Gordon - heaven help us!
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And one more thing...why is Gordon Brown spending his entire time banging on about this problem beginning in America?
This is a bit like the man who pours petrol over himself and then complains when his neighbour lights a cigarette.
Girdin Brown deregulated the financial system so that banks leverage rocketed to all time highs; 90x at Northern Rock had never been heard of under Thatcher or Major but Gordon Brown was determined not to end the boom and just handed out more petrol.
Utter folly. And shameless to complain abut the Americans being the one to light the cigarette.
The whole country can now see the utter recklessness of the Gordon Brown credit and public sector spending boom and wants an end to it.
Call an election.
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#s 14,17: Legislate the banks to lend ...
I agree, if banks aren't doing lending, just what is the point of them?
#21 "workforce needs to be retrained to work in industries where we still can be globally competitive."
And in manufacturing terms those would be ... what? Maybe aero engines, motor racing and offshore installation engineering? Then what? Not quite enough of those to go round ...
Far East has stolen our competitive edge in so many areas of manufacturing that we stand little chance of getting that back. Hence the move in recent years to more service sector jobs being created. Banking and finance epitomised that trend, hence governments laying off regulating them too hard; but that's all come home now to roost.
Sadly I predict a very long and continued decline in this country's fortunes unless we can get our country's highly creative energies properly engaged again - and that's all getting killed off in the schools. Don't get me started on that, though ...
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#3 the-real-truth
I think the £2500 is a step in the right direction in that it is (finally) an encouragement to employ, but I don't think it goes far enough.
I have something of a rare commodity these days - a (moderately) successful UK manufacturing business. We design and make hi-tech products in a niche market, and export about 85% of our £5m turnover. We have 45 staff. In short, perhaps an example of a business that should be encouraged in these harsh times (although to be fair, the trashed exchange rate is a bonus at the moment). Anyway, here's an idea....
We have recently had to pay a corporation tax bill of about £300k. Give me half of it back, and I will employ 5 graduate engineers (at proper salary, not "internship" stuff), for a year. We can keep them on next year if we get another 50% back. After that, I expect them to generate enough income to justify their own salary.
The "unemployment" count goes down, I get my new products designed quicker, our turnover goes up, exports increase, future corporation tax take will be higher, HMRC will get 40% of the £150k back in income tax / NI anyway. Who loses? Apart from a bit less in the pot to fund some non-jobs.....
Only slight downside is finding the 5 graduates. The last two I employed are Indian and Vietnamese, because no suitable British ones applied. They are both brilliant though. Much better work ethic and better basic literary / numerical skills than their UK contemporaries. Sorry - different debate.....
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30. Another Old Boy
You can bet your life Brown's children won't be paying for it. They will be living in a mansion in Scotland with fantastically free health care and other benefits paid for by the English. Unless we stop it..........
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Gordon can call it Global until he's blue in the face,we don't do global here in fact ,MPs don't seem to know where the real north of England is and stopped some way short in Liverpool for there cabinet meeting jolly at our expense.
We are more realistic here and blame the guy who promised us an end to boom and bust (remember him ?).
People are sick to death of being lied too,day in day out we see gordon brown telling us he is superman,he isnt hes just another failure,the people want change,he should save us all a lot of money and have a combined euro and general election.......
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HarryPagetFlashman # 32
I was talking about the economy and the rather ill-advised notion that propping up failing industries for the sake it would be a good thing.
You are talking about something else entirely.
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32, Flashman
Manager for Global Warming! What a load of old tosh. I don't see much global warming through my iced up windscreen these days. A lot of people have made a lot of money out of "global warming", "environmental recycling issues" and, oh yes, the hole in the ozone layers which has mysteriously closed up (but they confine that one to the small print nowadays).
Big, huge, fiddle, all designed to distract us, just like the "War on Terror" which can never actually be won can it?
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jimbrant @ 36
Sorry, I'll try to be more inflammatory next time!
Maybe include some personal attacks on other bloggers, ridiculously opinionated statements, reference articles from 'news papers' like the mail etc. etc. :)
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@21 re "On manufacturing however I tend to disagree with you. If we are to have a capitalist economy we shouldn't prop up non-viable aspects of the economy just for the sake of it."
I am not calling for blank cheques or subsidies to prop up uncompetitive businesses. I am calling for a way to unburden and allow our manufacturing to become competitive, and not through low wages. How is this done? other than reducing bureaucracy and costly politically correct initiatives the compensation culture, honestly I have no idea, but the political leaders are paid a lot more money than I and have access to far more brilliant people than I in order to find a way through. Labour have not managed it, on the contrary, they have made our manufacturing sector weaker during the last 11 years.
I do not know the immediate or full answer, other than relying solely on a thriving banking services sector is NOT sufficient for a sustainable G7 size economy. This is why I asked, answers on a postcard?
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Wont Brown's constant heaping the blame on America backfire? If there was intelligent life in Downing Street, they might have spotted that Obama's back office team is largely inherited from Bush. Many of the policies will be similar, basically because Obama does not have the luxury of financial leeway.
So criticising America as the cause is also a dig at Obama. My dealings with the US on most levels, have shown they are much smarterthan they let on. Their outward demeanour veers between inscrutable and poker-faced, and like elephants they also have long memories. The sheer ineptitude of this government never ceases to amaze me, but to rubbish one of UK's most important and loyal allies (WW1 WW2 etc.)is disgusting.
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38. At 11:42am on 12 Jan 2009, RobinJD wrote:
And one more thing...why is Gordon Brown spending his entire time banging on about this problem beginning in America?
Come on you really have ask that.
Its called passing the buck and saving your arse.
At form in which he is well practiced.
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Nick
If your feeling uncharacteristically chipper this morning and would like a cure so that you may safely adopt your more usually lugubrious manner; I suggest you pick up on this article next time you meet your mate Gordon.
Always keen to help
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article8080.html
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Chris
I see! so making faux jobs to inflate employment figures, whilst generating no revenue has no connection to this then.
As for propping up failing business (like Woolworths)however, I agree with you. However, smaller businesses are still getting knocked to banks still not playing ball.
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Peter (Orange) Hain getting a good kicking from Brillo Neill on Daily Politics regarding the Labour launch this morning of the tory proposal from last November. Deservedly.
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My, my. How pious Gordon looks in the picture above.
I saw him on TV this morning. Four sentences in and he was blaming the banks in America and the Conservatives for the mess we're in.
For once, Nick I agree with you. I have had enough point scoring about the economy.
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#44
flamepatricia, whether your a size 18 or 22
is irrelevant, whether you have a larger backside than most is of no consequence.
What counts is, what part you want to play in a collective and responsible society.
Well! what part do you want to play?
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Does anyone know the answer to the folowing.
1). What value in US dollars has been put against the US sub prime fiasco.
2). Why Gordon Brown keeps on saying that it is this government investing in jobs, people, business etc. Why can't he say this is the TAXPAYER that is investing.
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Nick - wow, what can I say? Have you been reading the comments on here lately by chance?
This is the msot balanced blog we have seen to date from you..
WELL DONE MAN :-)
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It is now beyond tiresome to hear Brown (A.K.A the King of the Borgs ) speaking like a robotic machine, constantly repeating the same phrases over and over again. It is completely impossible to warm to this man .
What for example does the phrase "Global age" actually mean ? It is sheer nonsense.
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Nick - many thanks for this, looks like a balanced post, which is refreshing!
It feels like you may have been listening to some of the feedback that gets posted here. If so, I shall start reading your blog on a regular basis again.
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It's all save, save, save from young Dave
and if you dont want to put it in the bank just put it under the mattress, nothing wrong with that, says Camera On Cameron,
Ken Dodd did it.
The conservative way? everybody else in the world is wrong, young Dave, the young pretender knows better, than the whole world?.........aye-right.
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Nick,
Your blog seems to reflect a more balanced approach, however, as many contributors have noted, you still need to be more critical of the policies and actions of the government than you have managed to date.
The collapse of many businesses and the knock on effect on jobs, tax revenues and benefit payments is an area that you have never explored. For there to be any hope of an early end to the recession, we need to be realistic about what we need to raise through further government bond issues or through future tax increases in an unfriendly economic environment.
Have you recently sought clarification about the forecast level of government borrowing this year or next? What is the current projection on unemployment for 2009 / 2010 (excluding the short term internship proposal)?
Once you have a better picture on these issues, then you can start to ask the right questions of the government as to their proposed actions and the likelihood of a general election this side of 2010. From my own perspective, even allowing for the spin from Mandy, et al, Brown would be monumentally stupid to wait until 2010, therefore expect a nasty and vicious campaign from Brown starting later this month.
ATB
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I was sick of all this at the end of last year !
It is so boring !
Doom and Gloom constantly.
Any minute we're all going to move on and be wondering what it was all about!
Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.Doom and Gloom constantly.
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Before all this it was
Property is going up up all is fabulous!
up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!up up all is fabulous!
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Well if all else fails and GB/AD can't raise their £150 billion this year / next year then
Who're you goin' to call?
[Personal details removed by Moderator]
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Lightweight? You overestimate them, this bunch are featherweights who've given the assets we needed away to recover with to Wun Hung Lo (Merchant Bank) Pty Ltd, on the grounds that their London registration and the ltd means they're British.
That's why there's some thinking happening over on RP's blog working towards giving them some serious challenge, come the day of the Glorious Election.
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Nick
I see Crash Gordons leaden touch has not deserted him.
We (the tax payer) has just aquired half of hbos/lloyds...
Just days after Lloyds were fined by in the USA (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/7821600.stm).
I know it is only a quarter of a billion pounds - but I do resent paying other peoples fines...
Even if our cash doesn't go directly on the fine, it will be used to plug any holes caused by the fine (which comes down to the same thing).
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HarryPagetFlashman @ 50
Glad to see we agree on that aspect of economics.
On the so-called 'faux' jobs, while some of the examples you refer to are clearly absurd you cannot really measure the results of a community worker's labour in monetary terms.
As for propping up employment figures, you have said yourself that these jobs are local not national government posts.
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Regarding the announcement today by Gordon Brown about commiting GBP500 million to stimulate employment by offering employers GBP2500 to take on the unemployed, have three questions.
1) Why was this not implemented in November, when it was proposed by the Conservatives?
2) Why have they watered down the proposal by excluding those unemployed for less than 6 months? The original Conservative proposal was to include those unemployed for 3 months or more.
3) How will this be funded?
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45. chrisleopard
Sorry, I'll try to be more inflammatory next time
Please do we get enough wet flannel from the big man.
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Brown was happy to take full credit for the booming economy (although it was all based on credit) but now it's gone bad, very bad, it's everyone elses fault.
There attempt over the weekend and today supported by the BBC to implement back to work policy is priceless.
Most businesses are experiencing a reduction in staff levels so these muppets decide to run a back to work policy for the long term unemployed when workers are being laid off.
Sustain the current workforce in order to keep taxes rolling in.
Our PM is tinkering with this and that trying to look busy when in real terms the horse bolted long ago and the government has run out of money and ideas.
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#53 derekbarker
you are no longer a joke, you are now being offensive!
I think an apology is in order!
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Does young Dave cut it?
Well! the save, save save young Dave calls a press conference to release a poster? yes! a poster that the conservative leader says will be posted all around Britain.
Wow! great economics young Dave......
Waste...Waste....Waste comes to mind.
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the1beard
Have you been taking notice of anything which has been said over the past few weeks?
This is not going to be over any minute - or any time soon for that matter. It really is constant doom and gloom and it will be for some time to come.
I'd try and get used to it if I were you.
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Come on Nick - please make as one of your New Year resolutions a promise to return to non partisan reporting. This used to be one of your great strengths.
Personally I am fed up listening to the Prime Minister using the same old spin and sound bites:
* the do nothing party..
* summits..
* global age, global problem..
* whatever has to be done...
* a failure that started in
America..
* I am listening..
Words are meaningless - it's solutions that count. And so far those tried have simply not worked..
As already highlighted by 'the-real- truth' despite his disdain for the Tories the Prime Minister has pinched yet another of there ideas.
I feel at least the electorate now has a real choice - to support the continuing journey into the abyss of a debt ridden future for this Country or to rise to the harder challenge of rebuilding a sound financial base for our children and grandchildren.
Let us have an early election to decide - I know which I would support.
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Nick, congratulations on producing something that isn't biassed towards Labour and Brown. Perhaps now I have said something that praises you, you may consider allowing me to contribute to your articles as since the last time I dared to suggest you were biassed towards Brown & co I have been barred from commenting.
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Oh dear
Looks like the chavs will have to replace their new plasma TVs with more energy -efficient ones.
Still, all helps the economy, all this spending!
"The plasma screen television is poised to become the next victim of the battle to curb energy use.
Giant energy-guzzling flatscreens are expected to be banned under legislation due to be agreed by the EU this spring.
Plasma screens have been nicknamed the '4x4s' of the living room because they use up to four times as much electricity and are responsible for up to four times as much carbon dioxide as traditional cathode ray tube sets."
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Politicians do what politicians do and we'd be best advised to try and ignore them and the games they play.
But for most folk struggling to survive in the private sector, there is only one rational choice at present - get a public sector job.
Even in the 'home of capitalism', the USA, a 'Government job' is now a very desirable place to be.
Maybe the private sector will become a sensible place to work again one day, but it certainly a very uncomfortable environment right now for many people.
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#40 unusual_example
As it happens I think it is a bad idea (for much the reasons in the McNulty memo!) - it isn't focused on new jobs.
It may help some, but the government have already said that they have no way of knowing how many people would have got jobs anyway, and how many newly unemployed will be discriminated against...
So it is just throwing money into space (like the VAT cut) and hoping it does something.
As you describe, jobs are created by employers who beleive that they can use other peoples labour profitably...
The government needs to lose all the red tape and interfere less.
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58. At 12:45pm on 12 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote:
The conservative way? everybody else in the world is wrong, young Dave, the young pretender knows better, than the whole world?.........aye-right.
That's rich, from your headline grabbing socialist mob (Nu Labour). If they had not squandered the countries coffers over the last 10 years and commited the biggest broken promise in history by allowing house prices to take off then we would not be in this mess.
Tony Bliar and Brown promised they would not allow this to happen.
If this had been the case then high risk borrowing would not have occured on a scale that we now see.
Year on year the B of E and the government could see private debt spiralling out of control and did nothing to stem or control it so don't go blaming the tories or liberals for your governments last 10 years of mis-management and squandering of a nations assets.
Once again Derek you confirm Nu Labours stance............................Spend what you don't have.
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DerekBarker
You sound very desperate this morning, message not getting across?
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Isnt the real difference between parties:
Labour wins the next election and:
1. Mandleson becomes a god.
2. Brown believes that he has become a god.
The duo then deliver:
a. Even bigger government
b. More spin, lies and sleaze than you can stomach
c. More waste and even more Quangos
d. Super higher levels of taxation
e. Continued erosion of civil liberties
f. More powers handed to Europe
Conservatives win the next election and:
Oh who cares…...... at least 1 and 2 above dont become a reality
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70#
Hey, Sacha Baron Barker has returned!!!
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Ah the joy of parties trying to score points against one another while real people suffer.
The concerns for our politicians should be centered around what is needed to help the people of the UK that they are paid to represent. Labour should be open to what the other parties have to say and not dismiss without proper interest, Tories should rejoice that something they MAY have suggested first is considered to be a possible help.
If this is not the case then the Labour and Tory leadership consider their parties standing/ reputation/success as more important than the welfare of the UK population.
Unfortunately when difficult times arise party politics shows just how weak our party political system really is.
Mature leaders in this situation would say "this is bigger than us, lets put our heads together, work together and save our country"
But genuine maturity among our politicians would seem impossible.
Runs for cover before the flames descend
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59. At 12:46pm on 12 Jan 2009, smfcbuddie wrote:
Nick,
The collapse of many businesses and the knock on effect on jobs, tax revenues and benefit payments is an area that you have never explored. For there to be any hope of an early end to the recession, we need to be realistic about what we need to raise through further government bond issues or through future tax increases in an unfriendly economic environment.
===
The UK needs to raise GBP157 Billion by April from the markets.
A recent German bond auction flopped, signaling bad news for governments trying to raise finance for multi-billion heavy stimulus packages. The 10-year €6bn bond auction received bids of only €5.24bn, or 87%, the second worst result ever.
===
Squeaky b*m time!
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yellowbelly1959
Read your post about plasma TV's.
There was a bit on TV last week about how wonderful the new energy efficient light bulbs were.
The only snag is, that if one is broken, the room has to be vacated for at least 15 minutes because of the toxins inside it.
I've just bought several of these bulbs and nowhere on the box does it warn me of that.
Brilliant, eh?!
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Interesting comment in the Martha Karney interview of Gordon Brown on Wato.
Asked about using Northern Rock he said that they were "broke", something that wasn't part of the story when it was nationalised.
Any guess how much that poorly considered nationalisation will actually cost the British taxpayers?
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yellowbelly1959
"The plasma screen television is poised to become the next victim of the battle to curb energy use.
Giant energy-guzzling flatscreens are expected to be banned under legislation due to be agreed by the EU this spring.
Plasma screens have been nicknamed the '4x4s' of the living room because they use up to four times as much electricity and are responsible for up to four times as much carbon dioxide as traditional cathode ray tube sets."
.........................................................
Oh dear. It wasn't that long ago that government was banging on about the new digital switchover, was it?!
...right hand, left hand.....!!
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Further evidence of Gordon Brown's economic illiteracy, who, like everyone in ZANU Labour, has never actually run a business. I run a small business. A paltry employer's signing-on bonus will not persuade me to hire a long-time unemployed person. What will, is a sustained and significant increase in profitable demand for my products. The best way to stimulate such demand is to reduce income tax.
Call a general election now.
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74. yellowbelly1959
I went shopping for a TV earlier this month.
It was freezing, I left the kids huddled in front of the plasma models to warm up.
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DerekBarker
You were suggesting above that everybody should be following Gordon and Baraks plans. Here is a point you might want to consider.
"today the average family of four in America is associated with $732,000 of debt"
Source [Unsuitable/Broken URL removed by Moderator]
This is before they started spending on the TARP and the stimulus package.
You really have no regard for the fact that you're spending our children's earnings before they start to setup their own homes and families. A large portion of their earnings will not be available to them for their futures because you spent it on ours.
Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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#70
So still no defence of the spend, spend, spend moeny we haven't got from Dollybarker.
What a surprise.
Call an election
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Even The Right Monetary and Fiscal Policy Can't Get Us Out of the Depression
DIE ZEIT: Can the right monetary and fiscal policy keep the US out of a recession?
Alan Greenspan:
"Probably not. Global forces can now override most anything that monetary and fiscal policy can do. Long-term real interest rates have significantly more impact on the core of economic activity than the individual actions of nations. Central banks have increasingly lost their capacity to influence the longer end of the market.
Two to three decades, ago central banks were dominant throughout the maturity schedule.
Thus, the more important question is the direction of long-term real interest rates."
Alan Greenspan
The Great Irony of Success
© ZEIT online, 30.1.2008
If short-term risk-free interest rates are 0% doesn't it that mean that credit is worthless?
A Credit Free, Free Market Economy will correct all of those dysfunctions.
The alternative would be to wait till, on the long run, most of our productive assets get physically destroyed either by war or by rust.
It will be either awfully deadly or dramatically long.
We Need, Hence, to Cancel All Interest Bearing Debt and Abolish Interest Bearing Credit.
This Age of Turbulence People Want an Exit Strategy Out of Credit,
An Adventure in a New World Economic Order.
? Exit Strategy out of Credit
http://edsk.org/
? A Specific Application of Employment, Interest and Money. [For my Fellows Economists]
http://edsk.org/interest.html
Press release of my open letter to Chairman Ben S. Bernanke:
Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, Quantitative Easing Can't Work!
http://www.prlog.org/10165667.html
Yours Sincerely,
Shalom P. Hamou AKA 'MC Shalom'
Chief Economist - Master Conductor
1776 - Annuit Cœptis.
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#77
Silent-majority.
What makes you think the last conservative government got it right?
The right to buy, high unemployment, high interest rates and a GDP rate of 43%, thats the legacy of the last conservative government.
Why? does young Dave think he is right and the rest of the world is wrong on the stimulus front.
Is the one voice in the darkness right?
Come on silent, Dave wants to isolate Britain.
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#78
PortcullisGate, Do you think, calling a press conference to release a poster, that Camerons says will be posted all over Britain is a good idea and good use of conservative funds.
Dont you think the cost of that poster may have been put to better use in nowadays?
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#76 the-real-truth
I take your point; perhaps "a step in the right direction" was a bit OTT. Maybe "furtive glance in the right direction" would be nearer the mark.
Fundamentally you are right - £2500 on its own wouldn't make someone create a new job, but it may assist a little if you have an opening anyway. My point was simply that it was something, even a very small something, that shows that maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere has twigged that encouraging employers (i.e. creators of wealth) may well be the catalyst that could ultimately turn our fortunes around.
Whilst I wouldn't quite put it in the same pathetic class as the VAT fiasco, I agree that the detail of this plan leaves much to be desired, and could well in itself end up being something and nothing. But at least it seems they are trying to focus on the one group who could make a difference.....
And as for the red tape etc., I couldn't agree more.
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@58 Barker
Lets turn that around
It's all spend spend spend from Old Gordon
and if you dont want to Spend it we'll take it off your children in borrowing anyway
The Labour way? everybody else in the world is wrong, Old Gordon, the old faker knows better, than the whole world?.........aye-right.
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@ 31, thomasak001: Superb, and spot on!
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A trillion pounds of debt, soaring unemployment, massive recession, and the best Brown can do is steal a tory policy which he'd previously said was mad, say the tories are a "do nothing" party, and blame the whole thing on the americans and thatcher.
He'll need to do a lot better than that if he wants to save his party from permanent annihilation come the next election.
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#81
123geronimo
Futher more, the tories are trying their best to over see the failure of the stimulus package.
Cameron, doesn't want Brown to succeed with the stimulus plan.
How bad is that, the conservative party and their supporters trying their best to undermine Great Britain and the recovery stimulus.
Even the very conservative President Bush
puts his hands up and endorsed a stimulus for America.
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@ 40, unusual_example, that is exactly the kind of thing I was hoping would come forward when I was writing my post @ 6.
We need to give active support and encouragement to business that actually create real wealth and bring money in from overseas. We need much much more of these. Congratulations on your exporting success, yours is the type of business I was referring to.
