Osborne calls for action
"We need action and action now".
So said the Shadow Chancellor George Osborne in a speech today designed to counter Labour's repeated assertion that the Conservatives are the "do nothing" party.
The action that should be taken, he argues, should focus on monetary policy (measures to get the banks lending again), not fiscal policy (cuts in taxes and higher spending).
To make his case he seizes on the criticisms of the government's VAT cut from the bosses of Next and M&S. Pointing out that Alistair Darling promised that "by encouraging spending, [the VAT cut] will help stimulate growth", Osborne says "Now it has been in place for more than a month I think the country is entitled to ask: what spending and what growth?" A tad cheeky since no policy known to man can turn recession into growth in the space of a few weeks, as Norman Lamont argued only yesterday.
Osborne goes on to state that the government's policies haven't merely been ineffective, they have been counter-productive as "they have alarmed the public about our soaring national debt, alerted them to the tax rises needed to pay for it if Labour is re-elected, and so undermined confidence in the future"
So what is the Tory alternative ? Action, says Osborne, in three areas:
- revising the terms of the bank recapitalisation;
- introducing a National Loan Guarantee Scheme;
- new liquidity support from the Bank of England for new business lending.
Expect a counter-blast from Gordon Brown next week when he meets the head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, and will no doubt hail Obama's plan for a massive fiscal stimulus. The Prime Minister will later fly to Berlin to meet Angela Merkel - who by then is expected to have abandoned her doubts about a stimulus package and announced one worth almost £50 billion.
Osborne's pre-emptive reply today is that they can afford it whereas we can't. His hope is that he can turn the political debate this year from one on whether government should act into one on how they should act.
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I get it now. You are not a journalist, you are a commentator.
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He doesn't need to revise terms, he needs to get a grip on the banks, but it's all hot air as he's not in a position to get a real say. By the time he is, he'd do better thinking of a dustcart to haul away the wreckage, not more tinkering - he obviously doesn't understand nothing but nothing's going to get this one round the corner now. Even if Labour resigned tonight, by the time an election is held and a government formed, things will have hit the wall - it actually becomes an act of responsibility for Labour to go all the way with this one now, in the hopes the least-worst scenarios are right and there's a light at the start of next year.
As it is, this is simply more of the same. We've been right thus far across on RP's blog, and we can see we're headed for ten years of Japanese-style pain at best.
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Nick,
I love your line:
"...no policy known to man can turn recession into growth in the space of a few weeks".
True, but a discount sure can turn around sales quickly enough. Except it didn't happen. And if the 2.5% cut in VAT did not increase sales, then it is fairly obvious that it won't grow the economy either.
See you in the pub.
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Has the Nickmeister changed his spots? There isn't much Nude Labour propaganda here.
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Nick,
at last, where have you been?!
Glad to see you acknowledge that business has scotched the VAT cut as a waste of time and money. But why stop there, Lord Digby Jones (late a Business Minister of this parish) and Frank Field MP have also expressed the same opinion.
Why not a thread on what a monumental waste of our money it was, that it was never going to work, and suggestions for more useful alternatives?
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Dear Nick
First it was a ripple, then a breeze, up to a squal then a storm, and the after math is a quag mire of silt with Gord on his prayer mat facing West
"THE YANKS ARENT COMING GORD,"
and sinking fast he says,
Tony all is forgiven GET ME OUT OF HERE.
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More rubbish from Robinson.
Not one critical piece from the labour spokesman regarding any of their (failed) policies.
1 statement from the Tories..........
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I love the bit about 'Collapse' Osbourne criticising the Govt. for 'alarming the public'.
Lovely to hear too that he wants the Govt., ie taxpayer, to revise down the rate of return it should get from bailing out UK banks- the greedy lot whose actions made taxpayer intervention necessary.
We are charging them 12%, Barclays is paying the oil moguls 14%, Georgie, in case you didn't know. Given what we've taken on, 12% is more than fair. Not so long ago, Osbo himself was prepared to let the UK banks go under rather than intervene. Changed his tune a tad now, hasn't he?
How can Osbo argue that the VAT cut is not working when we don't actually know how much it is costing? If people are spending 20% more than they otherwise would have, we taxpayers may even be in profit from it. Some retailers, notably John Lewis, hardly a name you'd expect to benefit from a consumer slowdown, have reported large increases in Xmas / New Year spending.
It's a bit early to say if the bank recapitalisations, rate cuts and VAT cut are working.
They're surely doing more to help than allowing the banks to fail last September, and not doing much else, would have, Georgie! .
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Well done George.
Exactly right. It needed to be said.
Opposition doing its job.
Well done again...
To be fair, I'll give Labour credit for doing some things right, but that certainly doesn't mean I think they've got everything right during this crisis. Far from it in fact...
Labour are quite wrong to claim that they're the only party capable of getting us out of this mess.
It is typical of the arrogance that is espoused by whoever is in power at the time there's a crisis. Labour are doing it now. If the Tories were in power, I expect we'd hear them same sort of arguments from them...
Oh how I long for something different to the brand of power politics that we've been stuck with for the last few decades...
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Just an idea ok.
Instead of the Government giving our money to the banks, why not ask how much you owe in debt give you that amount then you give it to the banks you owe money to.
So if you owe around 12k Gordon gives you the 12k you then pay the banks, credit cards etc off. They get their money you have no debt and are free to start spending without going into debt.
Now I'm not saving this what to do its just a idea that might have worked as nothing seems to be working now.
Please can some say if this a good idea or not.
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Stimuli packages are only there to try to convince the voters that government can do somethimg about this downturn.
It keeps hope alive until they realise that nothing now can stop this turning into a very nasty depression.
Putting off the really bad news until it becomes blindingly obvious.
It's a bit like waiting for that threatened nuclear attack during the cold war. At least the government tried to prepare us for that.
It's something everyone is going to have to try to live with warts and all.
There is no world wide solution. each country is fighting for its own economy's survival.
No point in asking the conservatives what they would do.
It's not that they're a do nothing party it's because they are not in power to do anything but watch as Brown takes the country deeper and deeper into the mire.
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These are desperate times. Apart from the financial crisis, we are in the grips of the most terrible government in living memory. Even Chamberlain finally had the brains to resign after he nearly handed us on a plate to Hitler. Osborne has been selected by the Tories to take on a very tough job, and this is no easy task. To get the present government out, he, together with his party, must demonstrate a certain level of capability. He didn't demonstrate this at his recent interview on "Newsnight" with Jeremy Paxman. It is true that Tony McNulty was shown to be the indifferent ignoramus he is. but the voting public may well decide, "Better the devil we know, than the devil we don't". So pull up your socks Osborne, and all the rest of the DC crew!
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Nick
I think your last para is wrong - I think Osbourns hope is that the british public aren't so stupid as re-elect these these labour muppets to continue their destruction of the UK.
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Seems like a very good idea. By the way, the Conservative Party has repeated called for a national loan guarantee scheme over the last few months. Each time it is ignored by Gordon Brown, and then a few days later the tedious and mendacious refrain rings out, the Tories have no policies.
Everyone now knows that the Bank recapitalisation policy has failed. The principle was fine, but the detail was not. On the one hand, Gordon charged the banks 12% interest for the capital injection and demanded the banks rebuild their balance sheets. On the other, Gordon expected the banks to lend at 2007 levels and reduce the cost of borrowing. This is clearly a self-contradictory policy, and no wonder it failed.
Since the banks, whatever we may think of them, cannot logically persue both objectives at the same time I conclude that either Gordon is stupid (and I don't think he is) or he wants the recapitalisation to fail so that he has political cover (scapegoat the banks) when an election is called.
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...waiting a week and this is all we get?
read it again everyone - I think you will see it is actually, once again, an attack on tory ideas...
What's been happening all week?
No analysis of the worldwind tour, no analysis of McD's Govt funded burger flippin apprenticeship..
I could carry on...
Oh never mind!
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This is hilarious.
Robinson, Peston and Crick all produce blogs criticising/speculating on the impact of Tory (that'll be the Opposition) policies, while the Government steers the economy down the pan.
I suppose we're supposed to console ourselves that whilst Brown et al may be clueless, in the BBC's humble opinion, the other lot ain't up to the job either (and by the way, we'll get a better deal on the licence fee with another Labour government).
Something is definitely going on.
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10 maggie is gone
I like it - the more debt you run up the more you receive!
Can't see the reactionary lot on here liking that principle much, to be honest. However, much better for us to be debt-free than to give it straight to the banks.
How would you ensure people used it to pay off debt, rather than spend it down the boozer?
By the way, haven't Sainsburys and John Lewis just announced record sales? Maybe the VAT cut is having an impact - too early to say I think.
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@8
MunichMadrid7980 wrote:
"How can Osbo argue that the VAT cut is not working when we don't actually know how much it is costing?"