In my own business, the vast majority of the revenue is generated overseas currently too. We write requirements management and systems engineering software The business is there to be made, but it is increasingly difficult to keep a business going with all the needless bureaucracy and the costs thereof involved.
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Derekbarker
You were suggesting above that everybody should be following Gordon and Baraks plans. Here is a point you might want to consider.
"today the average family of four in America is associated with $732,000 of debt"
Source http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse/chapter-12-debt
This is before they started spending on the TARP and the stimulus package.
Labour really has no regard for the fact that they’re spending our childrens earnings before they start to setup their own homes and families. A large portion of their earnings will not be available to them for their futures because Labour spent it on ours.
Power corrupts but absolute power corrupts absolutely.
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91 derekbarker
Is the one voice in the darkness right?
...................................................................
'Fraid not Derek. You're on your own there. That isn't to say that DC could do any better, but he definititely couldn't do any worse!
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We've already had quite enough of political point scoring.
We've seen Brown rubbishing Tory proposals and then introducing them as his own and telling us the Tories are a do nothing party.
But why don't they take on the most sensible Tory proposal and guarantee the finance to businesses.
This is the only real way to stem unemployment at least for the moment.
Now they are introducing the eighties Tory policy of £2500 per job created.
This was introduced in the eighties at the start of the upturn and formed part of other measures to get the economy going again.
It helped bringt in foreign investment such as Nissan Honda and many many more and created hundreds of thousand of jobs. These are the jobs we see this government losing today.
Instead of ringfencing a public sector which is non wealth creating they really need to get their act together if there is still time to protect as many jobs and skills in our exporting and allied companies before we lose the lot.
Bringing back manufacturing jobs from Asia would also be a help.
That's where the money should be invested.
If that is too big a task for them then it should be handed over to a party that has done it all before.
Either that or all hope will have gone.
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#91 derekbarker
Public sector net debt, expressed as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), was 44.2 per cent at the end of November 2008, compared with 43.1 per cent at end of November 2007. Net debt was £650.0 billion at the end of November, compared with £617.1 billion a year earlier.
44.2% under Labour!
So what. (copyright, Ed Balls)
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So here's some figures from the perfectworld newlabour economy that they have presided over for twelve years:
Industrial production fell 7% - an all time record - in November.
Newlabour, who spent eighteen years bleating about Thatcher's supply side reforms, have managed to engineer the sharpest drop in industrial production on record.
Can there be any doubt that this boom of Gordon Brown's that was built on an enormous credit bubble is inflicting the most enormous amount of damage?
He cannot possibly be allowed to continue his reckless, wasting ways and useless inititatives. He and his financially and ideologically bankrupt party have got to stand down for the good of the country.
They have bankrupted a great nation.
Thye have presided over surging immigration we cannot afford.
They have presided over five million people on the dole, claiming benefits or on income support.
It is a shambolic record of wilful mismanagement of the country to create a client state of terrified supplicants.
Call an election
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92 derekbarker
PortcullisGate, Do you think, calling a press conference to release a poster, that Camerons says will be posted all over Britain is a good idea and good use of conservative funds.
Dont you think the cost of that poster may have been put to better use in nowadays?
..................................................
I don't. But I don't think Labour's waste of public money in sending their people off on courses to Leeds and other cities was a good decision either.
Don't you think that our representatives/politicians (and by that, I mean all of them) should start setting an example by pulling their own belts in? We're all doing it but I don't see any evidence of any belt-tightening in the HoC.
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Has anyone noticed that once again Brown is recycling policies?
£2500 is not new, first it sounds similar to the Tory proposal but secondly an employer has since 1998 had access to between £60 and £75 per week for 26 weeks and £750 as a training allowance for anyone who is on New Deal. And anyone unemployed for more than 6 months will be put onto new deal by their jobcentre.
Therefore this already exists. So who is doing nothing now!!!
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derek@53
"flamepatricia, whether your a size 18 or 22
is irrelevant, whether you have a larger backside than most is of no consequence."
Looks as though it should be your head on the stick.
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So the novice Cameron wants to take the whole world on the conservative way.
Wow! the whole world know rejects the conservative way!even America.
While the G8 and the rest of the world want to re-stimulate their economies young Dave and the conservatives want to extend a long period of recession and shrink public spending back to the thatcher days.
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derekbarker wrote:
#78
PortcullisGate, Do you think, calling a press conference to release a poster, that Camerons says will be posted all over Britain is a good idea and good use of conservative funds.
Dont you think the cost of that poster may have been put to better use in nowadays?
---------------------------
At least the conservatives are using their own funds.
Gordon's busy wandering around the country spending OUR money telling us how wonderful he is.
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"What for example does the phrase "Global age" actually mean ? It is sheer nonsense."
Not to the elite banking families it is not. It is about the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, synthesis, AKA Problem, reaction solution.
The elite families that still run the global central banks and highest level policy think-tanks have a goal of a single global government. They want a single global currency and have been creating "shocks" in the system (problem) that create a public backlash (reaction) that ratchet up in pitch until these elites can impose their policies that tip-toe us, step-by tiny step, to their solution. The EU is a stepping stone towards this, as is the North American Union, the Asian union and African Union.
Gordon Brown is merely publicly expressing his voluntary servitude to this global elite every time he mentions "global age", or "global order" or "new world order". It is not a message to the people, but a message to his handlers and controllers that he is still their faithful servant.
Many more people are calling for a global solution to the global crisis. Well to my way of thinking. If globalisation is the reason why this crisis spread globally so fast, then more globalisation is not the answer.
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Maybe, rather than saying "It's the economy, stupid" to the electorate, the tories should say "It's the stupidity, stupid" and concentrate on mentioning the total stupidity/ignorance of Brown/Labour.
ie the unbelievably stupid things that brown's said/believed like:
"doubling the tax rate for the poorest people won't have an adverse effect on anyone who's on low pay"
"a reduction in final prices of 2.13% (if the full 2.5% vat reduction gets passed on) will make everyone want to rush out and buy loads of expensive goods"
When things are going badly: "The uk economy is nothing to do with me, we have no control over it at all. You must feel sorry for me for anything that goes wrong as it's not my fault, and you must blame the americans for everything that's wrong."
When things are going well: "The uk economy is entirely in my hands, and everything good happening is because of what I've done. You must praise/thank me for all that is good."
"tax credits are great; everyone who's entitled to them claims them because it's really easy and everyone knows what they're entitled to."
"Let's take away all the tory councils' government funding and give all that money to the labour councils."
"The IMF is wrong. All other countries in the world are wrong. Everyone in the uk is wrong apart from me personally."
"I am the only person on the planet who is capable of running anything."
"10 plus 10 equals zero"
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#72 bbPete
even the BBC managed to pick up on this this morning on Radio 4...Evan Davies saying yet another summit being called to discuss yet another solution to the global crisis.
The p[ublic has summit fatigue and Gordon Brown and Derkbarker know it; which is why he shrieking so much today.
It's a shame for them that yet anither summit has fallen on deaf ears but then again it would be nice if they actually followed up a single one of their policies rather than spent money then consigned it to the dustbin as soon as it wasn't working.
But this is newlaour and their apologists' way; spend your money and if it doesn;t work spend some more and then some.
Wasteful and incompetent; where is the evidence the banking bailout is being follwed through? There is no return of credit in the wholesale interbank amrket and derekdraper and his acolytes konw the billions they have spent have been wasted.
Economists are now beginning to come out (Roger Nightingale) and oppose the government saying these banks should have been allowed to go bust; HBOS and RBS. Quite right - let the system clear as the depositors already have governemnt guarantees.
Call an election
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Derekbarker
#92
There is no better used for any money in this country today than to inform the electorate on how destructive to our childrens future the actions of the Labour party are.
Labour has destroyed the economy every time its been in power.
This time they are destroying the economy for years to come and our poor children will have a large portion of their earnings purloined to bail out incompetence today
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Special Delivery
Box of Straws for Mr Barker from Clutch Brothers.
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Brown wants to borrow more and he says that will help us. So to build on the debt we have.
Now my bother-in-law had debt and was self employed. To try and get out of the bad times he borrowed but that did not help him, so he borrowed more to help him get through the bad times.
This was what he was advised to do by the banks. So in the end after borrowing for a third time the bad days never went away in fact it just got worse and now he is bankrupt.
So if Brown wants to borrow what makes him think the bad days will go away. All we are going to get is depper in the Brown stuff and when Brwon has gone he will be at home with a nice pension with his feet up.
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91. At 1:41pm on 12 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote:
What makes you think the last conservative government got it right?
Because they destroyed Union run Britain.
They gave the right to every working man or women to buy his/her house, even council houses giving people who had no chance of getting onto the housing ladder the same opportunity as the higher paid.
Now you wouldn't agree with people buying council houses and bettering themselves would you Derek because Labour opposed that policy?
Are you an ex council house owner or have you inherited cash or an ex council house from a relative that came about due to that policy....................?
well i'm sure if you have made any money from the two mentioned you have ploughed into a charity or back into the socialist party..........errrrr sorry Nu Labour.
You would not want to benefit from a Tory policy would you?
Why? does young Dave think he is right and the rest of the world is wrong on the stimulus front.
How is borrowing money to cover current debt a stimulous?
Markets, particularly the forex market thrive on de valuing currency when governments take on more debt, it gives out negative signals.
Even the Germans have broke rank and said Britains borrowing is out of control.
Come on silent, Dave wants to isolate Britain?
Like they have on many other occasions?
You mean the Tories stand up to Europe and don't take any rubbish from them just like the sneaking Golem did when he quietly snook in through the back door and signed the EU constitution?
Derek, My old dad is 80 next month, he was a manual worker all his life and now resides on a basic pension with a little bit of private pension.
His words to me in 1997 when I voted Labour and the only time I have and ever will vote Labour was "you'll regret having a Labour government because all they will do is burden you with debt and taxes"
Need I say more..................................
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97 Derekbarker
"Futher more, the tories are trying their best to over see the failure of the stimulus package.
Cameron, doesn't want Brown to succeed with the stimulus plan.
How bad is that, the conservative party and their supporters trying their best to undermine Great Britain and the recovery stimulus."
Derek
Your comment shows that you suffer from the same problem as Gordon Brown.
He has a contempt for anyone who has a different opinion than his own. The reality is that he was chancellor for 10 years and during a period of economic growth failed to reduce government debt (I know he twists that to comparing it to GDP at less than 40%) And that's ignoring the huge PFI debt funded in part by the British banks that are now in difficulty.
Read today's Times Leader
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article5496853.ece
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Lord
I used to have speed read through the enlightenment, now I have to ignor the woofing
God help me if the zen lord returns
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#104
Shellingout, Yes! agree, every should be playing apart. Mp.s and all.
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Derek Barker, "Even the very conservative President Bush
puts his hands up and endorsed a stimulus for America."
Really? Do you know where that money went? Because as a condition of the fiscal stimulus package it was to remain top secret. Rumour has it, it was merely a bail-out for his very very rich wall-street friends. We cannot have the obscenely greedy rich becoming poor now, can we? That would NOT be very Bush-like would it.
Brown is equally enthralled and in-hock to the banking elite BTW. Which is why I cannot fathom your continued hero-worshipping of the man.
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RobinJD @ 103
You said:
"So here's some figures from the perfectworld newlabour economy that they have presided over for twelve years"
Then straight after:
"Industrial production fell 7% - an all time record - in NOVEMBER."
Do you not see that what you've done there is cherry pick a statistic from the current period of global downturn and worded it in such a way as to apply it to the last 12 years.
Please try not to mislead people.
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Quote. "Do you think, calling a press conference to release a poster, that Camerons says will be posted all over Britain is a good idea and good use of conservative funds.
Dont you think the cost of that poster may have been put to better use in nowadays?"
At least Dave is using Conservative party funds for this and not the taxpayer, unlike labour that have illegally used tax-payers money in the past to launch much more expensive television campaigns that are nothing more than party political adverts in the 6 months leading up to a general election being called. Their spend on "government campaigns" explodes before elections are called and the adverts are largely delivering a political message, rather than a public service one.
Do you REALLY want to debate wasteful spending Derek?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
107 derekbarking
Why do you say DC is a novice when Brown is the biggest novice of them all.
Untill we have a new PM they are all novices.
Brown is looking down a gun and dont know where to go with his novice ideas.
He says the Tories wont back him but why should they when he is getting us into more Brown stuff.
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#106 Pammy,
Stop leaving skid marks all over the place, Jeez! thats just pants, just deal with the clear up and get behind the stimulus plan.
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Day after day Brown introduces some new initiative.
Where does all the money keep coming from Gordy?
Is it not time Gordy showed the electorate a balance sheet showing money coming in, money going out, amount of national debt and how long to pay it back. Something nice and simple with no manipulation.
Maybe Nick and Robert Peston could create their version of the balance sheet.
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As Labour steals yet another Tory idea I'm reminded of the schoolboy who was told about his essay
"Some of this was good and original - unfortunately the parts which were good were not original, the parts which were original were not good."
Please no more original Labour ideas. We can't afford them!
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Derek... dont you have a job to go to?
You do know its monday dont you?
For you; should help.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=Uax53VTdkOg
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RobinJD
Economists are now beginning to come out (Roger Nightingale) and oppose the government saying these banks should have been allowed to go bust; HBOS and RBS. Quite right - let the system clear as the depositors already have governemnt guarantees.
....................................................
Doesn't it make you wonder where all these economists were when the poo was about to hit the fan?
We should have let the banks go bust - it would have been a bloody sight cheaper in the long run!
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Dear Nick
IN CPITALS
ALL ALONG IT HAS BEEN BRITAINS DOMESTIC POLIVY THAT LAUNCHED US INTO THIS ECONOMIC DECLINE, ITS OBVIOUS
"the debt was too great to continue, and the authorities did nothing for ten years.
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Dear Nick
IN CAPITALS
" ALL ALONG IT HAS BEEN BRITAINS DOMESTIC POLIVY THAT LAUNCHED US INTO THIS ECONOMIC DECLINE, ITS OBVIOUS"
"the debt was too great to continue, and the authorities did nothing for ten years.
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#112
portcullisGate,
Thats quite a statement, there is no better use of money today than to make political posters?
Are you sure about that one?
Can you remember want Britain was like under the last tory regime.
Mass unemployment, high interest rates, massive borrowing deficts without a world down-turn, failing schools, failing hospitals,
poor transport, and a number of tory MP's being sent to jail.
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On Robert Peston's blog regarding the bank's bail out a question was posed:
Has the actual transaction of funds from BofE to the bank's happened yet?
Apparently it was supposed to occur at the beginning of this month despite being announced in a great fanfare in the autumn.
So dues anyone know if the bank of England parted with the "wonga" yet or not?
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BREAKING (1) NEWS
Unlike the old days when only stories of the unfathomable Nessies (re)appearances, greatly enhanced by the Scottish tourism industry, produced the only news worth reporting, the opposite is the case these days. And yet.. BBCs political programmes continue being off the air some 9O days p.a. The recent Christmas recess felt like it was " playing down " GAZA, Obamas first overseas rip, Guantanamo, P.Ms major employment plans etc, by mainly youngsters reading the headlines, in contrast to the excellent in-depth treatment some of us, oldies, fondly remember with genuine, authoritative experts like James Mossman, Robert Kee and, of course, Sir Robin Day : quality television at its best. One understands commercial TV popularisung even its cultural and educational programmes (viewing figures), but it is not quite clear why the uniquely financed and thus placed BBC, envied by anyone in the world, appears to follow a trend of eroding serious programmes by e.g. inviting often totally obscure actors, singers a.o., having already brought a sense of cheap dumbness and mediocrity to other Channels, perhaps eventually doing the same to the BBC if it does not wake up and realize it is UNNECESSARILY competing and UNDERVALUING itself by allowing others to set the tone for the future of British Television, supported by millions of its born and bred viewers, often, uniquely, going back several generations now.
Any weaknesses might be found in the overall management of its huge operations, particularly re. communations, ambiguity and ambition... One does not necessarily think of the recent sham and the staggering amounts mentioned, upsetting many decent, civilized and perhaps unemployed viewers , especially in this time and age, but it was really the news that, apparantly, one of the two performers is expected back already soon , probably anxiously awaited for by a certain section of the press ready to continue the story.. Why BBC ? Even just a few years ago anything of this calibre would not have happened or it would have been dealt with quietly and diplomatically. Anything but actually confronting the issue, simply because it might benefit the performer no end, rather than, one hopes, the BBC.., perhaps epitomizing any current weaknesses at the top of the Cooperation.
Paulus
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#123
The tories dont want to back Britain and the rest of the world, now! thats pretty noice, if you ask me, Does Cameron think he is right and the rest of the world is wrong, wrong ,wrong.
Why did the young novice call a press conference to release a poster, yes a poster.
Is that the type of economics you want, an isolated Britain that prints political posters in a down-turn.
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Having rejected and trashed the tory ideas and deploying his own "brilliant" ones, Crash has realised that his weren't very good in the first place and so has decided to use those very same ideas from the 'do nothing' tories.
Crash Gordon, no shame, no hope, no future. The leader of a say anything, spin everything, achieve nothing government.
Nice balance to your piece Nick. Keep up the good work.
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Isn't this process open to abuse?
If an employer has two candidates that are virtually identical for a job, yet one has been unemployed for more than 6 months then they will pick that one as they get £2500.
Doesn't this mean that the person not selected could claim discrimination?
Yet another nice headline but not thought out!!
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Flamepatricia - I normally agree with a lot of what you write. However....
"I don't see much global warming through my iced up windscreen these days. "
This kind of comment really does show you up to be a bit silly. Just because it's cold outside does not mean that the average temperature of the earth is on a long-term increase. Just because it drops for a year or two or even a decade, does not mean that human activity is not hastening the warming of the planet, and the catastrophes that this will cause for even us and close neighbours such as Belgium and Holland.
The "there is no global warming because it's colder than yesterday" argument is almost as bad as the classic: "if you've got nothing to hide , you've got nothing to fear"
Now, let's get back to rubbishing this ridiculous excuse of a Prime Minister and the lackeys like Robinson that give him an easy time to peddle his pernicious and destructive lies and failed policies.
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Only a fool with the myopia of Derek Barker would agree to increase borrowing during a crisis caused by debt.
That's what living off the Scottish State does for you, it turns you into someone who expects something for nothing, expects to be paid a decent salary for non-competitive sub-standard work, and expects to borrow money for the rest of his life with no real expectation of ever paying it back - I mean why bother? You can just raid savers' accounts or print money can't you?
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derek@124
Or maybe you'd prefer the anatomical part to which you're referring?
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GB on World at One:-
He rejected Conservative claims that future generations would suffer because of his mistakes, saying Labour had done a lot for children including boosting child benefit, increasing nursery places and extending parental leave.
"We are investing in young children and I don't see why children should pay the price for a global financial crisis," he said.
Thus completely missing the point either by incompetence or intentional repetition of a mantra intended to deceive.
The point is that the burden will fall on the children when they become taxpayers! Gordon, do you think you will be able to understand that or is it a concept beyond your comprehension?
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I've been looking for work for 9 months, 6 of them on Jobseekers. In that time I've only had 3 interviews! I've now moved 100 miles in order to find work.
Have the government helped to help me stop claiming jobseekers? Well, in a way they have, by saying I can't claim jobseekers longer than 6 months!
So I now drop off the unemployment figures and get no benefits!
I've not had a shred of help from my local jobcentres in getting me back into work.
So much for assisting people back into work: this governments cynical policy is to pull the rug from under people just when they need it.
Will £2500 create a job? I doubt it.
I just wonder how the government are paying for the banks and now paying part of peoples wages when the economy is shrinking? By borrowing more of course, which future generations will have to pay for.
In the meantime, I see no effort on behalf of the government to put their own finances in order. They are still ploughing ahead with costly projects that no-one wants and will produce no cost benefit.
Better to put the ID card money into social housing for instance, where there is a physical benefit to spending that money. ID cards are an unproductive, uneccessary extravagance we simply can't afford at the moment.
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Every indvidual component of Brown's incesssantly repeated mantra - it's global, it all started in America, we played no part in causing it, the do nothing Tories - is demonstrably wrong.
But he knows that if it's repeated often enough it will become received wisdom - see Orwell's fictional writings, the actuality of propoganda the machinery of totalatarian regimes etc.
Interestingly, he is more likely to be criticised for repitition of his spoutings (aka facts as they will become) than for the fact that they are a shameless mix of post-rationalised rewritings of history and blatant distortion. Nick's piece leans in that direction.
Why the Tories and the media haven't re-run Brown's past speeches and utterances on the economy, global finance and the dominant role played in it by UK, light touch regulation etc etc etc - and compared them to his latest stuff, I don't know.
The reality is that everything Brown says and does is aimed at one thing and one thing only - staying in power. With Cameron it's all about getting into power.
As to the ability of either to get us through the recession, my feeling is that we are adrift and at the mercy of events over which they have no influence. The words headless and chickens come to mind.
The real issue isn't "Who is best placed to come up with King Canute type stunts which they claim will influence the length or depth of the recession ?" but rather "Who is more likely to get it right (or least wrong) as we respond to unfolding realities ?"
I looking at the choice before us and I think, as the man said, " I wouldn't start from here if I was me."
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134. You infer Cameron is a novice. Barak O'bama is not?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
It wears you down after a while. Surely we can get one or two days free of "new initiatives" and a bit more focus on getting things done?
The credit crunch has been understood for months. Money is still not flowing. That's where all government focus should have been.
I could understand why Brown/Darling cut VAT. After all, there is only a benefit if people are actually spending. (I'd have preferred a cut in personal tax, but individuals could have chosen not to spend...) Actually, I'd have liked a reduction - not a planned increase - in NI, as that reduces private spend and is an increasing cost on business.
But, if it makes sense now to offer a bribe to employers to take on people unemployed for 6 months, why didn't it make sense a year - or even 10 years ago? At least there was a growth in "real job" creation...
And the MIlburn thing seems so daft. Employers of any sort - whether in professional or other areas - will select people they believe show aptitude, potential for growth and a willingness to get stuck in.
The sad fact is that we have encouraged many children to believe they are quite able by gifting them "good exam passes". When many are functionally illiterate and innumerate.
If Milburn has any decency, he will listen to people in business and at teaching universities and put the focus of education back on learning and learning how to learn.
And on recognising that life doesn't owe you a living - but that any sensible government will make it as easy as possible for you to do so. Mostly, that means getting out of the way, but being conscious of the need to protect the vulnerable!
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RE DialSquareDomination @ 137
I've been trying to explain just that to the climate change deniers on this blog. They don't seem to get it though.
"Global Warming?! But duh! It's getting colder!" - oh please.
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Letting the banks go bust would have been easier and cheaper eh? For whom? For all the people who have up to date mortgages, have never ever defaulted on a payment and yet would lose their home as the bank's creditors move in and immediately foreclose on every account?
I have written, in the past, that letting the banks fail would be better and, if they did and the up-to-date mortgage payer's got to keep their homes, then fine. If depositor's managed to get their money back, then fine, but depositors WOULD lose if they have deposits over a certain level, and homes of decent, hard-working families who have done NOTHING wrong, would be lost. Even a free-market fan like me can not condone that level of free-marketism.
Even without a banking collapse there have been reports of some people on interest only mortgage accounts having their home repossessed even though they had kept up-to-date with their payments and not defaulted even once.
We need SOMETHING to get the banks working properly again. The 'giving away money like there was no tomorrow' was clearly wrong, as is hanging onto it as if 'it was their dying mother'.
The banks need to find, or be pushed into a happy in-between.
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Barking Derek
"How bad is that, the conservative party and their supporters trying their best to undermine Great Britain"
I almost fell off my chair laughing at this. How short-sighted do you have to be?
For the last eleven years we have heard about "18 years of Tory mismanagement", now we have about the next 18 years of Tory government.
Yet nothing about the 11 years during which Gordon Brown has presided over:
* Raiding of pension funds, ruining the twilight years for many people.
* Selling our gold at $250/oz (the price is now $850).
* An unsustainable house-price boom
* An unsustainable credit boom
* The complete and abject failure of the FSA, setup by Labour in 1997.
* The ruination of British competitiveness by introducing the minimum wage.
Brown IS responsible for this mess - through his actions and his inaction, he has allowed this country to be worst placed in the entire developed world for dealing with this "global" crisis.
He has already thrown hundreds of billions at the banks - with no effect.
He has nationalised banks - with no effect, they still won't pass on rate cuts.
He has wasted 12.5 bn on an utterly pointless VAT cut that does not apply to most fundamental purchases such as food and energy, and sneakily introduced a rise in fuel duty to cover any savings made on VAT there.
He wants more billions to throw at the failed banking industry - our billions. Our children and grandchildren's billions.
Now he wants to get us in hock to the Chinese and Arabs, all typically repressive regimes, to save his political hide.
You'd have to be state-employed or a benefits scrounger to vote for this inept failure of a PM. A PM who cannot even call an election cause he knows what the public think of him. He knows he's lost, so now comes the scorched earth policy. The country can go to hell as far as he is concerned, all he cares about is himself.
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH.
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109. Precisely. New World Order. Read Aaron Russo's stuff about it or look him up on Youtube. He says exactly what you say.
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It's good to see at least the Tories are doing something to help the hard-pressed poster printing industry in these difficult times by spending their own funds on a new poster campaign.
Well done.
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It's good to see at least the Tories are doing something to help the hard-pressed advertising industry in these difficult times by spending their own funds on a new poster campaign.
Well done.
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It's good to see at least the Tories are doing something to help the hard-pressed advertising site industry in these difficult times by spending their own funds on a new poster campaign.
Well done.
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97#
Sacha Baron Barker: :-)
Difference being is that Bush is even more of a lame duck than Gordon is and that he cannot possibly, constitutionally, stand for re-election.
Keep it up mate, I can see those Mail reading blue rinse apathetic Tory core voters flocking back! You're doing splendidly!
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134 derekbarker
The tories don't want to back Britain and the rest of the world, now! thats pretty noice, if you ask me, Does Cameron think he is right and the rest of the world is wrong, wrong ,wrong.
Well, Derek, Germany does not back Gordon Brown, despite all his mutterings to the contrary. It seems that their Chancellor, and Angela Merkel, think Gordon's plan is financial suicide. It will be interesting to see which countries follow GB. Not many, I'll wager.
Please tell me. If you had run up a considerable personal debt, would you then get a couple more credit cards to pay the original debt? I can't see anyone with a modicum of common sense borrowing more to pay a debt back either.
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#138
Dial,
It's not about one person nor even one country, its about a world wide collective response to a very damaging down-turn.
Young Cameron wants to go against the grain and take the whole world on and say no! to the stimulus package.
Now! why does Cameron think differently from the rest of the G8, why does Cameron want Britain to fail, why does Cameron want to pre-long the recession and make a recovery less likely with his do nothing plan, why,why,why.
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53. You really are barking. What on earth are you on about?
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134 derekbarker
Is that the type of economics you want, an isolated Britain that prints political posters in a down-turn.
..........................................................
Printing posters is a lot less worrying than printing more money in a downturn/recession, do you not think?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
DialSquareDomination @ 138
"Only a fool with the myopia of Derek Barker would agree to increase borrowing during a crisis caused by debt."
To say the crisis is caused by debt is not really correct. There is nothing wrong with debt in itself. The crisis is down to irresponsible lending.
It's not unusual at all for governments to have very large debts, mainly because if there's one entity that can pay off such debts manageably it's a state itself.
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Just returned from a very pleasant lunch (yes, you can still be happy, even in Brown's Britain); and found I had missed Nick Robinson's latest analysis, and over 100 posts in reply.
For this time only, I've decided to praise two of Gordon's achievements (the only two I can think of):
a) out-manouvring Blair/Mandelson/Milburn and the left-liberal media establishment to keep the UK out of the eurozone (a more realistically valued pound will be one of the routes out of recession for the UK)
b) saving the UK banking system when it was days or even hours away from collapse
In party political terms a) has always been Conservative Party policy; and b) was supported by all parties (though the details of the banking recapitalisation are fundamentally flawed and should be revisited, they were worked out under great time pressure).
His greatest failure? Many candidates, but in my opinion a naive belief in the efficacy of the power of the State to solve economic and social problems in normal economic conditions Over an 11 year period Gordon's use of raw government power has actually made our problems worse.
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#134
As opposed to printing money, presumably?
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@97. derekbarker wrote:
"...the tories are trying their best to over see the failure of the stimulus package."
Derek, the Tories cannot oversee anything - they are the Opposition.
Gordon did not need them to oversee the failure of the VAT cut - he managed that all on his own.
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#138 DialSquareDomination
I see you've got his number. It's the Labour-dominated UK state that he is attached to, though. A Scottish state is the last thing he wants, as Labour has to be pushed out of the way in Scotland before one can be established.
I notice that he is in the queue. Maybe that is what he wants to tell you.
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#62
All my comment was was a link to the IMF giving their telephone number and suggesting AD called them?
BBC running scared???????????
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Must be pretty thin on the ground if we have to rely on recycled news.
I still don't understand the balance, are you trying to suggest "a plague on both your houses" or attempting to get answers.
Were you shut up last week with Crash et al in Liverpool and thus restricted in outlook?
"Underneath the soundbites and slogans there is, of course, a very serious argument going on which will affect the lives of all of us for a long time to come"
and the answers?
Does this class as a soundbite?
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#131
yes, Derek we can all remember.
And we shall remember the economy under newlabour for twelve years at the next election....
Unprecedented levels of corporate, government and personal sector debt.
Off balance sheet debt in excess of 100bn.
Bloated public sector fat cat pensions.
Bloated publis sector spending with three times the level they inherited on the NHS.
Bogus education standards being rejected by universities.
An initiative a day to combat the recession and none of them working and none of them followed through and all of the money wasted adn eadded to our debt.
The highest level of sepnding on PR advisors in Downing Street ever after Brown's promise to end spin.
The most pried upon society on the planet.
A war conducted with trumped up evidence.
Private sector pensions ruined.
ALl our gold given away at rock bottom prices
Hubris, hubris, hubris and a promise to end boom amnd bust that resulted in the most spectacular bust in the last hundred years.
Half of the banking system nationalised after a failed Tripartite reform of th banking system.
Unprecedented levels of immigration.
Savers ignored
The workshy and indolent rewarded.
We'll remember all this when we put our cross in the box and give Gordon Brown and his newlabour bust the economy machine the boot once and for all.
Call an election.
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#130
yolkbar,
Comprehend a life without employment, children without working parents and countless people left without a home.
Is that what you want? "GET REAL"
Stop flicking the one sided coin?
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Naturally, Brown will paint the UK and himself as being victim of some global crisis that began in the US, structuring his sentences in such a way that the words recession and UK can not feature as a 3 word sounbite without commas when aired on the news.
However, the UK is in a worse state than the US (as can be noted from sterling's travails) and Brown is pretty much to blame
for that.
Brown:
-ran a budget deficit in boom times;
-let UK banks become the weakest capitalised banks in Europe and weaker capitalised than US banks per the end of 2006;
-let UK banks sell 125% mortgages;
-influenced appointments to the monetary policy committee of the bank of england for it to be more dovish during the housing boom and debt binge;
-doubled the pages of tax code;
-wasted billions in wrongly paid benefits;
-enacted a benefit scheme that contributes to very high marginal tax rates, reducing incentives to work for substantial numbers of people and hurting productivity;
-failed to address the public sector pension liability, estimated at close to 1 trillion by some (now 25% of council tax is paid to pay for local government pension schemes).
All the above culminated in the UK marginally dissaving in 2005-06, i.e. spending more than disposable income. This was not forced onto the UK or Brown by either the world or the US. Brown should share some of the blame and until he does he can never be part of the solution if he isn't beyond that stage in the first place.
Happy to have left a country that will see its public debt to GDP ratio go well over 100% in a few years time (all debt (private, company and government) debt now stands at about 180% to GDP).
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#43-chrisleopard
"I was talking about the economy and the rather ill-advised notion that propping up failing industries for the sake it would be a good thing."
Yes propping up failing industries is not a longterm answer and maybe can only prolong the secession, there has to be some hard decisions and not soundbites.
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#155 Barking Derek
"Now! why does Cameron think differently from the rest of the G8, why does Cameron want Britain to fail, why does Cameron want to pre-long the recession and make a recovery less likely with his do nothing plan, why,why,why."
"Do nothing" is spin fed to you by the Labour party.
His plan for having a loan guarantee that scheme that covers much more than the 0.2% the government's existing scheme has is a plan, and a good one at that.
Every measure GB has taken to get banks lending to each other and to small businesses have failed - even when he nationalises banks, they won't do what he tells them.
So in contrast - would I rather have an inept government that is trying everything under the sun at huge financial and social cost, yet having no effect; or would I have an opposition (who by definition cannot do anything except argue their case) that is at least suggesting an alternative that WOULD get banks lending to small businesses again, it is rubbished by the likes of Campbell, Mandelson and Draper.
I know which I'd prefer, and it does not involve these three charlatans.
Now back to collect your Giro, Derek, and pat yourself on the head for another day doing nothing all day except talking up Labour. They must be really proud of you. What's £15k a year for one extra voter?
Nothing given the current expenditure levels of this government.
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@ 137. DialSquareDomination:
Please forgive me flamepatricia if I step on your toes here, but I have to answer his post of Dials, and I will keep it on topic...
At the end of it at least.
Dial, of course a few days local freezing does not disprove AGW, but then looking honestly at 550 thousand years of one type of data or 150 million years of another type of data, or 30 years of satellite data images of the poles, or 7 years of Aqua satellite atmospheric temperature and water vapour data or the deep ocean probe data, (etc) or many many many other kinds of data, one can easily come to the conclusion that 100 years of global average temperature rise of 0.3 degreesC (as measured from 1908 - 2008 and allowing a correction for the large number of Siberian surface temperature stations that disappeared from the official records due to the collapse of the Soviet Union) Does NOT prove that the small addition of man's CO2, a trace gas that is plant food, has caused the earth to warm in any significant way.
Century long rises of far greater and century long falls of greater amounts have been common place long before mankind came along.
Whilst AGW *might* be happening at a small scale, it is still an unproven theory and ALL of the IPCC's preferred computer models that promote this theory have been proven wrong by the real climate. NONE of them predicted the actual FALL in average temperatures that has occurred since 1998. They predicted a tropospheric heat island that was central and essential to the mechanism that creates catastrophic warming, a heat island that does not exist in reality. In fact, none of the models even has any function to model cloud formation, let alone variance in solar flux, magnetic flux or the INCREASE in Albedo caused by the INCREASE in Antarctic surface ice cover that has been recorded in the last couple of years or thousands of other things that happen naturally that have a climate-changing effect. The models that the alarmism are based on ARE WRONG!
Can we get back to the economy now, as the climate change distraction is clearly not working.
In fact, back on topic, climate taxes should be changed to promote tree growth rather than reduce how much plant food we produce as a by-product of economic activity.
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#163
"I see you've got his number. It's the Labour-dominated UK state that he is attached to, though. A Scottish state"
Hmm didn't come across as intended, I wasn't referring to an independent Scotland, just the State in Scotland. You know, the place where the sun never stops shining and everything is free and us muppets working hard in England have to pay for it....but yes, completely agree. I think Barker knows his days of idle forum trolling will be coming to an end with a new government, and he might have to get off his elbow and do something constructive.
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134 Derekbarking
Hold on, who is to say Cameron is wrong and the world is right.
Perhaps the rest of the world are all stupid and are like a load of sheep. One reason why we are in this mess is because they all followed so perhaps it is time for someone to take on a different idea.
Cameron is trying to find ideas to get us out of this mess just like Brown is. And at this moment Cameron seems to be saying the truth because Brown dont want to admit he has cocked it up again.
And for the poster its just letting us know what the future holds for our children. But whats the future hold for you?
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FlamePatricia, I was very saddened by the sad loss Of Arron Russo. His movie freedom to fascism is a very very good, but terrifying, expose. I had links to it on my website from when it was first released.
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Derekbarker
Why do you want to plunge this country even further into debt. Why, why why?
We can't afford it.
Highest unsecured personal sector debt ever.
highest government debt ever.
highest budget deficit ever
largest off balance sheets debt ever.
largest public sector pensions deficit ever.
More debt? Are you barking mad?
This was a boom built on mountians and mountains of debt and it has got to be repaid. Now. Not by our children. By us.
Reckless and irresponsible is newlabour's policy.
Call an election.
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I agree with earlier comments. This is now all about saving Gordon and the Labour party.Not about saving Britain,the jobless,the repossed and business.Please Gordon,just go and let an ELECTED Prime Minister put the GREAT back into this country without puting our children into debt up to their necks
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#159 Chris Leopard
"It's not unusual at all for governments to have very large debts, mainly because if there's one entity that can pay off such debts manageably it's a state itself."
Sure, but some of us don't want increased government borrowing - we don't want to owe any more favours to the Chinese and Arabs who will be providing the money. They are not the kind of states we should have obligations to.
I was brought up with the ethos of "don't spend what you don't have".
We are where we are due to a decade of , as you put it, irresponsible lending; and a boom fuelled by this and unrealistic house prices.
It is time to face the pain, not prolong it by plunging ourselves further into debt. This has been tried countless times, and has never succeeded. Don't believe me? Provide an example of when it has worked....
Or perhaps print some more money? Despite Darling's pathetic whimperings, this is ALREADY HAPPENING. Give me an example of when this has worked....(Weimar Republic? Zimbabwe?).
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Nick,
Word has it that DerekBarker doesn't have a high opinion of the Conservatives and that instead he agrees wholeheartedly with everything that is espoused by GB, TB and their cronies.
In other words he is happy that we should follow those leaders that have created the conditions for astronomical levels of public and private debt, increased taxes to begin to pay off this escalating bill, unemployment going up and up and up together with higher inflation, banks going bust and being nationalised and otherwise efficient companies releasing staff all of which is combined with poor public transport and Health Services. All we need is for Brown or Blair or one of their cronies to end up in jail, and then he will have seen his beloved Labour party achieve all of the things that he claims to detest about the past Conservative record. Say it ain't so DerekB
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Derekbarker
#131
I remember it well I was laid off for 18 months.
But the reason it was necessary was the destruction of debt and industrial torpor that Labour had brought about through the sixties up to the winter of discontent.
Once again Labour gave the British economy Cancer and you and the fools you represent have spent the last 28 year blaming the conservatives for administering Chemo which saved us.
The blame for Thatchers recession can only be laid at the door of Labour due to their mismanagement and Tax and Spend policies previously inflicted.
We never learn do we I hope that everyone in a Labour held seat votes for the party in second place so that Labour is left with a rump of MP's in the new Parliament.
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Interesting to see so many posters falling for the political trap hook line and sinker.
Of course it's the economy, stupid!
What other topic has the ability to complete wipe off the political landscape every other subject of interest. If there was no collapse of the economic world order, we would be focusing on the total failure of this government to deliver effectively on anything and their complete unfitness for office.
As it is, the economic downturn has provided Labour with the very smoke screen has been looking for. Nick is right - it will be the economy and nothing but for weeks to come - and Labour is off the hook again!
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#153
Hello fubar "ubar" my friend, trying on a new reverse move?
Surely there is still a political choice?
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derekbarker at #167
You miss the point too; the question was about the tax burden falling on the future generations, and the answer (well it typically was not an answer at all - nothing changes in that repect) was deliberately disingenuous/misleading.
There's no such thing as a one sided coin.
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Re: RobinJD @ 166
I take issue with the following:
"Unprecedented levels of corporate, government and personal sector debt."
Corporate and personal debt is not the govt's responsibility. That would be 'big govt' or 'nanny state' or whatever term you prefer. As for record public debt, so-called 'record' levels have been reached countless times last century under govts of both parties. Go check out the figures. That's how it works as the economy grows over time.
"Bloated publis sector spending with three times the level they inherited on the NHS."
There have been HUGE improvements in the NHS over the last 12 years as a direct result of extra investment. There have definitely been mistakes but the victory has been for DC to state that he wants the Tories to be the party of the NHS. Whoever would've thought it!
"An initiative a day to combat the recession and none of them working and none of them followed through and all of the money wasted adn eadded to our debt."
It is far to early to assess whether these policies have worked or not. You should know that.
"The most pried upon society on the planet."
That's an opinion, not fact.
"Unprecedented levels of immigration."
Unprecedented by everyone, not just the govt. Proves what a great job Labour are doing if everyone wants to come here! ;)
"The workshy and indolent rewarded."
Another opinion.
Call an election.
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A serous question for Derek or Eaton if he joins us today.
If its right to spend spend spend during a boom, and its right to spend, spend spend during a downturn.
Please outline the conditions when its right to put somethings aside.
No more that 100 words please!
Anyone else fell free to chip in.
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Eventually you realise that 'they' i.e policymakers aka the Government do not really know what to do about recovering from this situation, other than ensuring that essential utilities such as some unworthy banks, survive (at least in the short term).
So the politicians cast about, throwing out a few ideas, maybe nicking some ideas from the other parties and above all give the impression that they are DOING SOMETHING rather than 'nothing'.
The truth appears to be that nobody really knows precisely what should happen next, but there must be some kind of way out here ...
Eventually, maybe within the next year/eighteen months or so, people themselves will decide that enough is enough and as if by magic, the green shoots will begin to appear.
In my opinion, that will have very little to do with any Government action or inaction, but politicians being politicians, they will readily line up the take the credit.
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167 derekbarker
Comprehend a life without employment, children without working parents and countless people left without a home.
..............................
We 're already going that way, Derek. Or hadn't you noticed...?
I am on a 3 day week, shortly to be 2 days. I haven't even had time to draw breath since the recession bit last year. Things have rapidly gone downhill since then. My home will be repossessed within months if I can't find full time work and I am one of many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people. I have never defaulted on my mortgage and all my household bills are paid up to date. It's been very hard on my spouse who has had to pick up the slack of my lost income. Perhaps you have been fortunate enough never to have endured the misery of unemployment - which is why you appear to fail to understand the severity of it all.
Why do you think Gordon is telling the long-time unemployed that they will have to re-train? He wants to get the unemployment figures down. Once people are off the unemployment register and onto a training course, they will not actually be registered as unemployed - even if they haven't got a job. Doesn't take a genuis to work that one out.
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Lots of comments about Brown stealing Cameron's policies and idea. I agree, but it works like this. For example
1 The Conservatives have a good idea and announce it.
2 Labour and Liberals rubbish the idea, but internally agree that it is a good idea
3 The Liberals publish their version only it can't be the same as the Conservative's so they change their version making it more complicated
4 The Conservative say their idea has been stolen, and Labour say both the Conservative and Liberal ideas are rubbish
5 Labour put a team on the idea to come up with their own version.
6 A few weeks later Labour trumpets THEIR IDEA to the world with summits and huge PR (at great cost to the tax payer). This a watered down and much more complicated version of both the Conservatives and Liberals so that critiscm is muted.
7 Conservatives and Liberals complain and take credit for the idea.
8 Labour doesn't actually implement the idea their version is too expensive and too complicated, but it has got publicity and looks as if they are doing something!!!!
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Does anyone know what the projected budgets are for public sector pensions over the next three years? I can't find any figures for this, so I guess it's going to be a massive amount.
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Nick,
your headline actually gives it all away.
Gordon Brown is meant to be the Prime Minister, not the Chancellor, Alastair Darling is the Chancellor.
The problem for Gordon is that he is a one trick pony. Please don't forget Baby P and his response in the House of commons. Also don't forget that on wednesday we will have the complete list of all those who have died in Afghanistan since he last read out the names. I hope that he is critical of Harry because he has let the cat out of the bag. I will never forget the 'we do bad things to bad people' does that include fellow officers at Sandhurst.
Zimababwe, where is that now. Dafur, where is that. Brown is completely incapable of dealing with anything other than the economy. Has he really said that harry is 'a role model' what for young men who want to sit at a computer screen ordering the deaths of human beings who have not even had the benefit of a trial.
Anybody who knows anything about Afghanistan will know that we have a kill ratio of the locals just as high as the Israeli army in Gaza. And who gives the orders? Furthermore, we are just doing the killing for the local war lords who want opponents wiped out. TAG.
TAG
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I'm sportacus!
http://news.spotz.com
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Nick,
general election vbery soon. TAG
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Derek I hate to do this but I must join the chorus of WHAT!?!