It is costing £12.5bn, and it is not too late to reverse the policy and spend the lion's share of that on something else.
"If people are spending 20% more than they otherwise would have..."
They aren't.
Even with massive discounts, way over and above the 2.5% reduction in VAT, retail sales are through the floor. JLP and JD Sports are exceptions that prove the rule.
Er - that is why retailers are going bust.
I think it wholly inadequate for die-hard labour supporters (I have no political allegiances) to deny the truth in favour of sticking doggedly to the party line. How can New Labour hope to convince the public that they are acting in the best interests of the country, when everyone can see more holes in their arguments than a slab of Emmental?
See you in the pub.
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Its funny how the opposition seems to get so much scrutiny here isnt it.
Shame the government doesnt get the same, in fact they should get more.
And kingloneranger at 1 is right this is just a commentary, arnt blogs supposed to offer a degree of analyis.
No wonder we all go off topic.
Talking of which:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7819843.stm
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Dear Nick,
I am so happy you are back and hard at it again. Another great peice of writing, thorough and straight to the point. Three cheers all round..!
Xxxx
ps
Er Nick, any news on the possiblity the GB is about to print very large sums of Her Maj? Any news on the other ountries doing the same? Any news that Mandy is STILL thinking on giving Jagur our money? Any news that is not from your (HP) source?
(Za)Nu(Improved)Labour bank notes anyone?
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It really is not worth responding to Nick's blogs anymore...
We've had tremendous fun in the previous one when left to our devices all week (and dare I say the most responded to blog - the fact it went of topic before #100 is both testament to the poor analysis by the BBC and a sad reflection of ad infinitum, ad nauseum of Nick's blog)
This is not only appaling, but it is also an usult to the lefties - even they deserve better than this...
Until Nick can actually come up with anything of any interest, it's hasta la vista for now..
Must have been a lovely pair of slippers Gordon bought Nick for christmas!!
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...sorry, one last thing we 'were' having a good time in the last thread I menat to say - until the point came when the mods decided it was best to cut out a complete chunk of responses and thereby ruining the complete flow of the thread..
Hey mods - you don't want responses like this? Then please correct your errors.
Enough of this already - a complete waste of time..
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I suspect squirestrat has never worked in a fast food chain, or had to live off the low wages such jobs pay.
I also suspect with his attitude he wouldn't last a week in the job, when he finds out it is a lot damn harder than he imagines.
Don't criticise what you don't know.
That also applies to all the other archchair economists with as much macroeconomic expertise as my cat.
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I too like the line -
"no policy known to man can turn recession into growth in the space of a few weeks"
Well Nick the reverse happened quite quickly didn`t it. Brown`s policy of allowing credit to spiral out of control, by burying his head in the sand, sparked a recession so quickly - it has all been quite breathtaking.
Where is the objective analysis of Brown in all of this? Quite clearly his vat cut was an absolute nonsense and the longer this recession goes on, more and more people are starting to see this Govt for what it is. That is why he and his party are falling behind in the Polls. No mention of that anywhere.
Osborne`s idea of a loan guarantee scheme seems to me to be the only sensible idea put forward so far by any party. Yet your piece derides Osborne and his ideas. Why?
I do not note any derision in any of your pieces of Brown and Darling. Not one hint of criticism as to what they have done to bring about this recession.
Do you not think for once that you could treat us to a middle of the road piece - letting us make our own minds up instead of acting as unofficial cheer leader for Nu Labour.
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Good to see Nick's back, what took so long?!
Instead of a VAT cut why not issue a special set of currency (or voucher) that cannot be banked and is only accepted for a limited period of time.
People would have to spend the voucher in a shop within the next month or so. Shops and businesses could then cash that in at a bank as they are the only ones allowed to do so.
Workable idea?
Would inject cash into the economy more directly than a VAT cut and help people to retain a good standard of living during the downturn.
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The conservative party and it's supporters
should hang their head in shame.
At a time of such depression, the tories want to play political football, shocking, absolutely disgraceful behaviour.
The tories oppose helping people
The tories opposed the banking bail-out
The tories talked down the pound
The tories opposed the vat decrease
the tories opposed the stimulus for business
The tories are creating the sense of no-confidence in the banks
The tories opposed the apprenticeship schemes.
The young novice has no-idea how to deal with a world down-turn, Cameron is no winner, he has used this situation to try and force his way into government, Cameron does not care about people, their jobs and their homes.
As for Osborne, Paah, squeaky still in his L-plates, on a yacht or just a yolk of a bloke.
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Of course Gordon wants Angela Merkel to copy his financial stimulus package. When it all goes pear shaped over here, he can blame the germans as well.
It's about time the Conservatives got their act together, but time will tell as to whether they're up to the job.
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# 16
Agreed, the lack of objective analysis is starting to become very obvious when you compare and constrast their views with the comments.
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@10
I've wondered that myself. The value of all the "toxic" mortgages in the US was approx $400bn. Yet the bail out was $700bn. Why? Why not just pay of everyone's mortgage and save yourself $200bn? Then everyone would own their own home, and can become "proper" consumers again. Is that just too humane a solution? This also has the advantage of saving the little guy and meaning none of the money can be syphoned off into undeserved bonuses.
Admittedly this would've turned the government into a glorified TV advertised Loan Company, and the individuals loaned money would end up with higher taxes to pay for it, but that would've happened anyway!
Seriously, if anyone knows a good reason why the bail out money SHOULDN'T have gone direct to the people who owe money rather than the banks, please let me know. There must be a reason I haven't thought of or they would have done it!
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http://news.spotz.com/groups/gordon_brown_must_go/default.aspx
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@17
"the more debt you run up the more you recieve"
Isn't that what happened with the banks?
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Derek - please wake up and smell the coffee.
Most of our politicians are there because the job pays a very lucrative salary with extremely good benefits and gives them a solid gold pension to boot. They can't lose.
When the majority of the population realise that there is not even a hit of a downturn/recession in Whitehall, perhaps things will change, but until then......
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#29
because those people don't deserve to have their mortgages paid off? My mortgage is not toxic debt, why should I watch while someone who can't afford theirs gets it paid off for them?
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#23
That is a pathetically weak argument!
No, I have not had the misfortune to work in McD's thankfully!
I was fortunate enough however, to attend an apprenticeship - a real one when they were around for 4 years - giving me qualifications that an employer would like to see...
If you are going to reply, make it a good one little boy!
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Why in these troubled times are we once again focusing on The Opposition? Hello they're not in power and can do nothing to get us out of this mess. Why not take a good look at Gordon Brown's whistlestop tour around staunch Labour voting areas all paid for by you and I and intended to show that he is listening to ordinary people. Yet more of our money down the drain and for what? The lack of confidence in Government policy displayed by business leaders and reported in The Times this morning is far more important. The Conservative lead is holding at 7 points and is bound to widen as The Recession bites deeper.
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Dollybarker at it again.
This lot will be a push over at the general election.
Call it now
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Re: PhyrexianReaper @ 29
"Seriously, if anyone knows a good reason why the bail out money SHOULDN'T have gone direct to the people who owe money rather than the banks, please let me know."
Would that not just be rewarding the irresponsible consumerism that got them into so much debt in the first place?
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Re: shellingout @ 32
Unless you're a minister the salaries are dwarfed by the madness of those at the top in the private sector.
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"If you are going to reply, make it a good one little boy!"
Like I said, with your attitude...
Respect your youngers [and in terms of polite conversational etiquette, betters].
And no, i'm not going to get involved in the long-winded discussions prevelent on this site [and the internet as a whole], I have more important and interesting things to do.
Let the bickering recommence...
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@37
So instead we've rewarded the bankers whose irresponsible consumerism got us into trouble in the first place
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Lots of people just don't get it. Attacks on the Tories are not necessarily by implication support for the government.
At a time of such economic woes with a party that has been in power for more than 11 years, the opposition should be flying. We should be saying, "When Cameron comes ..." not "When Brown goes ....." The fact that this is happening shows that the Tories have not got their act together. We need a change of government but the Pretenders have yet to convince that they are up to the job. They need to be more convincing, consistent and forceful. Or find a new leader.
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@33
My intention was that everyone's debt should be paid off and we all start from scratch. Admittedly with higher taxes. Should've made that clear
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#10, #29
Quote: Seriously, if anyone knows a good reason why the bail out money SHOULDN'T have gone direct to the people who owe money rather than the banks, please let me know.
My understanding is that the money was not actually given to the banks, at least not for free. Part (less than 50 billion) was used to buy preference shares in the banks; the money has to be repaid and interest is charged at 12%. The other two, major, components (450 billion) were an extension of a special liquidity scheme, whereby banks can exchange their own non-liquid assets for cash, and guarantees for bank lending, for which a fee is payable. The eventual cost to the taxpayer is difficult to calculate, but the 500 billion quoted by the press is obviously misleading. Buying shares, swapping assets for cash, and providing guarantees is not the banking bailout that I suspect many people imagine it to be.