Your complaint is that a political party says that it is going to release political posters! What ever next pamphlets and political posters!?! Really I don’t want my political parties to have views I want them all to be exactly the same and keep quiet! Really man stop taking whatever you’re taking. Also I assume from you postings that you are not over 52, I would get you’re are probably not much over 40, so stop calling Cameron young! I make this assumption on your apparent need to drop to toilet vulgarities and name calling to get your point across – grow up!
Mr Leopard irresponsible lending was only part of the problem another major, if not the major, issue was the securitisation of debt. Loans were turned into securities that were then sold giving more money to lend, allowing these loans to be securitised to be sold, to raise more money etc. This house of cards brought down when someone (well a lot of someones) were unable to pay back their loan/mortgages, meaning part of the house of card defaulted, then the next layer and the next and the next with no one actually sure where the money really was. Obviously there was no real money since it was all debt paying for debt.
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The real tuth is that we should have had this recession about three years ago. it would have then been much smaller and we would have recovered a lot quicker, in fact so quickly that it may have felt like a blip.
However, the government fell into the same trap that the tory government of the 1980's fell into, that the illusion of wealth made people happy and the government took advantage of this, the banks felt they could not put people in the real picture and so went along and made a lot of money doing so (applies to now and the 1980's). A lot of borrowing on inflated values (shares property et al - same as in 1929). A lot of people believing they were (paper) millionaires (South Sea Bubble - 1720).
It should also be remembered that fraudsters using Ponzi schemes made and lost fortunes (Horatio Bottomley - 1921) and that such schemes are usually made successful not only by the charm of the people who set such schemes up but also by the greed of the financial institutions who wanted "something for nothing".
As far as politicians go, they will always try to point-score. However in reality they actually run very little of the economy, and the truth of their actual insignificance to any cause and effect of the economic woes and fortunes that befall this nation means that their ability to act is highly restricted to some token gestures, a lot of blow-harding, plenty of threats about new laws (half the time the laws already exist but just aren't enforced) and some over-reaction that has to be quickly reigned in as the targets of these reactions are totally missseed and only the innocent get caught.
The reason this is all familiar is that this happens repeatedly ("Oh it's different this time!"), and big names disappear, new ones come forward.
People should learn to relax, do the reverse of what the government wants, remember that all the advice given in the press is often given by people with self-interest at heart . And remember, nothing is for nothing, and we will all be hearing the same refrains again in about 2025
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# 172 dialsquaredomination
As an Englishman abroad in Scotland (lived here for 24 years; love the place; love the people) I am embarrassed by the growing dependence of Scotland on the good taxpayers of England (and in particular of the SE of England - where I used to live).
Since Scotland is now on a par with Cuba for state largesse (http://tinyurl.com/a8lcot ) the situation is getting beyond a pub joke.
The root cause of the problem is, of course, Labour's typically half-baked, idiotic idea to set up an impotent parliament here in Scotland. The result has been a massive explosion in Scottish state spending by Scottish pseudo-politicians with absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for the amount spent on the Scottish people: that's Westminster's problem; well, England's problem actually. It's been easy for MSPs to rack up public spending when it bears no relation whatsoever to the debt and tax-paying arrangements inside their own country. Since devolution it's been a simple case of fill your boots as far as Scottish politicians are concerned.
One wonders for how much longer the English will put up with this? In my family we have a routine every time we make our now free-of-charge drive to and fro over the Forth Road Bridge: we shout hooray and thank the good people of Buckinghamshire for their largesse. My kids love it (the irony flies over their heads, of course).
Aren't our politicians wonderful?
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Note that the policy and spin, from any of the political parties, have to be put to a focus group before it is announced to us plebs.
Focus groups have their own agenda - which is to stay in a job. They do this by being made aware (subtly) of what the favoured reaction should be, and then giving it. But with a twist to make it sound considered.
It has more to do with headline politics than serious policy to resolve problems/move the welfare of us plebs forward.
This is why the sting is in the small print. It is also why the consequences of a decision are not addressed at the outset. (Principles of Management, Lesson 1)! Hence the confusion in government circles when things do not go to expected plan.
Still, the focus group agreed!
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155 Derek Barker
The West is collectively asking for $3.5trillion from countries like China to bale them out, Unfortunately China already owns nearly $2 trillion of debt and needs money for its own problems
With oil plummeting most of the producing countries have seen the amount of money they earned plummet likewise, Russia has already lost a third of its reserves and has rising problems of its own to sort out, likewise Japan
So where's the money for the 'stimulus' coming from?
All that's left is printing money effectively destroying the value of savings, pensions at same time as reducing the value of debts
In 2007 the banks borrowed £740 billion to fund mortgages from money markets most of it from abroad,unless we start saving to reduce that dependency ultimately all that money will leave the economy to flow abroad leaving us with unproductive piles of bricks and mortar reducing in value producing nothing.
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184 CarrottsneedaQUANO2
The right time to put something aside is when Labour are in power as you know they will cock it up in the end.
The trouble is you get taxed so much you cannot save so you have to take loans out to help you through.
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Derek,
I've come to the conclusion that your comments on here are about as useful as a one legged man in a backside kicking race.
Your obviously a staunch labour supporter and although your beliefs and ideas are more suitable for the old soviet union you are entitled to them.
I can understand your dislike for a particular political party but to stand up for a government that has made pensioners poorer, low paid worse off and generally bankrupt the country i find it hard to believe form anyone with any common sense.
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Good job Derekbarkingmad is on or we would have no body to send our blogs to saying how stupid Brown and co are.
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#172 DialSquareDomination
Actually, I did see what you meant, but I couldn't resist.
The sun does indeed shine in Scotland. I can confirm that. I have witnessed the event myself. Have you all thawed out now in the frozen south, by the way? It's recently been 12 degrees warmer in the north of Scotland than in the south of France. Refugees from that neck of the woods are expected to arrive any minute now.
Everything is not free here, of course; nor is Scotland. But if you muppets have had enough of owning this country, you have only to say the word . . . the remaining Labour voters here need to hear it.
Be nice to Derek. You muppets deserve him.
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Quote: "There have definitely been mistakes but the victory has been for DC to state that he wants the Tories to be the party of the NHS. Whoever would've thought it!"
Conservative voters since world war 2 perhaps? The NHS has been run continuously since after WW2 and for the majority of that time it has been under the Conservatives. During which time, it may have been underfunded, but the tories ran the NHS with much better value for money and much more efficiently than labour.
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@167 BArker
"Comprehend a life without employment, children without working parents and countless people left without a home."
But that is exactly what Labour have delivered, perhaps it is you who needs to get real if that isnt what you wanted to happen
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DavidRMurrell @ 192:
Agree with 2nd paragraph. An exceedingly complicated situation which quite simply can't be blamed on one government or one man.
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To Mr Robinson and BBC editors,
Even stating that Brown's supporters will be stating that he saved the world from a global economic crisis is partisan reporting as it is plain subliminal messaging. Please change your ethics. I've woken up to your biased reporting a few years ago but keep reading BBC and Guardian output because it points me to future policy and helps me to make money in the markets.
A tip for proper due dilligence, ie. investigative reporting, with all the training and internship programs being announced: stop looking at the unemployed number because it will become even more meaningless, focus at the number of people employed in the market sector as it is this number that is crucial for paying all the future bills that will be sent by the debt collector, i.e. the tax man, if it isn't through rampant inflation.
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181#
Something like that Del, yeah.
I'm running with the possibility that you are in fact a totemic figure installed by Conservative Central Office in a sly bid to wake the blue-rinsed mondeo driving essex masses from their electoral apathy... Hence the Sacha Baron Cohen parallel.
What have all his successful figures (Borat, Ali G, etc) had in common?
Like a muezzin in reverse, perhaps....
As the old song goes:
"Far away, across the fields
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells....."
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To Barker
quoting to many of your posts to mention.
The G8 and G20 agreed that stimulus is the right way to go IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT!
do you get it yet. We cant afford it because Gordon has already remortgaged the property sold the gold and maxed the credit cards. He has now resorted to selling the children to medical science. Queue the monty python sketch
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183 chrisleopard wrote:
"The most pried upon society on the planet."
That's an opinion, not fact.
No its fact, no other country has the same number of CCTV cameras per person as the UK, in fact no other country comes anywhere near.
The UK has 1 percent of the worlds population and 20 percent of the worlds CCTV cameras.
Despite this the system only helped solve 3 percent of the UKs street crime.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6108496.stm
http://news.scotsman.com/uk/Britain39s-multibillionpound--CCTV-.4055450.jp
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5439604.ece
And this is FANTASTIC
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4214178/CCTV-cameras-used-to-provide-evidence-against-diners-who-complained.html
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# 185 johnconstable
The problem is not as intractible as the politicians would have us believe.
Just start a 5 - 10 year process of effecting a massive (like huge) transfer of resources from our obscenely bloated, hugely inefficient and wasteful public sector (leave the front-line staff well alone) to the wealth-creating (ie taxpaying) private sector operating under market conditions, effectively and efficiently regulated. Anything and everything else is just detail.
The problem is that Gordon Brown has not the faintest idea why or how this should/can be achieved. Brown thinks that money grows on trees and his job is to farm as much of it as possible into the state coffers, because he knows better than anyone else where and how to spend it. That's why we're in this unprecedented mess (in terms of the UK's lamentable capability to withstand what lies ahead - which is near-catasrophe at this rate).
And the Tories have spent so long trying to look and sound like the Labour Party that they too are clueless as to how to turn around our economy (Redwood has some good ideas). Cameron's been found out (you can't run a country by being good at PR) and Osborne's a joke.
So, we'll carry on sliding down this slope unless and until a Thatcher-like politician emerges to adminster the medicine.
My money's on things getting much, much worse before the British people wake up and smell the coffee. Sad really.
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So good in fact its worth a post all of its own
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4214178/CCTV-cameras-used-to-provide-evidence-against-diners-who-complained.html
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Where is Derek? If he's lucky, he'll be going home from work!
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""The most pried upon society on the planet."
That's an opinion, not fact."
Actually with more CCTV cameras per head of the population and more tracking and tracing of everything we do and everywhere we go being planned, with the most intrusive bio-metric ID cards on earth carrying more items of data than any other ID card, with the paedophiles catalogue (children's database) the DNA database and all the other planned databases, we are now the most spied on society on earth
That is a 100% true fact. No other country is planning on collecting the details of every single electronic communication of every individual, nor tracking every car journey (still in the planning stages in spite of the 1 million plus petition)
They are planning to give more and more civil servants the automatic right to enter our homes against the home-owners will. Why the hell should a traffic warden have the automatic right to enter our homes? Labour are planning this.
We are the most spied on nation on earth, even MORE than the Chinese. FACT.
If you are unaware of this, it can only mean that you get the majority of your news from mainstream media outlets such as the BBC.
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And while they are doing it to us:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=UXk4nLIv5jo
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This crisis didn't start in America. It ended in America. It was the Americans who finally pulled the pin on all this insane borrowing and squandering. It was the American banks that spotted the unsustainable nature of their very own housing bubble. A bubble that didn't get blown up anything like as much as our own.
Hurray for the Yanks!
If the yanks hadn't pulled the pin then Northern Rock and HBoS and the rest of them would still be printing even more money and British householders would be bidding up the price of their houses to even more unsustainable levels. Oh, and remortgaging for a new 4x4, holiday in Mauritius and 42" plasma TV. And Gordon would still be telling us what a great job he was doing with the economy and then going and borrowing 45bn of his own to squander on the public payroll. Just like he did for the past ten years.
Thank God for the yanks pulling the pin on this insanity before Brown got us into even more doo-doo.
Brown is only cross with the yanks and the banks because they finally sobered up. He wanted them to keep on pouring more money and more debt into the system to preserve the illusion of a vibrant economy at least until he'd actually won an election.
And now it's all been snatched from under his nose.
Shame.
But not as much of a shame as the total disaster he's made of the UK's economy.
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@183. chrisleopard wrote:
"Corporate and personal debt is not the govt's responsibility."
Yes it is. Or, rather, was. There were very distinct laws to control this sort of thing. Those controls were removed by the Government.
"As for record public debt, so-called 'record' levels have been reached countless times last century under govts of both parties. Go check out the figures."
I work with these figures every day. A "record" level means what it says. There has never been a time when per capita pro rata debt has been as high as it is now.
"There have been HUGE improvements in the NHS over the last 12 years..."
Unless you count being starved to death, MRSA, C-def, mixed sex wards, and GP contracts that meant an end to home visits.
"It is far to early to assess whether these policies have worked or not. You should know that."
It isn't. For the reduction in VAT to work, it would have to boost retail sales (the stated aim). It didn't - and it would have done by now, over Christmas.
'The most pried upon society on the planet.' -
"That's an opinion, not fact.
Not it isn't. There is one CCTV camera for every 14 people in this country - by far and away the highest ratio in the world. Also, we have a DNA database more than twice the size of any other country. Another point is that anti-terror legislation is being used to conduct surveillance on people dropping their kids off to school, or disposing of their rubbish.
"Call an election."
The smartest thing you have said.
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#192:
Good post!
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ooh Carrots..
we really have wound up the newlabour apologists today.
They don't like their shoddy track record being paraded in front of them, do they?
Kee-ee-eep blogging!!!
Call an election
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I can find virtually noone on here who comes even close to agreeing with derek woof woof barker. I'd head off the blog if I received as many cutting criticisms as he seems to have generated on here. How long do you think it will take for the message to register?
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Del:
You ask, surely there is still a political choice?
Hand on my heart mate, I'm not sure there is.
I think theres the choice between the red tories, the blue tories and the yellow tories.
Everyone has been trying to fill the political centre ground because they know thats what gets them elected. Professional politicians, of all flavours who have had no experience of real life in any real way, making monumental decisions that affect every one of us. The public, unless their votes have been bought, dont know which way to turn and see all the main parties as being just as bad as each other. So, they become apathetic and disengaged from the political process.
I'm just dissillusioned about the whole thing to be honest and at this precise moment, I've had a gutfull of it.
I've got 20 years left on this planet, if I'm lucky. Everything I've done, I've learned from and from about 2004, the path looked pretty good. Work to achieve something and go from being born on a council estate behind a bus garage, eventually via comprehensive school via the military to consultancy. Social mobility in action.
And.... partly because one man decides he was born to be PM and didnt give a monkeys as to how he got there, or who he treads on to stay there, I can see the dark clouds rolling in on the future for me and my family, Derek.
Gordon does not inspire me, he alarms me.
Call me what you like Del, soft, alarmist,depressive, whatever, but I didnt figure it was meant to be like this.
There have been bad times before and I have been made redundant several times. Having said that, I've never claimed anything from the state, ever and I've never been out of work longer than 6 weeks. I know all about bouncing back and I'll do it again and again if I have to.
I'm just fed up to the back teeth of being one of those knocked down to feed someone's rampant ego, because he figured he was born to be King.
So, apart from leading an insurrection or standing for parliament myself as an independant... wheres my political choice mate?
truthfully, honestly?
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209#
My God, Carrots, that is disgusting. The National Trust can whistle for a renewal of our membership. How dare they....
For once, I'm lost for words.... Unbelievable.
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Gordon Brown must be completely deluded if he believes that the charade he is a part of can run on any longer.
Simply the sight of his face on TV or the sound of his voice on the radio makes my blood boil... surely I cannot be the only person in the country sick to the back teeth of hearing about GLOBAL problems which STARTED IN AMERICA?
Would it not be a good idea to make a clip of all the times he has blamed our ills on the US and send it to President Elect Obama for his thoughts? I reckon he would be pretty peeved!
This mornings performance was truly inspired though, taking a Conservative policy which had been condemned as useless in November, waiting until everyone forgets about it then bringing it back wrapped in NewLabour packaging - what a cheek!
I'd just love someone to do a serious study of all the wonderful announcements GB has made and follow through to see whether any of them have come off... I'm convinced they are just put out to get headlines then quietly swept under the carpet in the hope no-one actually realises what happened.
What annoys me most about the whole NewLabour machinery is how they seem to assume we ( the electorate ) are simply mugs... existing to be spoon fed the information released for us and to be thankful for our lot... I've never been one for 'human rights' but sitting down and looking at where we are with ID cards, CCTV, DNA data, and the TONS of new legislation being heaped on us daily I fear where we are going...
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Fubar
Brilliantly put!
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211 purpleDogzzz
Did you know that state officials have the right to enter your home to seize fridges that dont have the correct energy rating
(Energy Information Household Refrigerators and Freezers Regulations 2004).
And
To ensure that your pot plants are pest free and that they have a 'plant passport'
(Plant Health England Order 2005).
Hey Ho
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#184 Carrots
You asked, if its right to spend spend spend during a boom, and its right to spend, spend spend during a downturn. Please outline the conditions when its right to put somethings aside.
This is a good question, and something that I believe some economists are trying to address. The problem is that voters, distrusting politicians and quite rightly so, will always prefer a guaranteed pound now than a hypothetical pound in the future. So dispensing money is always easy, but rebuilding government finance is always difficult (though Ken Clarke managed it).
Gordon Brown, and his sidekick ED Balls, started with their golden rules in 1997, but manipulated them so much that they lost credibility even before the current recession. Now the UK has no medium or long-term fiscal plan at all. We now know that one of Gordon's fundamental failures was to believe his self-delusional, no return to boom or bust mantra, leaving him intellectually and emotionally incapable of understanding the very question you raised. I'm amazed that some people still regard this charlatan as an economic genius.
When this crisis is eventually over we need to return to the Conservative Party's idea of an Office of Budgetary Responsibility, supported by a completely independent office of national statistics (and by the way remove the power of patronage from the PM, as Tony Benn as argued, so that these offices are completely independent of government).
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Derek Barking,
I'm surprised that I've not seen you appearing on the pages of LabourList Derek Draper's new website where Labour minded people com together. It's full of nice Labour Lovies saying how great Brown is and signing off with terms of endearment (such as 'See you next Tuesday!').
I've been 'trolling' on there and asked some pointed and blunt (OK, rude) questions. Dolly Draper is not amused....
Peter Mandelson also blogged. I asked him:
Dear Peter,
Lovely of you to converse with us, the public.
Perhaps you can 'embrace and engage' in this dialogue by telling us:
1) Why you accepted Oleg Deripaska's 'hospitality' and stayed as his guest a for a number of nights on his Yacht (bearing in mind that George Osbourne got 'slaughtered' by your well-oiled machine); and
2) Who paid for your recent jaunt to Marrakesh.
I'm sure that in the spirit of disclosure and transparency you'll provide us with a complete and accurate explanation.
BTW, when you blogged before - as a EU Commissar - you wrote (once!), but you didn't respond to any comments. Will you do so this time?
Surprisingly, I haven't had an answer yet....
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#212 carrots
Scary stuff indeed. There is not much point in hiring lots of Police Officers if they do not know the law. Also the Community Support Officers are not supposed to confront the public in this way. In such a situation I thought they were supposed to call for the Police. Remember when a kid drowned a few years ago and stood by as they had not received the relevant training and waited for a trained policeman to arrive.
But I suspect that it will soon be made law, through some chicanery by the home Office. But it will really destroy the Tourism industry won't it? Brown really is quite good at destroying things that work hmm?
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#204
Actually I like reading the Guardian website - I find the style of the website easy to use, informative and there are usually quite a lot of thought-provoking comments on the CiF section
Of course what I like best is the way that Polly, Ashley and Andrew keep getting torn apart in their bloggs.
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216. RobinJD
Indeed, such fun.
We need a few more though, they all seem to have headed for the hills.
Hey ho
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Of course some unscrupulous employers will "sack" some employees then re-employ them for the Government handout.
Hmmm. Silly Gordon.
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224. MaxSceptic
Bloody brilliant, Im heading over for some fun.
titter.
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#102
Of course GDP included all the sales caused by the suicidal banks lending money to people who could not pay it out.
Also: as is usual - Public sector debt does not cover off-book debts such as:
PFI:
Public Sector Pension Liabilities.
I dread to think what the actual debt will be in two years time. However in 2006 the Independent estimated Public Sector Pension Liabilities as £1,000 million
PFI liabilities were listed until 2004 when the chancellor arranged for them to be unlisted (now who was he again?) The SNP estimate them as £216 billion.
So before we take into account the costs of saving the world (oops banks) Government debt was not £650 billion (44.3% of GDP) but £1866 billion (127% of GDP)
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Of course David Cameron will critcize as un-affordable Darlings VAT rate cut to 15% .It was the tories after all who put it up to 17.5% in the first place, the"tax cutting"government of Margaret Thatcher.
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Derek,
if the Cameron is so bad can you give an explanation on how he is ahead in the polls?
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Of course some unscrupulous employers will "sack" some employees then re-employ them for the Government handout.
Hmmm. Silly Gordon.
My husband, who is not particularly interested in politics, just watched Crash on the News ("not on my watch") and retorted:
I get HIS game, he's creating one God awful muddle for the Tories to sort out when they get in.
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Anyone got a question for Peter
http://www.labourlist.org/in_new_media_command_and_control_doesnt_work_we_need_to_embrace_,2009-01-11
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From Obama's recent speech: We arrived at this point (the crisis) due to an era of profound irresponsibility that stretched from corporate boardrooms to the halls of power in Washington, DC. Politicians spent taxpayer money without wisdom or discipline, and too often focused on scoring political points instead of the problems they were sent here to solve.
Sounds like an excellent analysis (not bad for a novice, one might even say) of the failure of Bush/Brown economics. Just remember this when Brown tries to use Obama for his re-election campaign here.
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#208-moraymint-
Very good point, only another with Thatcher like character can turn things around, even Sir Alan Sugar said on BBC last night she was a breath of fresh air to buisness in the eighties.
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It would seem the two dozen or so tory supporters on this blog, think they have some kinda hold on the general public.
Demanding elections and with-draws from the EU to the potato tax!
Unable to understand why the world wants to carry the stimulus plan forward, the murky dozen simply drown out the yell for action because they believe it's about savings and tax cuts for the murky conservative dozen.
Get out the box, join in the human race!
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I don't know why anyone even attempts to respond to Barking Mad....all it does is feed his quite bizarre ego.
..he is a thoroughly nasty man.
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217. At 5:16pm on 12 Jan 2009, sicilian29 wrote:
I can find virtually noone on here who comes even close to agreeing with derek woof woof barker.
===
Sicilian, I have to disagree with you. I have been reading Derek's well-written prose for some time now, and the sheer power of his eloquence and arguments have won me over.