This is only a layman's explanation. I wonder why even the quality media rarely take the trouble to explain it.
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#36
Robin, the conservative's have a very small lead in the opinion polls, Wow!, the biggest recession for decades and not many have the confidence in the tories.
Robin that should tell you something( the do nothing party with the do nothing attitude)
Rantin Rovin Robin, the whole world now rejects conservative ideals, Obama reject Cameron.
Not long now Robin......................
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This is a simple plea to you Nick. Please please please can you write something about some Labour policies? It would be the answer to all our problems.
You see, if you blog about Brown, then you would have to put a picture of him at the top. This would be sufficient to entice me to retreat from my desk, and take a good long run up before planting my size 10 squarely in the gurning chops of the most despicable, arrogant and frankly incompetent buffoon ever to hold office of any kind in this country.
I cannot believe that I am the only one to feel this way about him, and therefore there would be a long queue of people at PC World tomorrow morning urgently requiring a nice new screen for their computer, or heaven forbid if you got really carried away, perhaps a whole new PC.
As a luxury item, the new screen would of course be VATable, so not only would PC World's sales figures be through the roof, but Gordon could actually claim that his VAT reduction was working, enticing people to go out and buy luxury goods.
Naturally, once everyone sees that he was in fact right all along, Gordon will be declared de facto leader of the entire free world, and in order to suck up to the powerful and glorious leader, international credit lines to the UK will magically open up, allowing us to once again borrow as much money as we like from whomever we like, and reinflate our wonderful credit bubble that, by this time next year, will make us all millionaires (Rodney).
It's in your hands, Nick. Do the right thing.
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#39
"Respect your youngers [and in terms of polite conversational etiquette, betters]."
> - Playground stuff!
" And no, i'm not going to get involved in the long-winded discussions prevelent on this site [and the internet as a whole]"
> - OK, bye then!
"I have more important and interesting things to do."
> - Me too! Ta ta ;-)
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"...no policy known to man can turn recession into growth in the space of a few weeks".
That is really a silly comment. Sounds like a soundbite.
But - Darling and Brown said that the UK would be out of recession/downturn in the second quarter of this year.
That's a matter of 26 weeks.
That's just a few, over a lifetime - or even a mortgage repayment period...
So budget predictions were based on a rapid resumption of normality/growth.
Of course, they have now changed their point of view. The recession/downturn could be for a couple of years, rather than quarters.
So all the "predictions" were proved totally inadequate within a few weeks of their unveiling.
So they had no idea how long this garbage will continue. So any tax or borrowing forecasts were a waste of time.
Children, beware.
Don't expect that your parents will borrow against any value left in their houses to pay for a bloody silly wedding extravaganza.
Don't understand why that should ever have been considered necessary in the first place, but I guess that all those Sharons and Tracies believed that a wonderful spend was better than a wise investment.
That was really a Gordon moment.
Hopefully, to be forgotten.
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Expect a counter-blast from Gordon Brown next week when he meets the head of the US Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, and will no doubt hail Obama's plan for a massive fiscal stimulus
Finally I can relax! The Great bRuin meets up with key players in the financial circus, including the likes of BenAna Banke and a later excursion to Angelic Mogul. No doubt Mr Bank Haulson will show his face in the US, although his corner has been rather quiet recently.
One bloated team of ponzi scheme players talks to another, for serious, yet somehow always costly debate!
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Please - No election
We need a revolution ~ lies about funding, lies about pensions, lies about spending, lies about Iraq.
Will a Conservative government put Tony Blair in the dock about lying to the House and the people ? No. Becaue it's all one happy club.
Put DerekBarker in charge.
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Brown has peaked in his bubble. If his fiscal stimulus works or if it doesn't, the country are calling for a change.
If he calls an election now he may just scrape in but only to be booted out at the next.
Up to you Gordon, choose when you want to go.
Any criticism of George Osbourne et al is only sour grapes. You know they make sense. They are still ahead in the polls.
The only problem is, what a hell of a mess they are going to sort out from this lot. Many people think Gordon has come down from Scotland on a mission to destroy this country. Hells teeth.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
I, think we need answers to matters such as these; rather than hypothesis about the opposition.
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What is depressing is that so many people in this inventive and productive country rely on the state.
Either because they are employed by the state or receive financial life-support from the state.
So 40percent of the population are reluctant to see "state spending" cut. While a lot of folks have to make money from a hard world, in order to finance that nonsense.
Surely even derekb can realise that, if you appoint a highly paid executive to direct managers to direct doers to do things that "normal" people do for themselves, it uses a lot of money.
Brown talks about "do nothing" Tories. Neither Tories or Lib/Dems can DO anything. It's only the government administration that can raise and spend taxes.
Brown did nothing to regulate UK finance. And boasted about his "light touch regulation".
The global finanial economy is a mess.
If Blair and Brown had really understood the basis on which banks were swapping junk, they may just have persuaded the US folks to back off. Did they? Nah.
Take the tax-cut and spray it. Did the FSA really know what was the basis of banks' "asset value". Nah.
Too complicated to check that out. Really? A bit of paper saying "I'm worth a billion", with no FSA guy saying "I wonder why it's worth so much?".
I'd like some evidence of how much Brown has spent on developing new technologies to deliver "green energy". Hard to find.
Forget the windmill garbage. In a decade or so, we'll have to subsidise companies to pull down those monstrosities that were found to deliver negative cost-benefits.
Get off the Brown bus, Nick.
Stick to journalism. Commentators speculate about stuff. We need someone who can simply report what is real.
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Are we time limited on these comments, or are we monitored in case we get too near the truth?
I was asking why the Government was paying Civil Servants for non-jobs when my screen went blank.
Previously I asked why at #26, the question of Osbourne on a certain yacht was raised, but no reference or explanation of Mandleson on the same vessel.
Other commentors have regularly asked about Mandleson on the yacht but you steadfastly ignore the questions.
Do you have a script, like those off-shore advisors for certain large companies?
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44. Barking:
Don't just guess what people are thinking. Look at the results of What the Nation Thinks:
http://www.whatthenationthinks.com/UK/default.asp
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#50
Thats the problem flamepatricia, the conservatives dont have a plan to deal with the recession.
Osborne and co, want to turn this recession into a political game of football, kicking the life out of the stimulus plan, with no consideration for the public just to have an early election, dreadful low life stuff!
You see, the banks are nervous, about the tories do nothing plan, if the win office next year, they will repeal the bank bail out, this is a diliberate act against the public and the banks, shameful, you see the tories dont care about people, they only care about holding office.
Well! the next to weeks will finally put the nails into the conservative tripe and free us all from their self- greedy crime ridden ways.
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It won't be Osborne they'll be talking about soon it will be a real heavyweight.
I heard that Ken Clarke is coming back into the cabinet (sorry I meant shadow cabinet) possibly opposite Mandelson
That's more like it. Real politics.
Can't wait.
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The beauty about the human race is our individualism, the "DOERS" or the "THINKERS" to each their own, hey! dont surpress it?
The fact the the leader of the new world, Obama see's Cameron as a lite touch, is telling! if you dont have the experience then bow out.
Some people can tie a good knot, others can tie a good bow, find your comfort zone, dont try and kid the nation that you have a plan?
fairlyopenmind may like his donkey jacket,
fair dues, not a bad choice of wear, the moscow mule might even add to the warmth.
JFK, believed in people, Martin luther king was assassinated by a person, good people, bad people.
I want the good people to prevail and the bad people to be punished, nothing wrong with that. Is there fairlyopenmind?
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I think I'm beginning to understand.
1.If you've got money, spend it.
2.If you have a debt, you are to be helped.
So, I've just withdrawn my £300k savings from the bank and paid off both my kids mortgages. Monday I'm off to the Benefits Office as I now qualify for all the payouts known to man.
I feel better now I've done my bit for the country!
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23. At 4:19pm on 09 Jan 2009, The_Ridger wrote:
I suspect squirestrat has never worked in a fast food chain, or had to live off the low wages such jobs pay.
I also suspect with his attitude he wouldn't last a week in the job, when he finds out it is a lot damn harder than he imagines.
Don't criticise what you don't know.
That also applies to all the other archchair economists with as much macroeconomic expertise as my cat.
===
Which University did your cat go to, mine went to the LSE?!
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After waiting all week for another blog post, Nick, I rather hoped that you might post about moving the cabinet meeting to Liverpool at vast expense.
That was a pretty interesting story, wasn't it? A completely futile exercise that wastes money at a time when money isn't exactly around in abundance. The whole exercise seems to me as if the government is saying "Yes, we know all you proles have to watch your expenses at the moment, but we are still going to waste loads of your money, BECAUSE WE CAN!"