He is absolutely correct, this is no time for a novice. I am appalled that young Barack, who is a novice, has been in charge of a "Do nothing" administration since 4 November.
He has been president -elect for over 2 months and yet he has DONE NOTHING.
I think we need to get George Bush to stay in power, after all he has the experience, he led america into this mess, so he is the right man to lead them out, because it all started in America, you know!
Young Barack, the Do Nothing leader of a Do Nothing Administration.
;-)
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194. moraymint wrote:
One wonders for how much longer the English will put up with this? In my family we have a routine every time we make our now free-of-charge drive to and fro over the Forth Road Bridge: we shout hooray and thank the good people of Buckinghamshire for their largesse.
Well at least you say thank you.
Derek just shouts for more like a petulant teenage daughter demanding new shoes.
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Ok Nick your pal Webcameron may not be stupid enough to say: "it's the economy stupid", but during his interview on Sunday with Andrew Marr, he did say: "it's the credit crunch, stupid". I don't know which is worse.
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weejonnie @226,
Polly-bashing on CIF is fun and easy - like shooting fish in a barrel (though Polly is no dumb animal...).
After a short while, however, I do get queasy from the sickly proximity of all the right-on lefties, socialists and anti-semites who populate the pages of the Gruniad.
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222 carrots...
I'm suprised at you with your interest in agriculture disagreeing with this.
"To ensure that your pot plants are pest free and that they have a 'plant passport'"
I suspect that is to make sure that hostile invasive species of insects or disease don't arrive and decimate our ecosystem and of course our carrot and potato crops. Perhaps a little thought?
Shows how seriously(not!) you should take anything typed in here.
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All modern economies need 'money' as a vital lubricant. Money is an act of faith. Our faith in money is being damaged by this disastrous chain of events and few have yet recognised how serious this is.
Money need to be valued- that is the holding on money need to provide a financial return. The liquidity problem is because few value money any more. Most have lost the faith. This essential truth has so far escaped politicians on all sides (but not many bankers!)
There will be no economy to recover if we do not post-haste re-enliven the faith in money by paying positive interest on deposits and by expecting borrowers to expect to pay a reasonable charge for access to money.
Both 'leaders' have yet to face up to the most crucial aspect of any recovery that is the problem of the lack of faith in money - indeed by progressively lowering interest rates to essential negative levels (taking inflation into consideration) they are exacerbating the problem and moving further away from a solution or recovery.
If you do not have faith in money as a means of valuing exchange and transmitting value there is no economy!
In summary :
Interest rates up to 5 percent immediately. Help for borrowers in distress, but not to the extent that it distorts the market (particularly in property in the UK and the USA) Rescue the banks as required, but also cap all incomes (nationalised or not) - banking and others e.g. 100% tax on incomes over 200,000 pounds per year. Provide significant tax reliefs for investing in manufacturing industry - and nothing else. Contemplate Exchange Control so that capital flows are the result of trade flows of tangible goods.
I hope you get the idea - we require a review of the nature of our society. Presently we have hit the buffers and have destroyed the very lubricant of trade - money.
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At the moment I couldn't care less who or what is at fault. Selecting those bits of history which support your prejudice might make you feel better, but it does not actually help solve the problem.
I would hope that the oppostion comes up with some good ideas and perhaps even changes the government's mind. Isn't that what an opposition is supposed to do? Or is their purpose simply to trip up the government and call them names to the amusement of their supporters?
So let's have discussion on economic and fiscal matters and not a continuation of tribal arguments. So let's hear some good ideas and an explanation why they are so good? Tribal arguments are backward looking and come with a load of assumptions which make them useless in forward looking analysis.
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"Did you know that state officials have the right to enter your home to seize fridges that dont have the correct energy rating
(Energy Information Household Refrigerators and Freezers Regulations 2004)."
This appears to be refering to someone selling a fridge with a false energy rating sticker or advertising one with a false energy rating. Trading standards already exists!.
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#232 Tenmaya
Cameron is so far a head in the polls because everyone is so fed up with Brown dragging us all down.
No doubt DerekBarkingMad can write a list of what the Tories have done wrong throw a few names at Cameron (yawwwwwn) but it still wont change that we the public have had enough of Labours high taxes high spending, jobs being lost in their thousands everyday etc etc
Thats why Cameron is doing well in the polls.
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#233
flamepatricia,
Just because you can fill one cloths line with one item, doesn't mean you can go on and fill every line with the same item.
A little less conversation, a little more action.
please!
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Why is it taking over an hour to get our bloggs being shown Labour taking contol here to?
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Max sceptic
224
Thank you so much for the SimpletonList link
http://www.labourlist.org/you_have_called_for_tighter_moderation_here_it_is
It is the funniest thing I've seen in ages.
Derekbarker and his RRU mates are getting slaughtered so much so they’re having to bring in censorship. Who’d of thought it ZaNulabour bringing in censorship on their own site because they are getting slaughtered?
This is a quote from Big DD himself.
In order to ensure an insightful, engaging debate we will also place other comments judged to be grossly unintelligent or obtuse or Trolls in our trash can. These comments can, however, still be viewed by users by clicking on the “include trash comments” button under each post.”us.
Absolutely priceless you couldn’t make it up
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I've just been watching Sky's Jeff Randall interviewing Alastair Darling. Mr Randall has been asking all the pertinent questions.
Nick - maybe you should have a look - you might get some pointers.
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224. MaxSceptic
You can tell its a Labour web site
It took nearly an hour to register
Now the web site seems down, either that or it closes at 6.00pm
Bet I start getting tax credit cheques next Monday
Superb service.
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Nick,
Is it a coincidence that in the week that the new production of the musical Oliver opens in the West End the Labour Government have adopted the position of the 'I'd Do Anything' party which includes pinching Tory ideas. Perhaps Gordon Brown would like to understudy as the Artful Dodger, having become so adept at dodging the blame.
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Unless and until we see some top investment bankers plus some head honchos from the ratings agencies in handcuffs, the debate about who carries the blame for the massive damage to people's lives is just so much guff.
Fraud, motivated by greed, is evident.
Let us see charges brought against individuals and an appropriate price paid by the guilty.
As for the involvement of politicians...by definition they are neither experienced nor qualified to produce the solutions...hence, giving them responsibility to find a solution is a futile diversion.
John C.
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213 U
'This crisis didn't start in America. It ended in America. It was the Americans who finally pulled the pin on all this insane borrowing and squandering. It was the American banks that spotted the unsustainable nature of their very own housing bubble. A bubble that didn't get blown up anything like as much as our own.'
It ended when global investors refused to roll over their (mainly) US mortgage-backed bonds at 6% when Treasuries were yielding close to that.
The American banks 'spotted' this (with just one or two exceptions) only when it clouted them in the face with a big fat soggy kipper.
Your statement about the UK housing bubble relative to that of the US is not supported thus far by anything apart from speculation. A weak exchange rate and low base rates for a year or so may well make a monkey of that, let's hope so...
Or, are you hoping that we'll see the great economic collapse, followed by mass repossessions, in the UK, which could prove your theory correct? A calamity of terrifying proportions for most, which you hope might suit your party political preferences?
Nice.
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235 John
I don't think Obama was referring to any politicians other than those in the Bush regime. I doubt that he, like the rest of his countrymen, has the slightest interest in or awareness of any external economic data. For the US, the domestic economy is the only economy of any importance.
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This is very interesting....I'm surprised Nick has not picked up on this yet...but it is just day 1 of the first balanced blog.
Good job guido and the Telegraph picked up on this...
So, this is supposed to be from a transparent govt who DENY the printing presses are running.....so why on earth change this part of the Banking code then?
Just so happens it was coincidence - I THINK NOT!!!!!
Derek - any ideas?
...............................
This happened on December 5th 2008...
Banking Bill
Part 7—Miscellaneous
Weekly return
Section 6 of the Bank Charter Act 1844 (Bank to produce weekly account) shall cease to have effect.
................................
The Telegraph picked up on it today:
"The Government is set to throw out the 165-year old law that obliges the Bank to publish a weekly account of its balance sheet – a move that will allow it theoretically to embark covertly on so-called quantitative easing. The Banking Bill, which is currently passing through Parliament, abolishes a key section of the law laid down by Robert Peel's Government in 1844 which originally granted the Bank the sole right to print UK money.
...
Debating the issue in the House of Lords recently, Lord James of Blackheath, a Conservative peer, said: "Remove [this] control and there is nothing to stop an unreported and unmonitored flooding of the money market by the undisciplined use of the printing presses.
"If we went down that path we would be following a road which starts in Weimar, goes on through Harare and must not end in Westminster and London. That is the great fear that the abolition of that section will bring about – but the Bill abolishes it." "
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Brown reiterated that there would be 35,000 new apprenticeships created.
While still Chancellor, he stated that - by 2007 - there would be 500,000.
Far as I can see, there are actually less than 250,000.
So why announce an additional 35K, when he still has a backlog of 250K to deliver?
Why? Obvious. It makes a good sound-bite. But it doesn't DO anything...
Brown said this morning that Northern Rock had to be nationalised, as it had a bad business model and would not otherwise be rescuable.
Well, the FSA (Brown's creation) said that they KNEW NR was an economic basket case.
But what did they DO? Nothing. Nada.
Why not? What rules did Gordon work out with the FSA to intervene when banks were getting out of control?
In politics - as in business - it isn't what you promise, it's what you deliver that counts.
Wish Brown had placed more checks on the "effectiveness" of money hoovered up from the tax-payer and sprayed over favoured projects.
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7, nataku-
Exactly. I was watching the news with my youngest, who's sixteen. I told him that the next idea Brown would steal would be the loan guarantee scheme. How long will it be before Brown's boasting about another fabulous new idea that, in fact, he's half-inched from Cameron?
Keep up the 'I Blame the States!' rant, Mister Brown. Obama, a man who will most definitely resent being protrayed as Brown's disciple and pupil should he ever bother to pay attention to what happens here, has warned his countrymen that trying to spend ones way out of a recession is a long shot. This is at least honest. Obama's also lambasted government waste as part of the problem while Brown deliberately wastes vast amounts of public money to bribe supporters.
Obamba will also resent being lectured to by someone whose policies as the de facto leader of the UK's government [since 1997, Brown's been in charge of social policy and finances, leaving Blair the job of starting wars] have put him second place in the opinion polls. If there is a conference of world leaders in London this spring, it's the ideal time and place for Brown to summon Little Barack into a back room and scold him for America's having 'caused' this recession and this collapse of the banking industry. This will really impress the new US leader no end!
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Oh one other thing regarding my post #257
I have written to my MP asking him to explain why they ahve done it and asking if it is purely coincidence..
I await his reply.
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the blame is split 80 pc American wild west capitalism slavishly followed, as per usual, by our pathetic and contemptible private sector spivs, and 20 pc the ridiculous and totally out of his depth Brown ...
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As an American I don't usually post on here but. . .
excellentcatblogger #47: "Wont Brown's constant heaping the blame on America backfire?"
It very well might. Once Obama takes office next week, I certainly hope he tells Brown in no uncertain terms just how he feels about Brown's blaming us for the economic crisis!
"If there was intelligent life in Downing Street, they might have spotted that Obama's back office team is largely inherited from Bush."
I'm not sure just what you mean by "back office team," but if by that you mean Obama's financial advisors etc then no they're not. The only person who is staying on from the Bush administration is Robert Gates, the secritary of Defence.
"Many of the policies will be similar, basically because Obama does not have the luxury of financial leeway."
Obama's policies will be largely the same because they are the only ones that will work to successfully fix our specific financial problems. But if many of Obama's other policies (financial or otherwise) are the same or similar to Bush's, then I don't think he can look forward to being re-elected. Because as you know he was elected on the promis of change. So the people are looking for him to deliver!
"So criticising America as the cause is also a dig at Obama."
Especially since Obama isn't a member of the party that was in power in this country when the financial crisis hit! Much like Cameron is to the UK.
"My dealings with the US on most levels have shown they are much smarter than they let on."
Please don't think that these appearances are demonstrations of how stupid a lot of people are, I think rather they are just demonstrations of people trying to be professional and diplomatic. And while I have a photographic memory, I would caussion you against think that most people do! And Iccertainly hope that your experiences have also shown you that we are a pretty forgiving people as well!
Brown's mantra that "The rest of the world is injecting fiscal stimulus packages into their economies, air go we'll look out of sync with them if we don't do the same." does, as Cameron and others have justifyably pointed out, leave out the little tid bit that those other nations are doing it because they can aford and their specific problems require it in order to be fixed! I don't think the UK needs it which is a good thing because more tax payers money won't be spent (unlike here where Obama's 800 billion dollar rescue plan will in the future it is predicted cost the average American $6000.) nor, honestly, can they (the UK) aford it. So I think Brown's best plan of action is to find another plan that the UK can aford and that Cameron hasn't thought of. Cameron should lay out specificly what he will do should he get into power.
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184 Carrots and 223 John
The obvious answer is that during a period of above-trend growth you should spend what you can afford. The problem is knowing at the time how much that is. I suppose it depends on how much you trust your own forecasts. Brown kept on beating his, so I guess he must have started to believe that it really was a golden age. 1 billion Chinese workers had killed inflation for the forseeable, and that it really was the end of boom and bust...
Plenty had their doubts, especially about house prices, but Brown was far from alone in apparently considering that a combination of advances in technology and abundant cheap labour had brought about a genuine paradigm shift.
You didn't hear many Conservatives protesting about high house prices- mainly because many of them have at least two (making police searches all the more time-consuming)!
What is obvious, and the Tories have now woken up to this, is that when the world is falling off a cliff, you have to spend what you can't afford.
They are also slowly recognising that to cut public spending now would lead to almost immediate disaster. Hence they've stopped bleating about the Govt. intervening to save the banks etc. and are now talking not about sacking public sector workers, but guaranteeing loans to business etc.- measures which involve spend spend spend...
Give them a few months and the two main parties will be almost at one on economic policy again.
It's just that in the meantime (Northern Rock to about next month) we've all seen who makes the right calls on instinct when the going gets tough.
That's why we still have UK banks left to pay us / the Arabs a juicy 12 / 14 % for rescuing them, for example.
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...sorry, one other thing - the Federal reserve WILL continue to pubish it's weekly balance sheet...
So why is it not going to be done here?
Just for clarity - the BOE will publish monthly accounts - but they will be a month out of date - so what is published at the end of this month will be the figures for the end of last month!!
Of course, it's just pure coincidence...
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Brown would love us to stop talking about the economy, he spent all the money in the good times. What is quite incredible that he thought we would never have boom and bust so never prepared for it, SO STUPID.
The Indians of the USA had a very wise saying "We borrow the land from our children".
Brown has now created a very stupid fact "We borrow our money from our children".
Under Labour our young adults will leave uni with debts of say 25k and then have higher taxes to pay for our expenditure, then taxes for their expenditure. LABOUR HAVE DONE IT AGAIN SPENT MONEY THEY DID NOT HAVE.
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Err, mods, just what is happening? - a queue of 25 posts for moderation...!!
Wake up at the back!
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To derekbarker
#167
I do admire you, the lone voice, the feeling you maybe trying to push water up a hill (or Labour at that).
To quote Fernando Martinez 'You give this blog the passion it needs'
Keep up the good work (it's such a good read)
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Exactly 2 hours behind in the modding now, really helps the flow, not!
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Brown is looking awfully smug, which is bile making especially when the Labour party has not on any occasion taken any responsibility for any of our problems. If I were younger I would emigrate. The country is in a terribe mess and the only thing he can come up with is more of what got us into this awful mess. I would like Brown to just show a bit of humility, but he is a puffed up arrogant bore.
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243. At 7:06pm on 12 Jan 2009, dhwilkinson wrote:
222 carrots...
I'm suprised at you with your interest in agriculture disagreeing with this.
"To ensure that your pot plants are pest free and that they have a 'plant passport'"
I suspect that is to make sure that hostile invasive species of insects or disease don't arrive and decimate our ecosystem and of course our carrot and potato crops. Perhaps a little thought?
Shows how seriously(not!) you should take anything typed in here.
Oh lord I didnt realise THAT, CANCEL COMMENT AT 222
Breaking in to my house to check for dangerous insects is fine then.
Glad thats clarified
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Well, Gordon's-little-(official)-helper derekbarker has had a lot to say on this strange entity "stimulus".
So, I shall ask a question that I have asked a few times before in earlier threads, and not had an answer (either from Derek or any other of his little friends). It goes like this.
The PBR announced massive public debt to be incurred this year, next year and onwards. But all that does is maintain existing government expenditure in the face of a collapse in taxation revenue. So that isn't the stimulus package.
Of course there was the VAT rate reduction. A failure for a number of reasons - too broad in its application, too little benefit at the points where it was supposed to matter. There is also the little issue of it tending to benefit the relatively well-off significantly more than the poor. (Oh yes, Derek, I know you've argued against this, but the majority of the vatable spend usually made by the less well-off, like domestic fuel, petrol, alcohol, tobacco, were excluded from the rate reduction.) Also the VAT rate reduction only amounts to 14 billions, which is minute compared to so-called stimulus packages which have either happened or are anticipated in other countries, e.g. the US, France, Germany.
Everything else we have heard of, at very best is a recycled announcement from recent history, at next-best hasn't happened yet, in the middle might or might not happen but there is no preparation of the infrastructure actually to make it happen (e.g. "apprenticeships"), and at worst, well, no sensible person is going to hold his breath waiting for it to happen (e.g. today's 2500 per new job initiative).
So, the big question (e.g. for Derek) is, where and what is that famous stimulus package? Because I think it is a lot of wind and hot air masking.... nothing at all.
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With Gordon Brown 10 points behind Cameron in a poll, it seems that Labour's attempts to deflect the criticism they are sinking under has not worked.
Mr Browns claims of 'Saving' the World' seem very hollow to the British Electorate, to my mind Gordon Brown has been one of the biggest disasters of modern times, I suggest that he take up his true vocation and find some local council to run.
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248. derekbarker wrote:
Just because you can fill one cloths line with one item, doesn't mean you can go on and fill every line with the same item.
NICE comment,
I think we are getting to see the real you now.
More More.
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237 derekbarker wrote:
"It would seem the two dozen or so tory supporters on this blog, think they have some kinda hold on the general public."
Derek, on any political blog you get people with entrenched views. And quite a few who have probably got some "deep-down" instinct, but are prepared to vote for/ support a party with prospects of changing life for the better.
It's just a fact of life that the incumbent administration has some kinda hold on the public purse-strings. I bet you were critical about Thatcher or Major when they were in power. Quite right. They were the only political people who could actually DO anything.
So don't be surprised if even people who may have a tendency towards a socially-inclined party attack the incumbent party when they do things that seem pretty damn stupid!
"Demanding elections and with-draws from the EU to the potato tax!"
Well, Labour seemed to want an election last year. Since when things have fallen off a cliff. So you can't blame people for calling for a "clear-the-air" election.
I can only guess, but I think a lot of people quite like the drawing-together of people within the EU. What I - and a lot of folk - hate is the constant stream of gratuitous legislation and regulation that pours out of Brussels. When you pile that on top of our local rules and regs, it just becomes unthinkable that ANYONE understands what is within or without the law...
"Unable to understand why the world wants to carry the stimulus plan forward, the murky dozen simply drown out the yell for action because they believe it's about savings and tax cuts for the murky conservative dozen."
Derek, India and China have almost a third of the world's population. And an awful lot of monetary resources and foreign reserves. If a stimulus is going to work, they have to be persuaded that the daft bankers and political organisations in the West will actually do something sensible with THEIR money.
I was quite impressed with Brown's "outsourcing" of the interest-rate setting to the BoE. Never looked in detail at the limitations within which the FSA would work.
I really liked the 10p tax-band. Although, quite frankly, I thought it could have been restricted to those on lower income. (Still do! It would have been a smart political move if Brown had retained the 10p rate for lower-income folk while fiddling about with other rates. He had months to think about it, but seemed to be too proud to allow some sensible re-structuring. Making people claim their own money back just wasn't smart...)
Brown could have imposed swathing upper-band taxes on the nasty people in the city and their obscene bonuses. Did he? Nah.
Why not? You can't blame anyone but Brown for tax allowances or tax-rates over the last 12 years.
HE chose to go with a restricted personal allowance / take-from-the-poorest personal tax approach and impose a tax-credits and allowances regime, that makes people supplicants of the state. That's about as Stalinist as you can get. That may be your idea of a "socially-responsible nation".
It sure as heck ain't mine.
"Get out the box, join in the human race!"
Derek, please understand that a lot of very poor people across the world really appreciate the opportunity afforded by a good education.
For decades, in the UK, people seem to think that education is simply the platform for entitlement.
Why don't you join the human race?
Blair was funded by Brown (they obviously didn't work together) to attack Iraq.
What commitment do you bring to getting rid of Mugabe? For goodness sake, these idiots are printing 20 and 50 BILLION dollar notes. Worth less and less. While their populations starve because a very qualified guy (Mugabe has many more degrees across disciplines than Brown) is concurrently an idiot.
I'm afraid I've come to believe that this administration is full of very clever, but absolutely stupid people.
(Witness the nonsense of the withdrawal of incandescent lamp-bulbs...)
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bridodeejohn 200
No Scotland is not free, but I wish it were, then maybe some of the awful hatred you show to any English person living there would stop. Your independence will not come under G. Brown because he needs your votes, and certainly not under the SNP who are dragging you nicely back to the past. You needed English tax money to bail out your banks something you could not have afforded if you had been independent, the Scottish economy has been in recession for years. You know that you enjoy many more benefits than the English because of the generous amount of tax money you recieve. Free care for the elderly being the most expensive. Why on earth should Scottish MPs vote on English issues when the English MPs can not vote on Scottish issues.
Now though since the SNP have been voted in, it is time for England to say enough is enough and move for independence themselves. I know its a fine joke for the Scottish to see England under the thumb of Brown when he does not have a constituency in England and does not rule in Scotland but his days are numbered.
By the way you should never tell untruths about the weather you will always get found out.
There is no malice in this statement just honest facts and no one deserves derekbarker.
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Just short of two hours wait for comments to come through moderation is NO WAY TO RUN A BLOG.
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248. At 7:25pm on 12 Jan 2009, derekbarker
The resident Draper-drone has become rather nasty of late, making ungallant (and most probably false) comments about lady posters who object to his rabid and slavish adherence to the NuLab Party Line.