In the past, I've never really believed the accusations beloved of some of the contributors here that you are simply another mouthpiece of the Labour spin machine, but now I'm beginning to wonder.
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25. At 4:19pm on 09 Jan 2009, chrisleopard wrote:
Good to see Nick's back, what took so long?!
Instead of a VAT cut why not issue a special set of currency (or voucher) that cannot be banked and is only accepted for a limited period of time.
People would have to spend the voucher in a shop within the next month or so. Shops and businesses could then cash that in at a bank as they are the only ones allowed to do so.
Workable idea?
Would inject cash into the economy more directly than a VAT cut and help people to retain a good standard of living during the downturn.
===
Good idea!
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37. At 4:49pm on 09 Jan 2009, chrisleopard wrote:
Re: PhyrexianReaper @ 29
"Seriously, if anyone knows a good reason why the bail out money SHOULDN'T have gone direct to the people who owe money rather than the banks, please let me know."
Would that not just be rewarding the irresponsible consumerism that got them into so much debt in the first place?
===
So you don't support the Government's announcements on using our money to provide mortgage help for those struggling against repossession then?
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If the !2 billion that has been thrown away in the VAT fiasco was not going to any immediate good then it shouldnt have been done.
The excuse for it was that they the government had to act quickly, well they have and yet again they have got the knee jerk reaction wrong......
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44. At 5:07pm on 09 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote:
#36
Robin, the conservative's have a very small lead in the opinion polls, Wow!, the biggest recession for decades and not many have the confidence in the tories.
===
It is not a recession, it's a downturn, get back on message, you fool!
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Dear Nick Robinson,
Please, please, please STOP REFERRING TO THE RECESSION/FINANCIAL CRISIS/BURSTING BUBBLE AS A 'CREDIT CRUNCH'.
It's an absurd term to use and I don't know why you insist upon using it.
Thank you in advance.
Best regards
etc, etc, etc
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Derekbarkingatthemoon
Nurse says please increase your medication
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26 Derek
Thats not a list... this is a list:
Browns record:
Increased taxation to record levels
Increased debt to record levels
Didnt save anything for a rainy day
Squandered a over a trillion quid on wasteful initiatives
Sold our gold at the market low.
Ruined the best private pension system in the world
Created the best public sector final salary pension schemes in the world
Failed to live up to his golden rules.
Gave away our EU rebate while allowing
France to keep all their CAP subsidies
Gave away our ability to opt out of daft EU directives.
Promised a bonfire of Quangos but then increased their number 10 fold
Failed to grasp the implications of abolishing the 10p tax rate until it was too late.
Denied me a vote on the Lisbon treaty.
Lied about why he didnt call an election
Didnt move to sort out MPs expenses. didn?t even bother to turn up and vote.
Presided over too much sleaze to mention.
Got the budget for the Olympics massively wrong and then even then forgot to add VAT.
Sabotaged Blairs public sector reforms, that were well over due.
He does not understand the armed forces and has broken the military covenant.
Continues to erode civil liberties. 42 days, ID cards and recording my phone calls and emails.
He promised to deliver renewal and failed miserably. Just reeled out a load of daft ideas like a UK motto and British Day, oh yes and flags flying over public buildings.
Thought he had abolished boom and bust when all he had really done was increase debt and borrowing to mask it.
He lies to us with false figures and statistics.
He re announces the same old initiatives again and again.
Hes a control freak, a bully, has no charm, bites his nail and picks his nose in parliament and is generally an all round unappealing kinda leader.
But above all else he brought back Peter Mandleson, a man he detests, disagrees with and never got on with simply because he thought he could help save his skin. Just how principled is that?
Oh yes and hes a socialist.
Time for a bloody good clear out.
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derekbarker wrote:
#50
Thats the problem flamepatricia, the conservatives dont have a plan to deal with the recession.
Osborne and co, want to turn this recession into a political game of football, kicking the life out of the stimulus plan, with no consideration for the public just to have an early election, dreadful low life stuff!
You see, the banks are nervous, about the tories do nothing plan, if the win office next year, they will repeal the bank bail out, this is a diliberate act against the public and the banks, shameful, you see the tories dont care about people, they only care about holding office.
Well! the next to weeks will finally put the nails into the conservative tripe and free us all from their self- greedy crime ridden ways.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Derek
Did Nick give you a heads up as to when he was going to post this?
You and the ZaNuLabour Rapid Rebuttal Unit certainly loaded the front of this blog with Anti Conservative bile.
You?re expecting the next 2 weeks to change your fortunes.
You think that a lot of rubbing up close to Obama is going to change the minds of people whos prospects are being poured down the drain by headless chicken policies.
In my view a guarantee given to a bank if it extends credit for working capital for a viable business is extremely sound economic thinking rather than just shovelling money out.
You of course think the way to sort out the problem is to offer the banks money at 12% interest, force them to lend it at 6% the force the BOE rate down to 1.5%. Then stand on the side line saying we are doing something its all the banks fault they should be lending. Meanwhile in the real world people are losing their jobs businesses & savings. You are now and for some of us have never been fit for Government.
Tony Blair even now says that the years of growth were all just Luck and not down that fool you call leader.
Crick Focus on the Tory proposals. Not Labours
Peston Focus on the Tory proposals. Not Labours
Robinson Focus on the Tory proposals. Not Labours
Spot the pattern?
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Nick,
Very thin comment, especially since Mandy has been stirring the water about car bail outs
Not actually sure that you understand either, are you trying to destroy the opposition or talk down the government by ignoring it? If we don't mention it, maybe it'll go away?
Waited so long for some incisive journalism and we get this.
2/10 must do better
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Did you know that the BBC is spending £15 million on setting up a new TV channel, BBC Persia;
"LONDON (AP) ? The BBC said Thursday it will launch a Persian-language TV channel next week that can be seen in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and elsewhere, despite Iranian claims that it will be used to recruit spies.
BBC Persian TV, to start up on Wednesday, will broadcast news and programs on arts and sports available via cable, satellite and internet providers."
===
You wont find that on the BBC's own website anywhere.
Is this a good use of licence-fee payers' money?
TV Licensing - motto "We know where you live!"
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38 chrisleopard
..and how many jobs can you think of where the expense account is three times the amount of the salary? Nope - didn't think so.
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Seeing as Nick is about as analytical of the current crisis as the kids heading for an day coke and chocolate feast.
I thought Id post this:
Its the contract that labour signed with us.
http://www.labour-party.org.uk/manifestos/1997/1997-labour-manifesto.shtml
And here are some fairly typical responses from the public.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=p32OC97aNqc
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@56 Derekdraper
You irked me so much I seemed to have crossed the mods line!!
So I will tray again....
It doesn't matter if the conservatives have a plan, nothing they do will stop or reverse the recession, that will happen in its own good time.
All that can be done now is accept teh pain and try and limit it, rather than labours theory of throwing money around like a drunken sailor and making it worse.
The view from lefty la-la land does sound nice though
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So much for any attempt at scrutiny of the government and its appalling policies by the BBC's Political Editor.
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Carrots @68,
As ever, sterling work.
You may wonder why I don't bother to attack barking derek that often. The truth is that unlike, say the late-but-not-lamented CEH, this nu-labour stooge doesn't even give the impression of intelligence.
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#68
This is not a list? ok, then!
Carrots, some good courses going at night school, you and your fellow bloggers may wish to apply.
Seriously Carrots, the broonhoon, squirerat,
and others should consider a re-education programme.
It's is becoming tedious, your cartel mob is so tedium.
Sharpen up trolls, your no match!
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Nick, you say:
"The action that should be taken, he argues, should focus on monetary policy (measures to get the banks lending again)"
Part of the problem with very low interest rates is that there is no incentive for the banks to lend money.
Similarly, low interest rates are also a disincentive for people to deposit money in the banks. And without depositors, the banks have no money to lend.
Gimmicks with VAT won't help, and neither will aimless fiscal stimuli.
What is needed now are targeted measures that will help the wheels of industry keep turning. But with more closures, there comes unemployment, which means people buy less goods, which means more closures.....
Comrade Brown's scorched earth policy is to waste yet more money and plunge us deeper into debt, which will mean higher taxation for years to come.
Brown's policies are effectively spraying weed killer onto the 'green shoots of recovery'.
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Nick,
The Tories are in opposition, there might not be a general election for over a year, so why don't you focus on what the Goverment is going to do to get us out of this mess. Or are you just a puppet for Mandy and Cambell?
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I get an uneasy feeling that the battle to save the Nation and our money is rather akin to the opening battles of the First World War.
Let me explain: Generals who have never fought any real battle against deflation and depression marching their men into battle and inevitable slaughter (on both sides).