But to the targets of his venom I say: Be ruffled not. Ungallant comments made by a eunuch don't count.
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250. At 7:38pm on 12 Jan 2009, PortcullisGate wrote:
Max sceptic
224
Thank you so much for the SimpletonList link
http://www.labourlist.org/you_have_called_for_tighter_moderation_here_it_is
It is the funniest thing I've seen in ages.
Derekbarker and his RRU mates are getting slaughtered so much so they?re having to bring in censorship. Who?d of thought it ZaNulabour bringing in censorship on their own site because they are getting slaughtered?
This is a quote from Big DD himself.
In order to ensure an insightful, engaging debate we will also place other comments judged to be grossly unintelligent or obtuse or Trolls in our trash can. These comments can, however, still be viewed by users by clicking on the ?include trash comments? button under each post.?us.
Absolutely priceless you couldn?t make it up
The least we can do is keep them busy.
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Did anyone see Dolly Draper on Channel 4 News this evening (a piece about his new LabourList drone-blog was hilarious - especially as Channel 4 couldn't access the site 'cos it was 'down').
Dolly looked a mess. He is the 'picture', the outward manifestation of the Dorian Gray-like decay that has eaten out the innards of the NuLabour 'project' and its awful, immoral government.
I now have a new candidate for the position of 'pig's head on a stick'.
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Nick, firstly, thanks for allowing me to resume participation in commenting on your articles.
I presume that one reason for this is that you can finally see that Brown and his cabinet tell porkies at every opportunity and you may have to shift your allegiance to the tories or at least become more neutral as this article showed you are capable of doing.
I hope you will ask Brown at his next press meeting why the pound is doing far worse than all other currencies apart from the Zimbabwe dollar and has been in decline constantly for over a year. And insist on an answer.
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nick,
A little birdie employed by auntie Beeb has told me that BBC websites and blogs are coming under 'political pressure' to 'tone down', 'moderate' and/or 'censor' anti-government comments in this 'time of economic emergency'.
Is there any truth in this rumour?
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With a rather slow mod approval, I've only just found this...
#248 derekbarker wrote:
#233
"flamepatricia,
Just because you can fill one cloths line with one item, doesn't mean you can go on and fill every line with the same item.
A little less conversation, a little more action.
please!"
Derek, I do agree. Only a government can actually do anything about the way in which taxes are gathered and spent.
I've listened to "announced" initiative after initiative for a decade.
Blair was all for "Education, Education, Education". Delivered statistics - but no overall improvement in understanding or learning. Failure.
Also wanted to "Take the offenders to the local cash-point, so they can pay fines". Was rediculous and totally un-executable. But grabbed a headline. Failure.
Brown sidelined "boom and bust". Also rediculous. Failure.
Promised 500 thousand apprenticeships in 2007. Didn't deliver. (Actually failed by 50percent.)
Brown said there will not be anyone "unnecessarily unemployed on his watch". Well, there's a good caveat built into that statement...
The only way in which central governments can ensure employment is by taxing anything productive (or printing money) and placing increasing numbers of people into totally unnecessary "jobs".
It's just not the political statements that make a difference. It's what you DO.
I don't like the fact that some of my children were encouraged to buy into property that was obviously only at such high levels because money was being sloshed around. House prices move up when demand exceeds supply. That's normal. But they only soar when money is poured into the "demand" end, with rediculously easy qualifications for access. Like "you can have 5 or 6 times salary" or "we'll give you more than the apparent value of the housing asset".
That NEVER happened during my younger days. Didn't even happen under Thatcher's regime.
That's a wholly Brown approved phenonemon.
To say that is not a party-partisan position.
Just a reflection that, over a decade, credit based expansion has been overseen by Brown.
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moraymint @ 208
A hugely bloated public sector eh?
I believe that roughly 1-in-4 people work in the public sector.
Is that an unreasonably high number of people to be working in the public sector for a developed economy?
I do not know and would be grateful for any pointers from fellow bloggers.
PS. You mentioned John Redwood in passing having some good ideas. Bloggers may well be under the impression that John Redwood is a Tory MP.
Indeed he nominally is, but his primary job these days is as an investment manager for a large financial organisation.
I don't wish to do down Mr. Redwood but merely point this out to emphasize to our dear readers that there is absolutely nothing 'honourable' about a job whereby the person can choose to do as much or as little as he or she wishes and yet enjoy from that 'job' the finest pension scheme in the land plus the other many 'perks', apart from a non-trivial salary itself.
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Gordon Brown bounce fades as Conservatives return to huge poll lead
The Conservatives have moved back into a double figure lead over Labour as Gordon Brown’s bounce over his handling of the banking crisis has faded.
The latest Populus poll for The Times, undertaken over the weekend, will reassure jittery Tory leaders. The Conservatives have risen four points since early December to 43 per cent, with Labour down two points at 33 per cent and the Liberal Democrats also down two at 15 per cent. Other parties remain on 9 per cent.
Looks like it was a dead cat bounce after all!
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253#
Not to mention.......
"You gotta pick a pocket or two boys..........
YOU GOTTA PICK A POCKET OR TWO!"
and for Mandelson....
"As Long as He Needs me........"
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Not that this is worthit as it'll probably be 1am before the mods get round to this one..
Nevertheless...
I've read Nick's blog abot 6 times now - the news is pretty quiet, tory side very quiet - labour mtoo generally speaking...
...there's something in the air- it feels like pretty sticky doo doo is about to hit the fan...and I think Nick knows more than he is letting on. I felt this even before the surprise that was Nick's blog - perhaps it's just me - but soemthing is about to hit the fan very soon..
Something is going on...and I wouldn't be surprised if we don't get something else from Nick by Wednesday this week...
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Hey Robin
Bad news; an election is looking less likely.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5504673.ece
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I see the Gordon the Golem in Mussolini pose photograph is back. Doesn't he look hideous and barely human.
And nicking Conservative ideas, which is of course how Labour got elected in the first place.
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A ragged man came shuffling through
A puppet King on the 4th of June
And butterflies from all around
Settled on his paper crown
A pretty sight it seemed to be
An avenue of eternal peace
But he said "What is here can soon burn down
Im the King Of Sunset Town"
Watching a big wheel turning around
Some go up, Some go down
Some go thirsty, some just drown
"Thats the law round here"
Said the King Of Sunset Town...
And in the night he comes to me
and the square becomes a battlefield
Of staring eyes that cant explain
The insanity and the greater game...
Watching a big wheel turning around
Some go up, Some go down
Some go thirsty, some just drown
"Thats the law round here"
Said the King Of Sunset Town...
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#274
Captain sensible was full of happy talken,
I guess it never made a blind difference to
you.
I guess my instinct, tells me that GB is truly connected to the plight of the third world problems, its not so much about a compass point, its about delivery, real help and the branch of humanity that unites the whole world.
I guess the conservatives wouldn't understand that language.
I some-times like to paint, I paint the things I want to see but it dont come easy. Still I'll never let a tory steal the sun-from my heart.
Until later....HAPPY TALKEN. MY FRIEND.
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270 carrots...
passports are used for travelling you need a passport for importing plants to prove that the plants you are importing are free from disease and insects. Your post is as usual absolute rubbish.
Did you know that their is an unbiased troll on this site who is taking the Mickey out of everyone?
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#286 squirestrat
Come on, tell all, don't be a tease!
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What on earth was wrong with Gordon Brown's hair today? Looked as if he was wearing a hair piece.
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Derekbarker
If they ever bring DD's labour site censorship rules on thls blog
"In order to ensure an insightful, engaging debate we will also place other comments judged to be grossly unintelligent or obtuse or Trolls in our trash can"
You will never be heard of again
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#290 wrote:
'I guess my instinct, tells me that GB is truly connected to the plight of the third world problems, its not so much about a compass point, its about delivery, real help and the branch of humanity that unites the whole world.'
I think it's more likely that he wants to be seen in a good light and is seeking positive headlines. Forgive my cynicism but it is par for the course.
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#294
So its true, this is the conservative bread line: a moment please (ha ha ha ha ha ha he he he)
Portcullis- close the gate mate.
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286 Squirestrat
Extending your rather interesting "something's going on" thesis, and linking to my oft-asked (and never answered) question at 271....
I think it may be that while Brown has talked much of "stimulus", but never delivered, the underlying truth is that in the current climate, it may well not be affordable.
It is almost a no-brainer that the estimates of tax income that Darling gave us in the PBR were well on the optimistic side. It is very reasonable to suppose, in fact, that tax revenue has collapsed already well beyond what was bound into the PBR. Quite possibly to the point where government cash-flow is in danger.
So with Nick having gone rather impartial all of a sudden, maybe whatever is about to happen is going to make it difficult for overt government supporters to retain their credibility.
Here's my guess...
We have opened loan negotiations with the IMF.
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Are you sure you aren't masquerading as that fool laughatthetories?
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This would be more apt under Plus c'est la Meme Chose, but I wanted to share this quote that was forwarded by a business colleague:
"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
- Cicero - 55 B.C.
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#286 squirestrat
"(...) perhaps it's just me - but something is about to hit the fan very soon."
It's not just you, I think. I for one have the same impresssion. What may be coming almost certainly directly concerns the commercial banks. There is speculation that the banking system is about to be reformed in a quite radical manner.
The announcement today of measures that were bound to be condemned as insufficient may be intended to prepare the ground for something much more swingeing and (in normal times, at least) unpalatable.
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299, Pammy
Thanks for sharing that! .55 B.C. Eh!
Wow! does the tardis go that far back?
Who's the smoking ban going in your neck of the woods.
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jrperry
297
You raise something that occurred to me.
The PBR figures are looking more and more stupid.
Spending is set to rise greatly even on PBR figures.
And we can say that in reality it will grow far more than those figures 1 Tril pounds.
Also our GDP will fall off a cliff over the next 2 years.
Greatly reduced income from the financial industry.
The building and associated industries are on their knees.
Service industries are being battered.
What will the % of Debt to GDP turn out to be?
It will look terrible to our foreign investors.
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#297 jrperry
I second that guess...with my earlier post regarding the re-writing of the banking rules I expect we are going to see more than just that...and before the budget. I wouldn't be surprised if there was some spin on QE...
Hasn't Darling been quiet!!!!!!
..and the reason everything is quiet, relatively in Westminster is something is on the cards - even opposition is quiet which could mean the talks with Civil Servants is already on the cards.
Bank rules have co-incidentally been rewritten (via a majority Labour) in the Lords...this is to keep a months grace for any announcement and so Govt bonds which can't sell don't go completely down the u-bend!!
Nick I think can sniff something - we have never seen such a quick blog like this that is balanced...ever.
There are going to be some pretty weak but desperate loan gaurantees to business and the reason being they need businesses to hire people - because as you quite rightly point out - tax revenue has gone past the point of recovery (for the state we are in) - there is no cash flow for Govt...and the reason for that is profilgate spending...
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Ah, well, it's past midnight and that means it's my Birthday today...
So I'm taking the day off :-)
Have a good day all.
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#297 jrperry
Here's my guess: the UK government has indeed opened loan negotiations with the IMF; or the UK is about to be taken into the eurozone; or the commercial banks are about to be brought directly under government control.
If not one of the above, then perhaps all of them? What seems clear is that the UK is up the creek without a paddle . . . and the water is getting choppier.
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147. At 3:26pm on 12 Jan 2009, purpleDogzzz wrote:
Many of the banks, probably most, are insolvent. The losses are exponential when you include
Massive upcoming losses on residential bad loans
Massive losses on commercial bad loans
Exponential losses on credit default swaps
They will take UK plc down with them if Brown carries on trying to save them. Save the depositers but let them go. The administrators can run down the mortgage book over the next 10 to 15 yeasr and let the people who should take the losses do exactly that - the bond and equity holders.
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#297
Are sherry and Perry in the same room again,
Pouring their thoughts over poor Mr Tumbler.
If things get that bad theres always Camerons monopoly game. throw the dice and hope for the best, Eh!
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#305
Happy Birthday squirestrat, how many candles??????
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Happy Birthday Squirestrat!!
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Happy 60th squirestrat!
;-)
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squirestrat@304
Happy birthday - hope it's a good one!
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derek@301
Smoking ban? Same as everywhere, I guess. Why?
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I also think Labour know they are stuffed at the enxt election.
Last year two MP's in my area (my own and his neighbour - both Labour (who i didn't vote for)) have signalled there intention to quit politics at the next election - they both said it at the same time last year.
My MP - (who incidentally has an impeccable voting record and ALWAYS follows the whip and was teh co-ordinator leading to 1997 Labour majority AND who is far from his sell-by date AND who I have to admit is a pretty decent guy) hanging up his hat is a sure sign he is not prepared to fight in opposiotion.
Incidentally - the local elections last year in my area was won for the first time by Conservative - that has NEVER happened...
Here we go....
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"It's Brown's economic policies, stupid".
Actually, it would be more accurate to say:
"It's Brown's stupid economic policies"
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Wow - just seen all the posts - thankyou very much everyone :-) :-)
I mean that most sincerely.......thankyou...everyone.
42 :-(
And if you want to check your calenders - you will see that I was born on Friday 13th!!!
60 indeed :-)
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#313
Hmmm, squirestrat, dont weeble out then,
are you expecting a GE in relation to stability and directions for at least 5years?
And if this is your info, care to share your source!
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#290 derekbarker wrote:
"#274
"Captain sensible was full of happy talken,
I guess it never made a blind difference to
you."
Sorry, friend, I have no idea what the reference means. If you mean Sensible's recording of the Rodgers and Hammerstein song, I can tell you that I liked the song in the original context. Someone saying that feelings were really important, even between what at the time of the original musical could be difficult - i.e. inter-racial relationships. Struck me as pretty good at the time.
So, I don't get the jibe.
"I guess my instinct, tells me that GB is truly connected to the plight of the third world problems, its not so much about a compass point, its about delivery, real help and the branch of humanity that unites the whole world."
Derek, I have never doubted that Brown has a deep sympathy for underprivileged people, whether at home or abroad.
Quite a lot of us do. Most of us don't get to be Chancellor and decide that they can reach into local citizens' wallets and then decide how to spend the money they made. I'm pretty sure that most would want to offer help locally - but also to the poorest in otrher countries.
Quite a lot of us would make sure we kept a good eye on how money was actually spent. I'm not at all convinced that tax-spend since 2001 has been tightly controlled.
I don't call Zimbabwe's citizens underprivileged - I call them oppressed. By one of their own. And I don't actually see any real help being forced in to help them. (There were severely oppressed people in Iraq as well, and Brown funded a war to help them...)
A lot of people on this blog probably don't like Bill Gates. Microsoft may or may not have helped to advance global IT solutions. But at least Gates is spending billions of his own money to try and alleviate some crucial problems.
That's good. I do a very tiny bit. My first priority is my children. Then try and find a bit for others.
If you offered a choice between helping one UK child, who would not appreciate the opportunities that education offers, or spending the same amount to help 10 or more Zimbabweans - I think I'd go for the latter. Especially if they learnt how to farm one of the most productive areas in Africa.
"I guess the conservatives wouldn't understand that language."
Derek, I've always found that life is made up of people. Not Labour, Conservative, Lib/Dem or other political tribes. Just people. Some you get on with and some you don't. Some with "assumed- similar" political biases, some you would never have believed could be such good guys (or gals) with such a totally different perspective.
Lots of different political and cultural backgrounds. You tend to like them because of the "doing", rather than the "proposal".
"I some-times like to paint, I paint the things I want to see but it dont come easy. Still I'll never let a tory steal the sun-from my heart."
Derek, I like to paint, too. Oils, but more recently acrylics. (Just a bit quicker drying and maybe a little cheaper...) Watercolour is just too difficult. Has to be right immediately - and gets washed away under the wrong conditions.
It won't be a member of a political party who steals sun - or the love of people - from your heart.
It could be just some person who messes with your childrens' future.
Hope your boys are OK.
My gal is at University in France. Pretty hard work. (Even had exams last Saturday! Can you imagine that here?) And with people who actually understand the structure of French and English! But really enjoying the external piano lessons and plays some good stuff...
Maybe one day your lads and my gal could form a trio?
OK. I'm a sort of small "c" conservative. I like it when things change slowly enough that people can adapt. (But have voted Labour - very first time when the age of majority was still 21! - Liberal and Tory. Tend to like parties/administrations who actually deliver, rather than talk about stuff.)
That's why I absolutely hate the amount of legislation and regulation that comes from Brussels, Westminster or elsewhere.
People need the chance to understand what's actually being introduced...
Until later....HAPPY TALKEN. MY FRIEND.
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#316
Horses mouth Derek...
My MP is only 9 years older than I am...
His neighbour is 20 years older than I am...
I'll not say who, but I'll leave you all to work it out if you want...
Hint it's not down south - east or west, it's not midlands, it's not north west, it's not yorkshire - keep going up a bit :-)
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squirestrat
A simple birthday means you won't be on-line?
Hard to believe.
Have a good one.
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This, written by Derek is perhaps the saddest thing i've seen written in a long time (it almost brought a tear to my eye):
.............................................................
"I some-times like to paint, I paint the things I want to see but it dont come easy. Still I'll never let a tory steal the sun-from my heart."
.............................................................
I don't mean that in any nasty way - it just strikes me as yearning for something...
I know we all have our differences here, but genuinly Derek I hope you are OK my friend...take care of yourself.
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#319
Cheers my friend...I'll have a few drinks for you all at the pub tonight...
..hmm, best make that a day or two I might not be on-line then, hic!!
Goodnight all.
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what should be obvious to all those who call for an end to party politics with the economy, saying all parties should work together, is that the labour party are happily implementing policies created by the opposition.
conservative or liberal, announce a policy that would appear to be common sense, the labour party trot out the ministers, calling it useless, etc, tearing into it like a pitbull, then lo an behold, 3 months or so later, they introduce an almost identical policy to the one they deemed rubbish, with a different spin put on it.
then not a single minister comes out an says anything about it.
do the labour party think the public cannot see this?
the problem with this "style" of government, is that those that would have benefitted from the policy, have to wait months longer, than if brown and his motley crew of pirates had simply agreed with the opposition and implemented the policy at the first opportunity.
as always there is a sting in the tail, as labour's version of the policy has a back door tax benefit for the treasury!
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#320
squirestrat; sorry to bring a tear to your eye
especially on your Birthday, you wouldn't want to hear me on the soap box them.
Anyway: No manic street preacher, I fear.
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derek,
It all gets a bit silly.
My maternal grandfather was a tailor. Eventually set up his own business. Wife was a home-body - until she ran off...
Paternal grandfather was quite a clever chap, but (after war experiences in Afghanistan and adjacent areas in WWI) happy to work in the Post Office and eventually managed an office in a small West Country town. His wife also a home-body.
I started off in a home close to a tannery. If you've never been to one of those old one's you can't imagine the stench. My old man developed a technique to catch the mice that walked across a drying line in the back-kitchen, by knocking them off into a bucket.
It's really odd. My old man was really into the Fabian Society. He changed a bit.
I was anti-capital punishment from a very early age. Pro anything that could help "ordinary" people to achieve what they could.
Eventually went to a school that had a high incidence of Oxbridge and decent university intake. (I screwed up - too focused on athlectic achievement... Let a lot of people down!)
But from the earliest moment, I remember teachers trying to help me to learn and remember things. Like having to learn a poem.
And learning things "by rote".
Like the times-tables. I still don't understand the mathematics and philosophy that allows me to believe that "one times one is one". (Like what is one and what sort of one would that be? Even worse - what is zero?) Don't really need to know, but it's been quite useful to work out how much I'm likely to spend in the shops...
And rote learning is quite handy if you want to check a reference in a dictionary. I mean, there's no really logical reason why B comes before X when you want to check on a reference. It just is.
So why have educational experts said that learning by rote is such a bad thing? Doesn't it help with memory development? There are some poems I still know - but don't necessarily like - that came about through rote learning.
It sounds as though you know Burns' stuff. Was that a conscious effort, or something drilled in by repetition?
If our children fail to understand that learning is something that lasts - even if it has to be updated later in life - they are doomed to failure.
That's the sad legacy of this appalling administration.
By thed way... There's been a bit of comment about MPs being engaged in external jobs.
So how does Brown explain that, as a serving Chancelor or PM, he's been able to write and have published books for private profit?
I grew up with quite a few children we would call under-privileged nowadays. They learnt to read and write.
So why don't the basic requirements get drilled into young minds?
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Nick,
I think that even the photos which lead your blog are most interesting. The 'imperial' Brown as against the 'homely' Cameron.
The problem for Gordon is that he lacks legitimacy. As I have said before and I will never cease saying, he may think that he is PM, but he is nothing other than the usual despotic, patriarchal leader who came to power as a result of a Coup.
Can't wait until he reads out the names of thw dead since he last came to PMQs to read out the names of the dead.
Do you know what I find most distasteful that John Reid has joined a private security firm supplying contractors to Iraq. Shameful.
Most of those in parliament have blood on their hands. Well it is time for them to wash their hands. It is time for an election. It is not about the political parties anymore, it is about the politics, it is about representative democracy. This parliament is dead, as dead as the blood covered children now being buried throughout the middle east.
I am listening to what was said in parliament yesterday, well it is only words, shallow hollow words, and why have they waited until now? I suppose the MPs really did need their long Christmas break!
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CarrotsneedaQUANGO2 @207
I guess we are the most pried upon society if you consider cctv an invasion of your privacy. I find it reassuring personally.
Saying that it 'only' solves 3% of UK street crime is a pretty useless statistic. How much does it contribute to the solving of cases in which it is not the sole piece of evidence?
How many crimes have actually been PREVENTED by officers intervening after being notified by cctv operators? Or indeed by cameras deterring criminals?
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Common-Scents @ 214
"I work with these figures every day. A "record" level means what it says. There has never been a time when per capita pro rata debt has been as high as it is now."
Yes, but then go look back over the last 60 years and see how many govts have had record levels of borrowing.
As for Christmas sales, you know as well as I that many stores had increased like for like sales during the Christmas period. Many didn't. It is too early to tell whether these policies have been beneficial.
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Nick -- any comment on the recent poll that indicated that close to 70% of a relatively large sample -- felt that the latest interest rate cut was wrong.
Another example of Brown being out of touch -- and yes I know the Bank of England made the decision but they are now just a Labour Government puppet.