The Tories are akin to the French generals and Labour party the British generals. Nominally on the same side but with separate agendas and a fear of cooperating with each other.
Nobody has any idea how to fight the battle except to surge froward and sacrifice their men in fruitless ill-planned assaults.
We are the poor soldiers in the trenches marched into battle - lions led by donkeys!
These men of both sides need to admit they don't have any idea if what they are doing will be beneficial or not!
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68 carrots
Great stuff!
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58. At 6:12pm on 09 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote:
"The beauty about the human race is our individualism, the "DOERS" or the "THINKERS" to each their own, hey! dont surpress it?"
Derek
I get more crotchety as I get older. As a young guy, I was a bringer-together. Helped me and (I hope) others - at least they said so.
I have no problem with academic thinkers or practical doers.
I really like the fact that someone is paid for by us to try and understand the philosophy of the ancient Egyptians and how Islamic scientists laid a platform for current mathematics and much else.
I just believe that, if governments don't DO it right (correctly, if you want to be grammatically accurate) they aren't worth a stuff.
Just don't give a stuff whether their good intentions match with my - or others' - hopes. I just like them to execute things with a bit of common sense. That way, we can all be part of a "progress". Whatever party happens to be in power.
"The fact the the leader of the new world, Obama see's Cameron as a lite touch, is telling! if you dont have the experience then bow out."
Tell me, pray, what experience did Obama have of being the President of the USA?
None. You can't have it, before you get there. I like the idea of the guy. He's an intellectual with deep down practical experience. Just wish we'd had a few of those in the UK over my lifetime.
"Some people can tie a good knot, others can tie a good bow, find your comfort zone, dont try and kid the nation that you have a plan?"
I have no idea what that means. The Brown/ Darling plan seems to have collapsed already. Cuts in VAT mean nothing on the street, when desperate commercial companies slash prices to try and grab cash-flow.
If you ask the guy who dug the hole how best to get out of it, you'd expect he'd come out with a few decent ideas.
Come on, Derek. Brown allowed ( I'd say encouraged) a credit-based boom. Called it "growth".
If you are a credit addict, you'll vote for Gordon again and again. Or someone who believes that the "state" should pay. For goodness sake, the government is made up of people who could probably have done better in their lives. But, nowadays, believe that we "owe" them our income.
Why doesn't any education package try to explain to children that the "State" only survives because it takes away money from people who go to work?
My old Mum (now 94) has to pay local council taxes as well as central tax. Why should she pay for a "Climate Change" overseer. Just rowlocks.
"fairlyopenmind may like his donkey jacket,
fair dues, not a bad choice of wear, the moscow mule might even add to the warmth."
Derek, I was there in Moscow, a while ago. Never in a donkey jacket. Saw stuff that would freeze the bits and could never understand how such an advanced people (great mathematicians and chess players and musicians - and really good guys and gals) could screw up so badly.
Got a compliment from a hard-liner when I said that it didn't really matter what type of political regime was in power, as long as it looked after people.
That never meant that you should stuff the who create wealth. And they recognised that, when allowed to come to the wicked west. (Funny thing was, that at first, the guys/gals could not believe that every shop in the US or UK actually had stuiff on the shelf. They had to be allowed to dictate where to go, at a moment's notice. To realiase that the nasty world of capitalists made a bit of sense.
"JFK, believed in people, Martin luther king was assassinated by a person, good people, bad people."
I know exactly where I was when learning about the slaughter of JFK and Martin Luther King.
JFK was really charismatic, but said he "had to have a woman a day to keep him going".
Wow. Human rights? Female liberation? I've got to do this for the President?
And the hated LBJ actually delivered the rights legislation that helped people in the USA. And poor old LBJ followed through with JFK's Vietnam policy. Good / bad ? Give it a hundred years and then someone will write a book that makes any sort of sense.
"I want the good people to prevail and the bad people to be punished, nothing wrong with that. Is there fairlyopenmind?"
Derek, I've posted before that I'd like any banker who knew that he was trading in junk should be prosecuted. Ideally, imprisoned if they really knew that they were dealing with, but thought that Gordon Brown's "regulatory" system wouldn't catch them.
I'd also like any Government "advisor" (i.e. people we pay for, assuming they have a little sense) who realised that UK banks were getting into the dark and smelly stuff to be hung, drawn and quartered.
Guess that wouldn't get past the mods.
So, I'd be quite happy if people who set out to kill someone else was executed.
That should challenge them...
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#73
"an day coke and chocolate feast."
What is the tripe, what type of tory language is this?
NIGHT-SCHOOL......Carrots?
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Nick,
now lets say that you have a hundred thousand pounds. You are getting say for arguments sake 3 per cent. A person comes to you and says I will give you 4 per cent for your money. Ok you say. The person then takes out a risky investment where he is guaranteed 6 per cent, but he may lose all the money. In fact he does.
Now if you are stupid enough to lend the money to somebody for that extra percent then you are really are off your head. And you wonder why the banks with money will not lend to banks who are at any risk whatsoever.
As for people owing money to the Inland Revenue, do you seriously think that a bank will lend money to somebody who will probably go bankrupt as soon as they have paid the IR. No matter what GB and AD may say it is the job of the IR to collect all the money due, if they didn't they may well end-up in jail. It's called pork belly politics.
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Comment from the OECD:
All countries that have followed Mr Brown's lead and simply injected taxpayers' money into lenders without dealing with their bad debts risk being forced into serial recapitalisation.
So much for Gordo saving the world!
Comments please Nick.
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"Osborne calls for action"
By the right...Quick.....laugh,laugh,laugh,laugh
I luv' the little photo insert...................
Really do some-people seriously want to vote for this man? squireRat?
Hello, Balhamu.................are you having fun
with this lot!
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#73 Carrots
Thanks for that, haven't laughed so much in ages.
Where to start? There are so many gems, but here's just one.
"Life in our countryside
Labour recognises the special needs of people who live and work in rural areas. The Conservatives do not. Public services and transport services in rural areas must not be allowed to deteriorate. The Conservatives have tried to privatise the Post Office. We opposed that, in favour of a public Post Office providing a comprehensive service. Conservative plans would mean higher charges for letters and put rural post offices under threat."
===
Labour Party Manifesto, the gift that just keeps on giving!
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Does Nick Robinson ever have any doubts about Labour's policies?
The Rob-blogs are invariably negative on any Tory proposals. Surely there is another point of view on most financial matters. Is it BBC policy never to criticise the Government on anything?
Any faint disquiet or murmurings on Labour
announcements are always "balanced" by outright scepticsm of opposition comments.
With this sort of news coverage the Government will have no worries about the next election. Does the BBC think it needs to represent all shades of political opinion or not?
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
A real BBC Journalist is now on Sky.
He has a trailer for his program in which he gives a litany of the stupidity of the last few years.
The trail ends with the comment
"what would I do if I were the government? Resign".
Jeff Randall a man from before Hutton and the introduction of the placemen to tie up with the Labour Rebuttal Unit.
How long can you and other editors go on before we get an answer to why you constantly switch the agenda to the Tory's?
More and more of us can see through this so what you are actually doing is bringing your whole news department in to disrepute.
This is the BBC you used to be the bastion of balance respected throughout the world.
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77. At 7:41pm on 09 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote:
#68
This is not a list? ok, then!
Carrots, some good courses going at night school, you and your fellow bloggers may wish to apply.
Seriously Carrots, the broonhoon, squirerat,
and others should consider a re-education programme.
It's is becoming tedious, your cartel mob is so tedium.
Sharpen up trolls, your no match!
===
derekbarkingmad
While we are down there do you want us to enrol you in an english language course?
http://www.usingenglish.com/
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A week-full of nothing from Nick and then another blog about what is an irrelevancy. What the tories would or would not do is irrelevant as they are not in power and so can do NOTHING about the deeper and deeper hole that Labour are getting us into. The reason they are the "do nothing party" is because they are not in power now. They have plenty of policies and these policies also happen to be supported by businesses, banks and industry, but labour will not see sense and steal any of them.
God, there is a cruel and bitter irony.The ONE time we really NEED the Government to steal tory policies and they completely refuse to do so. It beggars belief!!!
So given the choice between the do nothing party and the do everything wrong and blame everyone else party, I choose the do nothing party every time.
(BTW Derek Barker, the do everything wrong and blame everyone else party is labour, in case you hadn't guessed.)
Nick, you have not written a critical blog about labour or Brown in weeks, despite the fact that Brown has steered this country onto the rocks in most every area that he has interfered in and then labour have either lied about it (faked knife crime statistics) or blamed everyone else (economy) despite the fact that labour have spent nearly the last 12 years pushing their interfering, incompetent and dogmatic nose into far more areas of life than any British government before them. They have employed an army of hundreds of thousands of busy-bodies, quangocrats and pen-pushers specifically to ensure that every part of our lives are touched with new labour magic. And yet, when it all goes wrong, it is NEVER their fault. (yeah right!) Then they employ an expensive team of statisticians to falsify why it is not their fault and why the policy was a roaring success after all.
On the economy; we are all feeling the utter failure of 12 years of Gordon's incompetence. On health, they spend twice as much on the NHS as the tories did and yet patients are left to slowly and agonisingly starve to death. This, despite doctors and some nurses being paid hundreds of thousands of pounds per year now. On education, standards are falling faster than ever in our schools, (sorry, "places of learning"). Places of learning? political indoctrination centres more like. Where children are being indoctrinated into feeling guilty for the climate changing without being told that climate has ALWAYS changed as change IS the DEFAULT state of climate and has been since the earth first formed any climate at all. Where 'txt' writing is allowed in exams now because the pupils, (sorry, assets of genuine and individual personal value) have not been taught to spell or use grammar correctly because correcting their mistakes may hurt their feelings and negatively affect their self esteem. It matters not that the brightest children that want to work and learn cannot, due to the disruption caused by children that cannot be disciplined by teachers any more. No, they let the brightest and the hard working languish in glorified mediocrity and then they artificially lower the pass rate to help the other lazy and stupid children feel better about themselves. In reality they are guaranteeing a generation of lost opportunity.
The military are understaffed and overstretched and used and sickeningly abused as political pawns in illegal wars of occupation.
The Government are pushing their noses and legislating ever more areas of our private and formerly law abiding lives. A desire for privacy is viewed as an admission of "potential terrorist activity" and is immediately thought of as suspicious in the land where it was once said that an Englishman's home is his castle. Now that phrase is seen as a racist declaration of guilt. Now the Government want to keep ALL of our website visits, emails, telephone calls and text messages on a huge database, they want us to provide our ID to buy anything from cheese, to furniture polish to Christmas crackers and woe-betide us if we complain. Yet they do not offer any guarantee of keeping any of this personal and private and sensitive data safe. AT ALL!
The Government's finances are collapsing and yet they will still spend untold billions on the stupid, unworkable, unreliable, wasteful ID card scheme and the NHS database and the paedophiles kiddy catalogue known as the children's database.
Nick, this is but a tiny tiny fraction of the hateful way that this disastrous labour government are actively harming each and everyone of us and yet you cannot bring yourself to blog on any of it? WHY NOT NICK???
My responses to his blog ARE biased, I admit it, but only because there is NO balance at all in this blog of yours Nick, which is in reality pathetic and easily exposed pro labour drivel.
This lax and blatantly biased blogging is not good enough on a BBC blog Nick.
It seems, Nick, that your sole aim now is to do your best to find ANY hole in tory policy and attempt to exploit it for labour's benefit.
Is this why you have taken a full week to come up with an irrelevant article about nothing of consequence in a weak attack on the tories, whilst the UK Plc sinks beneath the waves of Browns egotistical hubris and incompetence?
Come on Nick, try to examine what the Government are doing, or is the reason that you have written NOTHING about the Government in a couple of weeks because there is NOTHING positive to be written about them?
Pull your socks up Nick. Your recent standard has been lamentable.
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Why have you not brought up the wasted billions this government has put into failed PFI schemes. You know, those schemes of which the tax payer will be held responsible for and not these dodgy companies who seem to enjoy spending our money with little or no return. These PFI schemes are not even on the Public Accounts and therefore we have no idea how much of our money is being wasted by these people. You seem hell bent on pointing out Tory policy(or lack of), but very muted on the huge amounts of money wasted by this current administration, which is a shame, seeing that it is this current administration who quietly guided us into this mess!!
Nice to see your not obviously Tory bashing today, are we seeing a return of real journalism?
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maxsceptic@76
I don't wnoder why!. "maxsceptic" the pantomime villain.
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71 brownisahoon
Did you know that the BBC is spending ?15 million on setting up a new TV channel, BBC Persia;
"LONDON (AP) ? The BBC said Thursday it will launch a Persian-language TV channel next week that can be seen in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and elsewhere, despite Iranian claims that it will be used to recruit spies.
BBC Persian TV, to start up on Wednesday, will broadcast news and programs on arts and sports available via cable, satellite and internet providers."
===
You wont find that on the BBC's own website anywhere.
Is this a good use of licence-fee payers' money?
TV Licensing - motto "We know where you live!"
.................................................
Haven't these people suffered enough? Now we're inflicting Eastenders and Strictly Dumb Dancing on them. Truly weapons of mass deception. If applied for long enough, it will turn the entire population into soporific zombies. Don't believe it works? Take a look around you! And all courtesy of the British Bulls*it Corporation.
I wonder if this will be printed.
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@derekbarker
Are you allowed sharp objects where you live?
Bet you're not allowed in the pub.
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#90-
Ah, we are talking about a man (Jef Randall) of common sense, a man not politically correct enough for the BBC, great shame.
Nick you should take a leaf out of this mans book, Jeff Randall is very much his own man not a puppet for the goverment.
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Good plan by the conservatives, and a good answer to Brown's 'do nothing claim.'
I do not know why you still refer to Obama, the American economy is totally different to ours and can not be compared like for like. However it does put to bed Browns 'no time for a novice' because the same could be said of Obama as of Cameron.
I was expecting a report on G. Browns trip up North though and how that went down with the public and the amount it was costing the tax payer, so Im rather disappointed.
"derekbarker" you are going too far now the posts are becoming insulting and without fair assessment and argument, most are far from correct.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Human nature, thing go a wry and out pops the neanderthal man, blood and a club in hand.
Osborne with the kill bill attitude, if you cant understand it, just fake it out.
I've meet some genuine people, who had a real input on others around them, they didn't fake it! they simply liked to help others.
The new shoe club shuffle from Cameron and co, has a nasty pretence of fake leather, I'm not that kean on imitation, I doubt Blair likes that idea either.
Science and nature could play a big role, as this world tries to advance.
Drawin probably thought the chicken came first due to evolution.
Creationist probably think the egg came first
due to 5th day of creation and the need for food.
Take your choice? good egg or bad egg?
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Have a look at ribble council website. On the main page there is a poll with a question relating to Scottish alcohol laws. There are also other polls about wheelie bins and other obscure topics. My point is that somebody in the council I'd being paid good money to post these inane and wholly unnecessary polls ..... Meanwhile taxpayers must be paying£30,000 to someone doing this job whilst other productive people lose their jobs and homes. It makes my blood boil. There is also a job being advertised for a part time job share arts development officer! Money for old rope! Meanwhile Rome burns and this labour gift borrows billions that will take us a lifetime to pay back. Hang your heads in shame if you voted for this lot.
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#100
There we finally have it. Proof of the old "put an infinite number of monkeys in front of an infinite number of typewriters....." saying.
Except, poor old Derek is hardly Shakespeare, is he?
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dhwilkinson @94,
Thank you for giving my scurrilous comment further exposure.
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yellowbelly1959
Re 100
His postings are quite difficult to read without any punctuation.
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Ah,
With the_ridger safely back in his cot and sucking on his dummy, we can move on...
Derek - please explain why it is you can never actually talk politics? Your repost is to attempt flame - everytime. Can you actually say something sensible and keep on it - you did do it once in the other thread - only to go and ruin it again...
God made idiots to practice getting humans right - you were the one he forgot to destroy after the first try!!
As for Nick - this (his) blog is, no has, no is an embarrasment - not only to the BBC but to Nick himself.
Hypothesising about what any opposition may or may not do will not get us out of this mess we are in. I really do not understand why Nick just makes it simple for the lefties (as they find it quite difficult to understand that insanity is doing the same thing over and over...ah you get the picture) and post his blog on labour.org instead of here because that is where this pathetic excuse for a blog belongs...
I could understand it if it was a labour minister blogging - but I cannot from someone who is supposed to be a political editor of a news channel that allegedly has no political links.
The is also a disservice to the lefty brigade - even they deserve better blogs than this..
It's nothing nor something, and quite, quite pathetic.
I don't really know anymore what we are doing here as this has become a joke - and to prove how valuable Nicks contribution to week of politics was - his whole blog entry today went off topic at post #1...that has to be a record...
I don't give up that easily and I think it is time for a collective complaint to the chief honcho on the top floor at the Beeb.
Like labour, this is a laughing stock!!
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#101-bankruptbritain
The private sector is taking all the pain of this recession, yes the wealth creators, while Browns beloved public sector are ring fenced from any of this recession.How long can it go on before the country is truely bankrupt.
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Actually - I still see the mods have decided to withold the comments over at the last thread -
Shame on you Mods - as we agreed to your house rules - so should you stick to your own agreement...
And you can refer this to King canute for all I care - or refer it to Nick..anyone.