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Guess a financial stimulus is a good idea after all then?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7825513.stm
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326. At 08:11am on 13 Jan 2009, chrisleopard wrote:
CarrotsneedaQUANGO2 @207
I guess we are the most pried upon society if you consider cctv an invasion of your privacy. I find it reassuring personally.
Saying that it 'only' solves 3% of UK street crime is a pretty useless statistic. How much does it contribute to the solving of cases in which it is not the sole piece of evidence?
How many crimes have actually been PREVENTED by officers intervening after being notified by cctv operators? Or indeed by cameras deterring criminals?
===
NONE in our neck of the woods. We run a retail shop in the city centre. Opposite our shop is a bench, frequented by drunks, assaulting people, begging for money, and embarking on shoplifting sprees.
We have asked the local PCs to take action, they say they can't unless they actually catch them in the act, they never catch them in the act because they walk about town in their hi-viz jackets, even a myopic drunk can spot them a mile off.
There is a cctv camera nearby, we have asked for that to be pointed at the bench to catch the misdoings, but the police have told us they can't do that "because it infringes their human rights".
CCTV cameras are a joke.
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Early respondents stated that this blog was balanced but information "lite" - agreed except..
TAG makes comment on the two photographs of Brown and Cameron and one can easily see where the bias lies.
Fuehrer Brown against a sick vulnerable looking Cameron.
Now the bbc have a new tactic as on this morning's Naughtie interview with a NuLabor Minister, where NuLabor Ministers are allowed to be the main spokespersons for Conservative policies without any redress or argument.
You couldn't make it up.
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331
you may be paranoid, but that doesn't mean they're out to get you.
If I were a BBC journalist I would have been a lot more probing towards Cameron on his policy towards UK banks over the past year.
He's been given a very easy ride by Peston etc. over why he wouldn't save the UK banks and what would have been the short and long term consequences of a banking collapse in the UK, which would doubtless have had a domino effect globally.
I wouldn't bleat about BBC bias too much if I were you. It's hard to find a photo of Cameron which doesn't make him look like an Estate Agent who's seen this month's sales bonus figures...
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329. chrisleopard wrote:
Whatever
Are absolutely off your rocker?
Its not working , it wont work, and more fool anyone else who follows suit. And who am I to know (ironic), but mark my works, Chris. One day you will look back at this and feel like a fool.
Or perhaps not if your getting a salary out of it...
The bail out is a grand scale theft of the people and the sooner the people realise that the better.
What affiliation do you have with Labour?
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291
How can you claim my posts are rubbish, most unkind..
Plant passports are issued by growers who are registered and authorised for the purpose.
This enables transport of said plants to other countries or even protection zones within the same state.
But that not the point is it doughnut.
The point is that government officials can enter your property without a warrent based soley on their own initiative or suspicion to check that plants in your property have the required passport or even that they do not require one.
More to the point 250 other government departments have the same powers.
Said officials are also allowed to take police officers with them and in many cases they do as a precaution.
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Stephen!
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Ah bright morning news that tells us the tories are back ten points ahead in the opinion polls.
43 vs 33 and 15 for tory, newlabour, libdem respectively.
Let's wait and see what dollybarker's explanation is for this latest aberation in the nation's collective self conciousness.
No doubt the polls are all wrong.
It's seems such a shame that after the biggest fiscal stimulus ever, the biggest bank bail out ever and the biggest personal hatchett job ever attempted on an oppsition party with the Osborne and Green scandals. Newlabour still can't convince the electorate that they are anyhting other than lying, disingenuous and wasteful.
Call an election
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Hi Mr Leopard, sorry to say but I agree with the vegetable QUANGO here, we are the most monitored nation in the “free” world, even more so than the US. By rights this monitoring should make us the safest nation in the “free” world, strangely this is not the case. CCTV cameras need to be actively monitored for their evidence to be admissible in court. My Mother’s school had cameras but still got vandalised, the police were called and looked at the tapes. They tutted, looked apologetic and said because it was unmanned the tape could have been doctored and a tape could not be cross examined in court. So the school had paid out money for security which was pretty much pointless.
The only people who really benefit from this monitoring is the state since they are increasingly able to monitor where everyone is and what they are doing. The only way to escape this would to live in the middle of nowhere without a mobile phone, computer or debit/credit cards so much for modern free society then!
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Nick,
with every moment that passes the closer we get to the spring general election which must be held. There is no alternative. Trust me there will be one. It really cannot go on like this.
I made a point what seems like a lifetime ago, I don't see why my children and grandchildren should pay for me and people like me to live a life which is unsustainable. So many people living beyond their means. It is not about banks, which are not people, they are institutions, it is actually about bankers doing their job to the best of their ability. The government must never get hold of the financial institutions, if they do we are so finished. Remember, the nationalisation of the banks was meant to be temporary.TAG.
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I see Brown is to meet the Fed. in the States. I see Brown is to nationalise a bank in the UK.
First steps to getting the banks internationally to control the world.
I see that the Fabian Society so beloved of the Labour party members mentions New World Order conspiracy as being something confined to the "dark" areas of the internet. What they think of Aaron Russo? Does it not seem uncanny some of his and Rockfeller's predictions are apparently coming true?
Thanks Brown. You haven't got much time to do it. Let's hope you get tripped up before it takes effect and that the Rightful government comes in.
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Sorry Master Griffin, no way there's going to be an election this year I'm sorry to say.
My guess February/March 2010.
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Yet again Cameron opens his mouth and puts his foot straight in it!....
His figures SIMPLY DONT ADD UP!
He claims each new-born is being lumbered by £17,000 of debt by the Governments spending plans.
How he arrives at this figure no-one knows,it cant be substantiated,but for the sake of the argument - lets accept it at face value!
In the next breath,when questioned about cutting spending - out of line with every other country - who are looking at fiscal stimulus he confirms....
"We are not cutting spending - we are simply cutting the increase in spending - that Labour have announced for 2009/2010....Labour will spend £675 billion - we will spend £670 billion - we will use the cut in spending increase of £5 billion - to help savers..."...
HUNG BY HIS OWN WORDS.....
So Mr Cameron - am I right therefore in believing that whilst lumbering every child with £17,000 of debt is awful disgusting incomprehensible, fraudulent - all words used by your invisible Shadow Chancellor Gideon "George" Osborne - that lumbering every child with £16,830 of debt - to fund a pointless giveaway for the elite high deposit savers - is perfectly acceptable????....
Since the £5bn you propose to "slash" from the spending is less than 1% of GDP/Borrowing - its mathematically and statistically factual to assume that you are happy to lumer every child with £16,830 of debt???...
maybe you could respond with a poter to make your point???
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James O'Brien has just called Americans "stupid" on LBC! Is that ok? If it is, why is Harry berated for his personal off the cuff unbroadcasted affectionate term for an army chum "Pakki"?
Bet this get moderated. Hrrrumph.
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332#
Munich, you're letting your pathalogical hatred for the conservatives cloud your better judgement. Not to mention being a tad disengenious, because it deflects the attention away from the person who'se watch it DID happen on.
What Cameron may or may have not said to Peston about what he would or would not do is immaterial. Cameron was not the source who briefed Peston on N.R, which is, in certain circles seen as having been a precursor to the run on it. Cameron is not the government. The opposition can shout and wave order papers, but are largely powerless to do anything. The government still has a majority, remember?
Probe Cameron a lot more as to how he's going to clean up the mess Gordon leaves behind, rather than how Gordon got us into the mess in the first place? Its not just playing politics, its tittle tattle, its the blame culture and deep down its fundamentally dishonest.
"Its not going to happen on my watch" says Gordon. I wouldnt count on it... everything else has. And it started as soon as he took office! Floods, Foot & Mouth, Financial meltdown.... I think if I'd been him, I'd have taken the hint by now. It happened on his watch, when he was PM and the bubble inflated whilst he was chancellor, when he had his hand on the air pump.
In anyone elses book but his and Mandy's that is electoral accountability and culpability.
But, If you think that kind of person is worthy of your vote, to represent you, purely because you have some class war pathalogical hatred of anyone who may have been a public schoolboy (Bet you still voted for Blair though) or may have shared a postcode with Margaret Thatcher, then crack on, mate.
Its your vote, you can waste it on whoever you wish.
If you'd been a BBC journalist mate, I'd have asked for a refund of my licence fee.
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Barking, when you tell Tory supporters on here to get out of the box and get a life surely you must be repeating what people have told you!!!
I see from your posts that you are sometimes posting in the wee small hours of the night and early morning.
Are you a night shift worker or are in perhaps on another continent?
You surely are on another planet.
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#335
Just coming!
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Yesterday 3,000 poor souls were made redundant...
The glimmer is that companies like JCB/Wedgewood - redundancies caused by cuts in export orders - not directly linkked to the UK economy but the GLOBAL economy - may recover - especially via Obamas fiscal stimulus...
However - in the past week 18,000 NEW JOBS have been announced...10,000 by TESCO,5,000 by MORRISONS,2,000 by GREGGS,1,000 by POUNDLAND.
Clearly parts of the RETAIL sector are doing OK - posting record sales,record profits and record footfall....
Of course the right wing media HIDE this information,it proves a recession can benefit some,it proves the VAT decrease was'nt an unmitigated disaster that cameron would have us believe...
I dont decry of belittle the 3,000 people affected yesterday by redundancy....but there are jobs been created,there are 480,000 jobs vacant at UK job Centres....
Indeed IF THE EU would grasp the nettle the UK COULD HAVE FULL EMPLYMENT THIS YEAR!..
My proposal is simple...
Give EU aid to countries who most need it BUT firstly announce all EU non-essential job migrants MUST return to the Country of their ethnic birth...
The UK created 1,000,000 NEW JOBS between 2000 and 2008 - 800,000 of these jobs were taken by EU - mostly Eastern European Migrants....
If they returned from whence they came UK unemployment would be UNDER 1 MILLION....a place it has'nt been for generations....
If this happened - with the resultant underdening on OUR benefit system,our Hospitals,our Schools,our Infrastructure...
I and I am sure many fair minded people would accept that we would NOT need to spend so much to create more jobs here,would have to spend less on Benfits etc....so could and would pay a smaller but not insignificant amount to help those countries where available emplyment was less than unemployed workforce...
No doubt I will be accused of racist overtones....this is NOT racist - it is merely a redistribution of resources throughout the EU - back to natural ethnic borders - that would enable the EU to BEST target aid and fiscal support...
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234 Carrotts
You owe me a new monitor mine is now covered in coffee. I don't know when I laughed so much!
Well done Draper, that's sticking it to the tories, now you have the nerd vote. You may have to remind them to go into the sunlight to vote, unless of course a law will be passed to cyber vote on 2nd life.
Actually shouldn't have mentioned that they're bound to do it.
Wonderful!
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Squirestrat #313.
Is it Sunderland? Which would make the MP in question Fraser Kemp? Tories did have a very good performance in the locals. As a result of boundary changes there's a new seat there, Sunderland Central which neatly brings all the Tory parts of the city together. They outpolled Labour by 2,500 votes in the wards in that seat in May albeit on a low turnout. It's likely that that will be the first seat to declare on election night, the old Sunderland South seat has had that honour at every GE since 1992 I think. It's a long shot for the Tories to win it but it will give a good indication as to what the result will be. If the Tories get within 10% of Labour then they've won, if they're within 5% it's a landslide and if they do manage to win it then Dave can go straight to the Palace!
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Oh GORDY
What WILL you DO
The WHEELS have Come OFF
5,800,000 already on OUT OF WORK
BENEFIT
Another 1,200,000 to 2,000,000
TO COME
WHAT HAVE YOU DONE???
SPEND SPEND SPEND
BORROW BORROW BORROW
Over 17K per head?
THATS YOUR LEGACY
SOON TO BE 22K per HEAD!
GO GORDY GO.
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#325:
Gordon Brown's appearance is not his fault. His rather smug unphotogenic appearance in photos is I think more down to a lack of charisma and an insecure bearing in front of the cameras. It is his personality, his character and his policies which I find more distasteful.
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No 338, are you on drugs? Who is going to call this election in the spring? It certainly won't be called by the Golem. The budget will wipe the Golem out. The figures for economic growth (or, to be more precise, economic non-growth) and PSBR will be so appalling that Labour's goose will be cooked. But the Golem will cling in grimly because he feels being prime minister is his due.
He'll blame the Americans for the mess and the British people for his insane stimulus not working. After all, in the mind of the Golem (and Derek Barker), he is perfect.
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Nick,
#337
May I quote an extract from a pamphlet put together in either 1552 or 1553 by Etienne de la Boetie. The pamphlet was called The Politics of Obedience, The discourse of voluntary servitude and was not about the Machiavellian Prince but the overthrow of the Prince and to secure the liberty of the individual. The question is 'why in the world do people consent to their own enslavement' and here is a quote which I think encapsulates where some of us are today, albeit four and a half centuries later:-
Where has he acquired enough eyes to spy
upon you, if you do not provide them yourselves? How can
he have so many arms to beat you with, if he does not borrow
them from you? The feet that trample down your cities,
where does he get them if they are not your own? How
does he have any power over you except through you?
How would he dare assail you if he had no cooperation
from you?
Exactly how much have we learnt since the middle of the 16th century. Not a lot if we are to count the number of CCTV cameras.
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yellowbelly1959 @ 330
Terrible situation. I guess what your saying here though is that if the cctv were applied properly it would be very useful to you indeed because these thugs could be convicted?
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Nick,
Watched you on BBC News last night, advising the nation that the times was running a poll showing the conservatives have a 10 point lead over Labour, you then proceeded to say that Brown & Darling were now "neck and neck" with Cameron and Osborne. A wonderful piece of Mandelsonesque spin to have a 10 point lead as "neck and neck", Your devotion to talking up Brown and his Cronies knows no bounds.....
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peaceandunity @ 333
Standard membership is all.
And yourself?
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#345
Respeck
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DavidRMurrell @ 337
Another interesting situation. Surely again it is the application of cctv that is the issue here no the actual concept of it?
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Thanks nck for both sides of the story!
I am concerned that the cherry picked policies be proposed by Gordy and taken from other parties are all knee jerk ideas which won't work
A shut the door after the horse has bolted approach.
For example, surely the £2500 to employ someone unemployed for 6 months would be better spent on helping companies avoid making redundancies in the first place?
Tax cuts for employers would be a massive help-better that than lose the revenue altogether and have to pay benefits.
Gordy has to go-NOW.
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346#
Dudley:
You're dangerous. Not to mention completely disconnected from political reality.
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Nick,
last night I watched the BBC Ten o'clock news. What interested me most of all was the part they did on Primark and the use of labour at less than the minimum wage.
If this labour government is meant to be anything about the workers than the relevant minister must announce an immediate investigation into the allegations made by the BBC.
The use of cheap labour is not justified. Primark, and their suppliers must be investigated, and the silence on this issue is deafening. Could it be because we are talking about foreign workers in the UK being paid in cash and therefore not paying their taxes. I find it totally unaccpetable that goods are sold by a major High Street retailer at such low cost simply because they are not paying the statutory minimum wage and that taxes are being avoided.
An investigation now, and a statement from a government minister. Who could that minister be, the minister for employment, an unelected Lord Peter Mandelson?
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#346
Did you not notice the lost jobs were in manufacturing/exporting companies, mainly high skilled.
The huge job gains were in retail, mainly low skilled.
We cannot have 25% of the workforce working for the government and 75% working in shops, do the maths.
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T A Griffin (TAG) @ 352
Nice to have something like that quoted on here rather than an article from the torygraph or the mail.
However you have a paradox here. You are clearly concerned about crime, yet you are against any means of solving/preventing it that you consider invasive. Do you want the police to patrol the streets with their hands tied behind their backs?
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MunichMadrid7980 332
If you do not think the BBC has a bias towards Labour you obviously did not see D. Cameron interviewed at a press conference yesterday . I felt very embarrassed for Nick Robinson when he asked Cameron a question, about which services he would cut to pay for his spending on removing tax on savings. Cameron more less told him just because Labour say it you do not have to believe it, or fall in the trap Labour set for the press, because of course Cameron is saying their will be an increase but it will be smaller, that is not the same as a cut. Robinson did look rather silly.
RobinJD 336
I think you are wrong unfortunately the polls will make Brown hang on longer because he is power crazy. He will adopt some of the conservative policies, and try to do them a bit different, thus making them less effective as he has before.
Sad because I do believe a new Government would bring about more hope and confidence to the country.
To all
I want to move back to the banking crisis.Can I tell you what I believe the banking system would have done if it had not had interference from Government. Firstly as I have said many times before, when the run on Northern Rock began they would have realised their was a crisis and moved to get all banks to separate toxic debt into a bad bank thus keeping in tact trust between banks. Next because their would have been a crisis of capitial they would have actually put interest rates up to encourage savers and investors. Now I know everyone will be shouting what about business and morgages. Yes morgages which were unaffordable would most probably would fail however this will eventually happen anyway when things recover and interest rates go up. Most probably no tax payers money would have been needed for a bail out. This would have freed up the tax payers money to help businesses if necessary and the banks would have enough confidence to lend to each other and business, we would start to move again. The people who have worked hard and saved are the ones Government is ignoring in all this simply because Labour want to help the voters they can rely on.
I know everyone blames the banks for all of this I would merely say this, yes some have behaved badly, however, the banks had to be competitive therefore to compete they had to keep selling products to people who could not afford it and G. Brown gave them the message that he wanted all people to have the same opportunity to buy their own house, even people on benefits.
After all he said there would never be another boom or bust.
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I see Barking is not here today. I also see that he was posting at 1.0 am this morning so he is obviously asleep!.
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To “great” andy Dudley you really are a piece of work a right pregnant fish! “I’m not a racist but if all the foreigners went home all our problems would be solved.” Nice, complete and utter cods, but really nice. I know should Spain and France kick out the British expats taking up jobs and tax payer money, or is that okay with you?
Also you 1,000 people getting jobs at Poundland really does not compare to someone losing their job at JCB – yes JCB do sell things but I am guessing most of the jobs will be lost in production rather than sales. Also Poundland is actually suffering because people are going to the 99p shops, because they are cheaper, so those jobs may be at risk already.
You accuse the media of hiding facts but seem to only choose two out of the 15 retailers that have gone into administration since 25th September 2008 each with 100’s and 1,000’s of job cuts. Is that because all of these out weigh you new jobs? Cheery picking facts is fun, but since everyone, retailers, CBI, unions and the Government agree that jobs are being lost faster than they are being created I think ignoring your general ignorance and prejudice I think basicaly you are talking out of your posterior!
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Just announced: Britain's goods trade deficit with the rest of the world stretched to £8.3bn in November, its widest margin since records began more than 300 years ago.
Do you remember the days when Gordon used to strut and preen in the House of Commons, boasting that on this and that measure he was the best Chancellor for so many hundreds of years?
The current recession requires measures specific to a banking credit crisis (e.g. the loan guarantee scheme that the Conservatives have proposed). But in addition every effort must be made to rebalance the economy in favour of a productive and profitable private sector that alone can pull the UK out of the mire that Labour has dragged it.
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#336
Running the results through electoralcalculus gives the safest Labour seat to fall as that occupied by a certain A Darling!
#346
And in a nutshell this shows the problem - job losses in MANUFACTURING (wealth creation) job gains in RETAILING (wealth distribution)
Whilst it is no doubt good news for the people that will be employed in the retail sector, the cake has not got any bigger so either other people will lose their jobs, the wages paid will be reduced or the other retailers will end up with reduced profits or losses.
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334 carrots..
Rather harsh maybe, but you seem to be putting information on here and leaving out detail that doesn't suit you. Both the cases you mentioned seam to relate to Del Boy characters who sell stuff from market stalls and are both very important issues not trivial as you imply. Some people may be fooled into thinking they are saving on electricity bills by buying a falsely labelled fridge for example. I don't whether its because based on Internet Chinese whispers, or is deliberate but its quite annoying. Looks like I may have found another one?
347 harrypagetflashman
I wouldn't use the word 'nerd' on here if I was you(urrgh!). Slightly Ironic trolling on the internet for hours taking the mickey out of people who go on the internet for hours. There is a danger of you becoming what you mock! maybe 2?
The list is growing bigger. Its not just Sooty and Sweep after all!
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I don't know if its me, but does this feel like the seventies to anyone else?
The country is essentially bankrupt; we have no savings with which to stimulate the economy, we have no safety net of social housing stock, nor do we have the money saved up to pay for the vast numbers of unemployed that are flooding onto the jobcentre books. I assume that we can't even afford income tax cuts to increase disposable income and stimulate spending that way.
Public sector borrowing and expenditure requirements are unsustainable.
So what happens next?
Where do we get the money from in the short term if countries like China and the middle east have turned us down for investment? Do we go to the IMF?
If we do, how can we pay the money back, given that we've sold off all our public utilities, gold reserves, etc and there appears to be no emerging technology that we can utilise to generate wealth?
If we can't generate the wealth, how do we manage the rapid shrinkage in the economy?
If our citizens can't afford energy bills, how do we quickly produce cheap energy for the masses?
My guess is some serious thinking is going on in Westminster on how to announce the bad news and how to deal with the aftermath.
Does Gordo go it alone and risk a vote of no confidence by the summer? Does he enter negotiations with the other parties and form a coalition government?
Will the government ditch all its "luxury" policies like overseas aid, ID cards, huge databases and costly idealistic environmental polices?
Time for some real tough decisions.
Truth be told, it feels more like the late forties, when we had spent everything fighting the war. At least then we had a manufacturing capacity to put to use making exports and bringing foreign cash into the country.
Does anyone have any ideas what we can do now? Hire out our armed forces as mercenaries? Start to dig up our coal reserves again to use for cheap but dirty energy?
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So, Ministers are said to be 'mulling' a loan guarantee scheme for small and medium size business. At least that's the headline.
I would have thought a more accurate headline would be...... 'Ministers steal another Tory policy and are mulling over how to spin it so they look as if they've been planning it for slightly longer than the Tories have been suggesting it'.
Ok, so a few too many words, but as far as I can see it's about right. Although there will probably be some ridiculous condition attached - similar to the £2500 training assistance for employers who take on people, but only if they've been unemployed for 6 months - such as it will only apply to SME's who have already fully paid back the loans they had, or to loans taken out after April 2010.
After the way he painted the options on the news last night, Nick's take on this when he eventually gets round to posting something should be interesting - given he's had the best part of 18 hours to come up with a line.
Mr. R?