This is a complete joke!!
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#104
No Dereks posting are jsut difficult to read all the time, with or without punctuation...
He's a mouse, studying to become a rat!!
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If Nick said 'Vote Tory' you would accuse him of being ironic and biased against the Tories.
Squirestrat - you keep saying you're going but you never do - more combacks than Mandy!
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Having looked back through this blog I can only say it is a true reflection of the editor whose name sits at the head.
There is no true insight in the proposition so everything that follows is just people breaking of into random debate.
Do you think that anyone at the BBC put any store in these blogs? They cannot read them as the overwhelming feel of them is frustration at the puerile subjects that are put forwards.
I would also like to know how much does he get paid for this amount and quality of output?
Do we really need this number of editor's when they rarely put anything out worthy of the BBC?
What does Crick actually do?
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109. At 9:43pm on 09 Jan 2009, Laughatthetories wrote:
If Nick said 'Vote Tory' you would accuse him of being ironic and biased against the Tories.
Squirestrat - you keep saying you're going but you never do - more combacks than Mandy!
===
"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything but the value of nothing."
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#109
Grow a beard or something!
What can you not take the pace - I've come back for amusement - and if you think I'll go because you mentioned it, think again...
Got anything interesting to say?
No, thought not!
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#109
I couldn't care less what Nick said, says, is about to say, thinks, has thought about - so long as, the joke that this has become actually improves....perhaps, if he took a leaf out of Mark Eastons methodology!!
And no before you say it's not tory speak - all that is asked for is impartial political analysis - what the majority ahve been asking for time and time again - that is all and if you don't believe me when I say that...go and read all my posts.
Like you, I am at least consistent!
Actually come to that, so is Nick, shame it's just drivel these days!!
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The idea of giving everyone a huge lump of cash to pay off their debts, thus ensuring that the banks get their windfalls and masses of people become debt-free or have their debt reduced significantly to allow them to continue spending is a very good one.
Unfortunately it cannot work. Allow me to try to explain why.
It is because it is not the sub-prime toxic debt itself that is the problem. This was merely where the inevitable crash started. The sub-prime mortgage crash was not the cause of the banking collapses, but merely where the collapses started. Like a car crash is not caused by the part of the car that impacts another car first. The excessive speed on an icy road would be the cause, not the smashed bumper.
The same can be said for the sub-prime mortgage failures. This was a symptom of the crash, NOT the cause. It is handy for Brown to erroneously blame the US sub-prime as it gets him off the hook with labour luvvies and blind fools living in a delusional dream world-come-cuckoo land, like derek barker, but it is not true.
The CDO's and other derivatives markets gambling on themselves and inventing artificial sums of money that clearly never existed in reality, but only 'on paper' in gambles that could only grow to such an insanely artificial extent that the profits could NEVER be recouped at all are the reason.
How big did these gambles grow? What was the value of all these financial instruments?
It has been calculated to be in the region of 4 QUADRILLION dollars world wide. Well therin lies the rub. There is not enough money in the world to cover these gambles. Much of this gambling in the UK London Markets (one of the world's biggest markets) was, if not encouraged then certainly NOT stopped, by none other than the FSA as set up by whom, derek?
A) Thatcher?
B) Those vile tories?
C) Gordon Brown?
Yup, that's right, This UK economic collapse has Gordon's fingerprints ALL over it.
The problem that Gordon Brown created was not one of too little regulation, but of too much of completely the wrong sort. This was NOT a failure of capitalism, but the failure of an egotistical and incompetent socialist control freak, pretending to be a capitalist regulating a free market.
This massive 4 quadrillion (four thousand trillion, or four thousand times one thousand billion) gamble is clearly impossible to realise in cash terms as there is nowhere near 4 quadrillion dollars in existence. In fact, all the actual money in the world added up does not even add up to one quadrillion dollars, so clearly as the CDO's leveraged on sub-prime mortgages taken out by self declaration applicants at 2% that quickly rose to 6 - 10%, suddenly looked rather dodgy, bankers from Wall St to London, to Frankfurt to Tokyo saw that their bonuses were going to be toast and looked for a way out. All at once. This led to the near collapse of the banks.
A Government bail-out to the people that paid off the sub-prime debt for them, would only have delayed the inevitable, and made it much much worse when it happened as the unrestricted gambling on these kinds of toxic loans would have continued expanding. Various Governments around the world would not have acted to stop it. Gordon had his chance and failed. In fact, by making the Bank of England independent and stripping them of the regulatory powers at the same time, Gordon Brown pretty much guaranteed that the UK would be very much more severely hit by this crash than would have been the case otherwise.
What I cannot fathom is, why people like Derek Barker acknowledge and were boasting that Gordon Brown was the most involved Chancellor in recent history, he did more to create a benign economy than any other chancellor through having a much more in-depth and hands-on understanding of the complexities of the markets and fiscal and monitory policy, had complete charge of the largest ever treasury department and ruled over it and dominated it completely to the extent that even Blair was more of a partner than a boss. After 10 years of control, Brown then then took much of his team from the treasury to Downing street and has been very much involved in treasury decisions ever since. He has had more control over and influence in the economy than any previous chancellor making it the strongest economy for decades with responsibility for a record number of quarters of economic growth lying directly with him.
And yet, in spite of all of those claims, when his policies cause the greatest crash since the 30's (if we are lucky), all of a sudden it is NOT his fault. He cannot be responsible for any of the economic ills and it is Thatcher and Bush's fault.
The very idea that the way that the global crash effects the UK is not Brown's fault is the greatest delusion in political history. Even surpassing the blatant lie of Iraq's WMD. OH that was a labour lie too, wasn't it?
Labour have NO economic credibilty whatsoever. NONE. Every utterance that they and their puppets like derek come out with makes them look even more insane.
They passed pathetic and incompetent months ago. They now are displaying many symptoms of clinical delusions and actual insanity. A complete lack of connection with any recognisable reality linked with inability to accept any responsibility for one's actions is a clear symptom of insanity. The government should be locked up for their own, as well as all of our, safety.
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Hmmm, makes me think what Nick actually does - as the political editor, it would not be foolish to assume he actually edits something...
taking a look at the politics page of news.bbc it seems people like Martha are allowed to write and edit themselves..
What Martha said it seems, is a perfectly balanced viewpoint...
More like that is what is required from Nick!
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
"BBC Persian TV, to start up on Wednesday, will broadcast news and programs on arts and sports available via cable, satellite and internet providers."
And apparently, in spite of the cost, the Iranians don't even want it as they know it will be an anti-Iranian, Zionist propaganda channel.
Why waste even more of OUR money???
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#118
Fido, fetch, Fido down boy!
Jeez! theres so many twist and turns in you thesis! I gave up, did it have a conclusion,
did it have any clarity.
Fido lie, Fido roll over!
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115. At 10:04pm on 09 Jan 2009, purpleDogzzz
Well said, that man!
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#104
SquieRat, A proper little tory boy! hey! lad any one in? Is the light on?
Dont go swimming in deep water, when you cant swin, Dontcha know that lad!
Just stick to laying bricks, your not quite up for this, rough and tumble business.
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115 purpledogzz
What an excellent blog.
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119 derekbarker
You'd better watch out Derek - Fido might just turn around and bite you when you're not looking.
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#116
Rasberry blowing again squire.
Just give it up kid! you've been rumbeld
and the oddour is rotten.
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I'm finding myself struggling to take Ozzy seriously. He may be talking complete sense, but his cute squirrel face distracts me and then he just does not have the gravitas I need to see facing the likes of Brown and Ali D. It's a bit like an old fashioned Western showdown with a crusty old gun slinger facing Sweep (out of Sooty and Sweep). It may be a fair fight in reality, but it does not look right, and we end up rooting for the grizzled old timer and roar "hooray" when the puppet gets it.
There are some really good people amongst the conservatives, but I don't think Cameron and his "pals" are the right mix yet.
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119. At 10:31pm on 09 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote:
#118
Fido, fetch, Fido down boy!
Jeez! theres so many twist and turns in you thesis! I gave up, did it have a conclusion,
did it have any clarity.
Fido lie, Fido roll over!
===
It had SIX lines in it, you fool!
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squirestrat - various
I have always considered myself left wing but detest this government for the policies it has pursued.
Yes they have taxed and spent but most of it has been wasted in management, management consultants, ill considered (mostly IT schemes) and ridiculous PFIs.
I never thought that I would find anyone to rival Maggy in my list of hated people but Blair/Brown have easily topped her - at least she did what she said she would do and you have to admire her for that.
So please don't call the likes of Derek and the other apologists left wing, I don't even know why you bother to get into discussions with them.
p.s. Scargill was right about the long term need for coal and the pit closures - not his politics.
p.p.s. Thanks to your post the other day I have got my strat out for the first time in 9 months (early 90s cheap mexican).