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Hi Mr Leopard, yes you are correct it is the application of CCTV that is the problem. Vast amounts of these things are put up, many for no good reason, and I would guess that the majority are used ineffectually. They are meant to be there for our protection not so a failed wanna be cop can scope out the young “talent” in short skirts.
I accept that they are part of modern society in the UK but that is part of the problem I and most people just accept these measures without question. Slowly our freedoms and right are eroded in the name of security. I don’t advocate removing CCTVs as they do work, rather I question the number and whether other preventions would sometimes be better.
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359 - whats wrong with re-patriating people who can then find work in the country of their birth by enhanced EU assistance if they return to the nation of their birth???
This simple method could give back to British people 800,000 jobs created FOR THEM - hi-jacked by Poles and others...
Being of the political left I will take no lectures on repatriation when it is constructive,necessary and prudent for the well-being of the indigineous population.
361 - I agree - the jobs are in retail - and we do need to do something about our manufacturing base - destroyed by Thatcher and callously ignored by Blair and Brown....
However - a job at this moment in time is a job.....
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#362
No. What I want is to live in a society where the government seems to think that everybody is as guilty of misdeeds as they are. This must be what it must have been like in East Germany with the Stasi. It was not a nice place to be, this is not a nice place to be.
Futhermore, woululd it not be better if people did not have an inclination towards what is termed criminal behaviour. Who are the police protecting, us or them. And who are the 'us' and who are the 'them'. TAG.
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#360 (TAG)
Its probably because someone has dared to find proof of something that many knew all along but were happy to let continue.
There is a vast underclass in this country that are off the social radar. Those people at the lower end of the social spectrum know only too well. They regularly fight for jobs with immgrants both legal and illegal that will work for less than the minimum wage and bosses that exploit such people, cash in hand, no questions asked.
If anyone would care to look, there is a huge black ecomony out there, from pirate DVDs, through worker exploitation to human trafficking. You go to the right places in this country and you'll see it.
All of the rules that are supposed to stop these practices only serve to penalise the legitimate. Those that work outside the law will always do so and don't give a monkeys.
The only way such things will ever end is targeting the people involved actively and directly. Blanket approaches will never work as they are too easy to avoid. They make excellent soundbites, and appear to be doing something about the problem, but the reality is they do very little.
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Time Past: Proud parent: "Meet my son (daughter) the doctor (lawyer, accountant, dentist, builder, farmer, engineer, mechanic, chemist......)
Time Present/Immediate Future: Proud Parent: "Meet my son (daughter) the shelf filler (hamburger flipper)
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364. At 11:02am on 13 Jan 2009, flamepatricia wrote:
I see Barking is not here today. I also see that he was posting at 1.0 am this morning so he is obviously asleep!.
Hope he isn't lying there all pale with his teeth slowly growing longer and longer, hair sprouting out of his ears, just waiting for the full moon so he can start baying in earnest!!
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#363
Obvously you did not see the Andrew Marr, David Cameron interview on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday.
The one where the interview would start, we would then cut back to the studio to see a very attractive young lady wearing a quite short skirt, talking to somebody irrelevant. we would then go back to Andrew Marr, who would then ask the question again, but the link was then dropped so we went back to the studio. Funny how it doesn't seem happen when labour politicians are being interviewed. Mind you they have a good trick of their own. Have you noticed when they are asked a dificult question they seem not to be able to hear the question so ask for it to be repeated, this both takes up time, but also enables the interviewee to formulate an answer to the question.TAG.
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346. At 10:13am on 13 Jan 2009, greatandydudley wrote:
Yesterday 3,000 poor souls were made redundant...
Indeed IF THE EU would grasp the nettle the UK COULD HAVE FULL EMPLYMENT THIS YEAR!..
My proposal is simple...
Give EU aid to countries who most need it BUT firstly announce all EU non-essential job migrants MUST return to the Country of their ethnic birth...
The UK created 1,000,000 NEW JOBS between 2000 and 2008 - 800,000 of these jobs were taken by EU - mostly Eastern European Migrants....
If they returned from whence they came UK unemployment would be UNDER 1 MILLION....a place it has'nt been for generations....
If this happened - with the resultant underdening on OUR benefit system,our Hospitals,our Schools,our Infrastructure...
No doubt I will be accused of racist overtones....this is NOT racist - it is merely a redistribution of resources throughout the EU - back to natural ethnic borders - that would enable the EU to BEST target aid and fiscal support...
===
No, it would only be racist if the Tories or the BNP suggested it!
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365. DavidRMurrell
Also you 1,000 people getting jobs at Poundland really does not compare to someone losing their job at JCB ? yes JCB do sell things but I am guessing most of the jobs will be lost in production rather than sales. Also Poundland is actually suffering because people are going to the 99p shops, because they are cheaper, so those jobs may be at risk already.
Isn't it great - somebody has opened up a 98p shop!
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#362:
Are you intimating that The Telegraph and The Daily Mail are never right because they espouse ideas which you disagree with?
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#366
Shock Horror - BBC do not as of now have these figures on their website.
Why am I not surprised?
PS - don't forget the invisibles £3.9 billion making the overall deficit only £4.5 billion
Another £4.5 billion has left this country, impoverishing it.
However finger length may be a guide to your earning power. (much more important!)
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#341 wrote:
Yet again Cameron opens his mouth and puts his foot straight in it!....
His figures SIMPLY DONT ADD UP!
He claims each new-born is being lumbered by ?17,000 of debt by the Governments spending plans.
How he arrives at this figure no-one knows.
Simple bit of maths really - The size of the spending plans/debt divided by the numbers of newly born. A calculator comes in handy.
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#365:
Well said!
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susan@363
Yes, I agree that the banks would probably have separated out the non-performing loans into a bad bank book. Through portfolio monitoring, they should know precisely which loans are causing problems and this approach was adopted by banks in the Far East. However, there's a capital requirement, even if the bad loans are moved into a separate company and it can take years to sell off the properties used to secure the loans when there's a falling, or as now in the UK, no market. The lack of a functioning market also makes it impossible to value the security held. Last time around, when I was looking after a commercial property portfolio, it was possible to devise a potential future value based on discounted cash flow. With the low interest rate today, even that possibility is closed off for commercial mortgages. It really is a mess.
Another part of the problem, I think, is the mortgage investment bonds which I believe a great many banks are holding. The securitised properties in these bonds were sliced and diced with a mixture of good, poor and bad loans, then given an unrealistic risk rating by the credit agencies, and I think everyone's uncertain about what exactly is in the bonds. Plus, as mortgages disappear from the pot, they're supposed to be replaced with new ones, but nobody's lending, so I don't know what happens then, but somebody's going to be hurting.
Securitisation of loans was regarded as a good thing because it earned fees for lenders and took loans off their books, meaning their capital adequacy ratios were restored and they could lend again. A bit like Brown and his Enron PFI schemes - it's not on the books, so everything's hunky dory. The downside of securitisation is having to top up the pot with new mortgages. In a competitive market, you probably need to cut interest margins and hence profit to get the new business on the books. Everyone else does the same, so you need to look for a new pool of customers. How about those with poor credit histories - and you can charge them higher interest rates. Great idea, it restores your interest margins BUT, it also makes it more likely that the borrowers won't be able to repay. But that doesn't matter because you've got the house to sell and house values always go up, so no problem.
And before everyone blames the banks entirely, yes they were to blame, particularly those gambling our money on derivatives and other rocket science products, BUT they were being pressed to produce double digit profit increases - in a time of low single digit inflation, for heaven's sake! - by the investment fund managers. The investment fund managers were desperate to increase returns, particularly for pension funds, which had been heavily hit by Brown's annual raid, which he was warned not to do when Labour came to power. So, final salary pension schemes closed and annuity rates are still tumbling - great result, Gordon.
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Is this how the BBC Moderators spell?
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377 - I was just waiting for some desperate Tory blogger to come up with precisely that ridiculous comment...
The fact is Cameron deserved exactly what he got!....
The Tories attacked Brown for being interviewed at No 10 - a building set up for TV Broadcasts...
To make some kind of pathetic political point they declined an invite for Cameron to be interviewed at TV Centre and asked for the broadcast to he held at his home...
what we were treated to was hilarious....the bike was strategically parked in the hall - modern pictures were dotted around the recently painted and very basic lounge - minimalist on purpose - you could tell they were newly delivered paintings - they were'nt hung....(whoever would have this set up with young kids?)...
DC sat on the sofa with a mug of tea by his side on the floor....
- all very middle class - all very minimalist - all very stage managed....
No doubt one of the kids knocked the bike over and it moved one of the miles of temporary leads that would be required to facilitate such an outside broadcast...quite what the neighbours thought about the 3 articulated lorries parked outside blocking the street god only knows....
So much for green credentials Dave - the interview was classic Cameron...25 minutes of woffle,piffle,uncosted unsubstantiated rubbish.....
The young lady you refer to was Sophie Rahworth - who did a brilliant job covering up Daves - pauses....
BTW - Funny how every time the line broke was when Cameron was put on the spot about..
- underperforming Gideon
-part time Hague
- cutting spending
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I wonder how many of the 500,000 vacant jobs mentioned by Labour bloggers on here are either non wealth creating or low paid. Does anyone have a breakdown of the figures?
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382 - thank you...
so if he is spending £5bn LESS than the Govt - which he has admitted as his plans he is presumably happy that
EVERY NEW BORN IS SADDLED WITH £16,830 of DEBT!!!!....
So he plans to save £170 per child - slash spending on fiscal stimulus and give the £5bn he has saved and what he cuts from help to the majority on giving high income savers and the rich TAX CUTS...
THATCHERITE DAVE...
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#365 and #379
The 98p shop thing got me wondering.
Did Poundland, It's a Pound, The Poundshop, et al pass on the VAT cut?
Surely that would negate the USP of their businesses?
Proposed name for 99p shop or 98p shop:
I Can't Believe it's Not a Pound
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368 DK
Thanks for the concern, however I only check periodically and admittedly only read certain post, ironically not ususally yours! I guess vanity on my part got in the way.
I think Nerd stands! So far only you have shown any sort of umbrance, so I think I'm OK.
As for living on this blog...Not me squire! my life on occassion gets in the way.
Thanks for your concern.
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377. At 11:41am on 13 Jan 2009, T A Griffin (TAG) wrote:
#363
... Mind you they have a good trick of their own. Have you noticed when they are asked a dificult question they seem not to be able to hear the question so ask for it to be repeated, this both takes up time, but also enables the interviewee to formulate an answer to the question.TAG.
===
Geoff Hoon? Election night?
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374#
Too true.
Short of a pogrom though, how do we fix it??
There has probably always been a black economy, welfare state or not; other nations have proved that, so there is always going to be an element (not necessarily criminal either, although that depends on your definitions...) that will exploit it... when you say targeting directly, what did you have in mind?
I'm not making a party political point, I'm genuinely interested.
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greatandydudley
Sending back all the non-essential job migrants would not solve the problem for Gordon. All these people are potential Labour voters, you see.
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Remeber when in the days of "Brown's economic success" he would stand up in Parliament and bask in the glory of his "no more boom and bust"
He then went and sold our gold at bottom price, plundered our pension schemes and used "smoke and mirror techniques" to bamboozle the electorate whilst he introduced multiple stealth taxes.
We can now see that all the time he was crowing about his wonderful handling of the economy he was actually riding on the crest of a Global economic boom and was nothing to do with Brown's miracle
Now comes the reality check - nothing - just steal the ideas from the Conservatives and dress them up as his own.
Gordon you have been rumbled!!
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@224 Max
Thanks for the link, I'm going to have lots of fun wth posts on that website!!
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368. dhwilkinson wrote:
carrots..
You seem to be putting information on here and leaving out detail that doesn't suit you. Both the cases you mentioned seam to relate to Del Boy characters who sell stuff from market stalls and are both very important issues not trivial as you imply.
Some people may be fooled into thinking they are saving on electricity bills by buying a falsely labelled fridge for example
Me ... ME leave out details that dont suit me... You really cant in all seriousness level that charge at me and ignor your beloved leaders record on that one.
But seeing as you want detail on these matters read the Acts.
Yes of course they are intended for traders, but the acts usually make no defined reference as to what kind of property officials can enter.
Many for example state due notice should be given, but there is no definition as to the time of notice, so if an official says 5 minutes in enough then 5 minutes is enough.
If the official claims he wrote to you but you didnt receive the letter then again this is no reason to deny entry
So if a Defra official turns up at your door and demands to see your plants and their passports, then you have to let him and any police officer accompanying him in.
I belive the fine for non compliance is 1000.00 and 200 per day thereafter, could be wrong it my have changed.
If you want lots of detail on this then google:
Crossing the Threshold
266 ways the State can enter your home
HARRY SNOOK
Plenty of detail there.
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389. SergeantDigby
Another proposed name:
It's not just a 98p shop, it's a M and S 98p shop!
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#386 greatandydudley
BTW - Funny how every time the line broke was when Cameron was put on the spot about..
- underperforming Gideon
-part time Hague
- cutting spending
===
No, he needs media training from somebody like Geoff Hoon!
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pwKM46Woh2E
Aha, can you hear me Mr Hoon?
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368. dhwilkinson
A few other key points:
Many powers are drafted so broadly that the citizen has little or no protection if officials behave officiously or vindictively.
(let me know if you want video evididence of this)
Some carry draconian penalties for obstruction, including heavy fines and prison sentences of up to two years
Would you not say that the following were reasonable:
1. Officials should always seek permission to enter a home if possible, even when they have a power to enter without it.
2. A reasonable time for entry should be specified.
3. With the exception of the emergency services, state officials should always have to get a warrant from a magistrate before
they can force entry to a private home. The magistrate should carefully scrutinise their case and refuse a warrant where it is
unnecessary.
4. The exercise of entry powers should be thoroughly documented, and statistics on their use made public. This will
put pressure on officials to use them in a reasonable and proportionate manner.
Just a thought (in detail)
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388. At 12:36pm on 13 Jan 2009, greatandydudley wrote:
382 - thank you...
so if he is spending ?5bn LESS than the Govt - which he has admitted as his plans he is presumably happy that
EVERY NEW BORN IS SADDLED WITH ?16,830 of DEBT!!!!....
So he plans to save ?170 per child - slash spending on fiscal stimulus and give the ?5bn he has saved and what he cuts from help to the majority on giving high income savers and the rich TAX CUTS...
THATCHERITE DAVE...
===
So you agree it's not a cut then?
It is a tax-break to basic rate taxpayers only!
Please justify on that basis then, doubling the tax band (from 10% to 20%) for the lowest paid?
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385. At 12:32pm on 13 Jan 2009, phoenixarisenq wrote:
There has been a problem
User has insufficient privilidges to add comment.
Is this how the BBC Moderators spell?
Check the spelling and syntax. I cannot believe the BBC sent this message when I tried at first to post. Either a troll with advanced technical knowledge, or, as a fear, there are moderators from alien sources who usually work the weekend shifts, and are quick to censure. Interesting, Hmmmm!
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#369
Strange you mention that (yeah I know I was supposed to take a day off - but I knew Nick was going to blog again...something is in the air)..
Anyway - I was going to post this yesterday...this may answer some of your questions:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/01/12/it_contract_review/
El reg are usually spot on with analysis - I sincerely hope this happens...
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377#
How true. I saw John Smith feign a dropped studio link once. I knew from that point that despite his seemingly impeccable Labour credentials that the man was a complete shyster. He just didnt want to answer a difficult question, plain and simple.
384#
Agree with your prognosis. There is an American/global factor in the situation we are in, but the things you mention as other contributory factors were totally avoidable and happened as a result of a political decision by Gordon and Geoffrey Robinson. Add that to the ill thought out BOE/FSA/Treasury triumvarate; rule books that exist, but no-one knows how to enforce them; a recipe for disaster.
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#386
Please note that Griffin is not a Tory blogger. TAG.
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#386 You are quite correct, Camerons interview was so stage managed. Now in the great scheme of things that kinda pales into insignificance when compared to something like,,oh I donno, maybe this governments systematic destruction of our economy and our way of life !
But if mugs of tea and bikes in the hall rate highly in your priorities then more power to you mate. Meanwhile
Hold an Election.
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343 fu
It's a bit rich of you to call me guilty of 'pathological hatred', I'm only talking about policies. I don't have much respect for Dave and Georgie, but that's because they resemble so many airhead Nice but Dims I have met over the years. There are some Tories worthy of respect, I am sure, but they're not in the limelight at present!
Obviously, DC etc. can't actually do anything, but contrast Cable's mature, measured words with Osborne's hysteria- are you certain that the rest of the world doesn't take any notice of the UK Shadow Chancellor's view of the pound?
Peston did give DC and GO a very easy time over NR and September's banking crisis. If they'd been forced to answer on what they thought the consequences would be on letting major UK deposit taking banks collapse, I dare say they would have been made to look very foolish indeed.
I think Peston went easy on them then partly because he feared accusations of BBC bias, and perhaps he feared too that international investors would have rightly concluded that the UK's likely next PM and Chancellor were completely out of their depth, and had no idea of the consequences of implementing glib soundbite policies, such as letting UK banks fold for ideological reasons. This really could have led to a collapse...
At the time of the next election the Tories would do well to have some steady Eddies on their front bench economic team- for their and all our sakes. How's that for pathological hatred?
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#397 Phoenix
Yes, good. I also came up with "Zavvi".
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PammyAnny 384
I agree with all of that and could go on to further failures particularly in the mortgage department.
However for those on here who hate just the sound of the word Bank, I have simplified a way forward as the actual complete analysis would take up all Robinson's site and boredom would soon set in.
In the end though I believe what ever the difficulties we will have to come full circle and have to deal with the toxic debt, the only alternative is to leave the banks completely alone to sort their books out and expect nothing from them.
Of course the Government could set up its own lending bank, but that would be massively expensive and we just dont have the money.
I know the problems and I know what lead up to them, however the solution is the key and I dont believe low interest rates and propping up toxic debt is the way forward.
The other point I was putting forward is that the public loves someone to blame. The banks for G. Brown are that perfect someone
then he does not have to acknowledge the part he has played in all of this mess.
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347. HarryPagetFlashman
New monitor on its way.
Register and start blogging. Peter is waiting for your comment along with a whole load of other top labour people.
Lets keep Derek busy
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406#
Fair point, well put. I withdraw the remark unreservedly.
372#
Dud:
And for those that are not Poles.... like the Somalis, Romanians, heaven knows who else.... those from outside the EU... Afghans, Iraqi's, Kurds, you'd do what precisely? Send them back too? All those that live in garden sheds in Slough... them as well?
What you're talking about is bordering on fascism mate.
Had a Tory or BNP leaning poster said those things, they'd be hearing the crash of Met Police standard issue Doc Marten's through the front door and have the faint whiff of pepper spray through the letter box.
Far better that your left leaning red tory chums (who have been having a champagne socialist party in No 10 for the last decade) had maybe done something about it when they had the chance and introduced and enforced proper controls.
Bit late trying to shut the stable door now.
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MR Brown said: "We cannot always prevent people losing their jobs but we can help people finding their next jobs."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7823389.stm
Utter, out and out tripe!
The jobs that no longer exist? The jobs that nobody can afford to pay for? The jobs that are being lost, far quicker than they are being replaced? Out of touch and delusional!
For all you regulars who want good debate, and have to sift through the Barking mads it helps to have an insight to the motives of the people behind these blogs.
What is my stance or take and what do I have to gain from writing here? To begin with I am not a part of a Lab or Con club. Or any political group. Introduce me to one and we would have a problem.
I am in the building game. An electrician by trade and have or had (unsure where to go right now) a small business which has been self sufficient up until a last year when it nosedived. For not being greedy I will lose out in the short term, but hope we the people collectively, topple the corruption in the long. Change corruption to a word to suit.
As a side issue I have been more than aware of what we face, purely by checking up sources and steering clear of mainstream news for a more honest approach.
How can I be aware and those paid to be aware, not be...Aware? Could I have done more to prepare for this? No! Unless of course I change my career or emmigrate. I cannot express my true feeling on here towards those responsible.
I could of course jump on one of Gordo Bruins newly created minimum wage jobs, when it materialises...Which it wont!
If the general consensus is to be cautious, due to difficult times then myself and others; AND the rest of us will suffer badly from all this. Fact. Lucky for me I am aware of it and have stopped what I need to do from now on in. I do not seek sympathy on the matter as there are many, many in the same boat. I generally prefer that the energy is diverted directly at ousting the current man in charge.
Just to stress the severity of this situation, as I know there are few trades people here whom are involved with these political blogs, the bigger picture is beyond the point of no return and it is widespread. Minimum contract work around. Skeleton crews. Not needed, cant afford it etc etc. And I can speak for my friends, colleagues in the same line. Brickies, spreads (plasterers), chippies, (joiners/carpenters) painter and decorators, plumbers, carpet fitters, landscape...All scratching around seeking some form of pay for our skills. Wait till we all sign on on the dole! Thatll rattle the figures im sure. Bad news for the Gov.
I am not exactly flavour of the month in my circle of peers either, because people tend to have a bad reaction or react oddly to bad news. I would have to speak to a psychologist to fully understand it. And no, no feedback necessary thank you Dolly. I would doubt your wisdom and learnings at any rate.
I asked before where are the funds for SMEs to the tune of 1.3B Sterling? Been raised to 20B Sterling now, but has any been released to date? No! Months later! Gov = Spin.
Would I want to be a part of it anyway? No! Why would I need a loan for my business at all, never mind just to stay afloat. It is almost as obscene an idea as the Governments plan to give more money to the banks and insurers. Out and out fraudulent theft of the people.
Oh, I almost forgot. Seeing as NuLab like to bully and screen their bad management on the net I guess here is a good place to state that...Anybody involved with this had better find a new remote and desolate country to reside in. Fast.
PS. I laugh out loudest at the banks who take a deposit from a customer, and in return create a fictuous loan on the strength of it. With interest!
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394 Crusader 1200
#Now comes the reality check - nothing - just steal the ideas from the Conservatives and dress them up as his own.
So we can at last blame the Tories for the countries problems, by dressing up all these Tory ideas as your own Gordon we have reached a recession, now if you had stuck to your own ideas we would be quids in. let that be a lesson to you Gordon stop stealing Tory ideas.
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I am surprised many commentators believe David Cameron and George Osborne are useless.
Both men have been to a top university, achieved top grades in degrees that include economics and as for as I can s