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#115
Excellent and well put post Sir.
The whole problem with the Labour party stemmed from and stuck with Brown.
You are quite right, as even a minion like I have said, it is real and frightening insanity - I fear this govt more than anything else in this world - on levels I never thought I would imagine - it is not paranoia - it is real.
The time is long overdue to get rid of the moronic lot of the loony labout left wing - for good.
they ahve done more damage to this country than anyone in history - but as you say - it's not their fault.
It's not their fault...The very fact that they say that exposes their weakness in government - so no matter how much he tries to blame others shows what an utterly weak and rather pathetic Govt we have in this country. I actually believe he would boost his and his party's popularity if he actually admitted mistakes..but now, he exposes their weakness instead - much more damaging, which unfortunately for us who have to live under this RULE belittles this country.
A further sign of his weakness is his and his cohorts desire and need to control the populace at every conceivable turn - (id card, db's, email retention - there is control at every turn).
1984 and Animal Farm are enshrined in Zanulabour manifesto...
I sincerely hope Brown and the whole of the front bench are put on trial - I really do.
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This whole thing about Brown going to listen to the people - this has to be a gag. I mean, Gordo just does not listen to anyone does he? I can only think he's gone to lecture people on how fabulous he is.
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#128
Sir, that was a very well put post and I admire your candour.
Now if there were more actually like you who can put forward a well reasoned post, then we'd be playing cricket.
I do have to apologise for lumping Derek in at the left wing - I should rephrase that and include him in the loony bin - the man does your very honourable self a disservice and for that I am sorry.
Yes and on the point you made, he was right.
As for your Strat - good man, bet it feels good. A 90's mexican you say - very nice - like the 90's Japanese they are truly well made instruments..enjoy :-)
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OK, I'll try again with my post #130
#121
For lords sake Derek, grow the up!
You are not even mildly amusing anymore, I did show you some respect - because even I felt you deserved it, but you are so blind that you cannot even see an arm of friendliness...so blinkered that you are.
You find it difficult to read and make the assumption that anyone who says anything against labour is a tory - and it's the tories you are scared of isn't it. Like Brown, you Sir (sic!) are a creature in denial - you cannot even be afforded the compliment of being human.
Derek - he has no enemies, but his friends all hate him!!
You are not worth the effort.
Say what the you like as much as you want, from this point on I've grown so weary of your repeated, nonsensical banter that I feel like drilling a hole in my leg!
Bye Derek, it was almost nice whilst it lasted.
>>> edit - this is a repost of my post that got referred to umm, someone at the Beeb - I'll try again!
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#127
Nice strike :-) :-)
SIX lines and he even found that difficult...I almost feel sorry for him...
..second thoughts no I don't, he doesn't even deserve sympathy - there really is no hope for him!!
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So derek, you could not follow one of my posts?
Why does that not surprise me?
Clarity? you would not recognise clarity if it was shined at 1 million watts into your eyes derek, you are far to filled with hatred of the wrong people.
Now concentrate carefully, because I WANT you to understand this next bit.
It might, just might, be true that the current Conservative front bench will be completely subservient and completely in the control of the banks, they might do all that you hatefully accuse them of, Even though you clearly cannot prove any of your wild claims. BUT what you utterly fail to realise is, that the labour party you love so much are, in reality, even MORE poor hating, banker fat cat loving suck-ups than the likes of Thatcher or Tebbit.
Brown has spent the last 14 years brown-nosing the banking elite super-rich fat cats, and then letting them gamble with trillions of pounds on the back of inconceivably stupid levels of debt, so he could look like he had solved Boom and Bust. He hadn't. He hid it under a mountain of debt and by so-doing, he created the foundations for the worst crash in the economy since the 1930's. He has not really helped the poor, all he has done is increase their numbers and their utter dependency on the state, instead of themselves. That in itself is a cruel and immoral policy. He has actually been very cruel to the poor.
I do not recall the tories doubling income tax on the poor to buy off the middle classes, do you? How insulting that they actually believed that the poor would not even notice? Labour are a cruel and hateful caricature of the old 'nasty tories' but with a load of inefficient bureaucracy added on for bad measure to placate the socialists.
Blair tried (failed, but at least he tried) to take the best from socialism and capitalism to create a "third way" that would be the best of all worlds. It would seem that Brown has tried to continue this meme, but with an incompetent utilisation of the worst of capitalism and the worst of socialism. (both systems deliberately flawed by design to set person against person and distract them from the REAL menace and threat to peaceful, cohesive and prosperous societies, THE BANKS)
I am anything but a tory stooge or puppet of the tories, derek. I am a political independent that realises that pragmatically speaking, the only real choice at the next election (sans an intelligent and non biased media) will be between the tories and labour. Clearly, labour are failing at most things they touch which is bad enough, but what really angers me is the extent to which they are actually destroying the ancient liberties and freedoms of formerly free and law abiding, private citizens and CHARGING US for the gross inconvenience of it. This radical totalitarianism and control freakery at every level of govenment is why they are not worthy of remaining in office.
Much of what the tories propose desperately needs doing. Especially ending the growing totalitarian police state and a restoration of liberty.
I hope that you could follow that derek, but somehow, I doubt it.
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#133 squirestrat
"Derek - he has no enemies, but his friends all hate him!!"
===
Oi squire, the Oscar Wilde quotes are my domain, laughwiththetories particularly likes them!
Now this is really Derek:
"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
Oscar Wilde
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@115 purple
Excellent post. Clear and concise, and unfortunately way above any leftys head.
There is little point trying to explain anything to derek, it is clear that he has reasoning capabilities of a daffodil
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#115 PurpleDogzzz
A great anaylsis but I have one question, about regulation.
As an engineer I am convinced that systems can be made stable by the correct control signals if one understands and measures the system to be controlled.
Until recently I didn't really pay much attention to the financial sectior. I thought that because they govt/FSA) didn't really understand the markets and finance they just allowed finance people to get on with wathever they liked (sort of a mega hands off) removing effective controls, leading to instability.
Many posters, including yourself, say that the government over or badly regulated.
Perhaps you could expand on the whole regulation / deregulation thing
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How many people on this blog has referred to Osborne and his call for action message?
Not many, why? because it lacks direction and appeal.
Most people have used this thread as a means of attacking labour, again not many give any solution or clear points as to how the tories would help the banks, help peoples with homes and help the unemployed,Why?
Because the tories simply dont have a plan to help anybody, its the do nothing party looking to sneak into government by default.
Well! scargilwasright, has mickey mouse growen up a cow?
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#29
You seem to be saying that the government should take on all personal debt whether it is an unpaid mortgage, an unpaid heating bill or a bill for a gold plate Rolls Royce. I admire the thought as being egalitarian, but I think the tendency would be for people to run up ever bigger debts which then get put on the tax bill.
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The terms of the recapitalisation of the banks has to be revisited. Gordon the Golem expects them to lend at a super-low interest rate, but cough up 12% interest on the money he handed over to them.
The banks want to pay that off as quickly as is humanly possible to get the Golem off their backs. And it won't be long before the electorate want the Golem off their backs as well.
Golem, you're running amok, but the tablet will be removed and you'll be stored in the loft of the Manse.
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The worst thing about having the recession just when Mr Brown is in power is that it gives him such a lovely opportunity to be as centralist as he likes; which is Very. All he has to do is to say in an avuncular way that it is 'important to take action in the present crisis' and he has carte blanche! To see all my very worst fears about New Labour still coming true after eleven long years is a hard thing to stomach.
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#136
Now this is really Derek:
"I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying."
Oscar Wilde
==================
Sir, you have hit the proverbial on the proverbial with a proverbial...
well said -
...and the likening of him to the reasoning power of a daffodil by I_D_L is perfect..
Gentlemen, you are succinctly administered wordsmiths..
Well said :-)
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#135
Good words dont make it a good read,
Benevolent though I'am, I reserve the right to challenge your assersted assumptions.
Nothing wrong with a bit of subjectiveness
and you cant please all the people all the time.
I do find it strange that you believe in a totalaterian state, Hmmm, thatcher did not believe in society, I guess the coat of many colours is only worn by pragmatic people, who want to help one another through difficult times.
I could give you all the rhectoric but Hey! utopia is some-where-where one day all the pragmatist may be happy.
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#39
Don't criticise what you don't know.
That also applies to all the other archchair economists with as much macroeconomic expertise as my cat.
=============
Sorry I missed that one ridger...but now that you are up, had your bottle (are you on solids yet?) and been burped, can you please ask your cat to register and enlighten us with it's macroeconomic models - it's views would be most welcome....
Oh, one last thing, respect - this is something parents instill in children from a very early age and we are taught that respect is earned - the nature that you have to ask for it means you are either too young/didn't pay attention/ignorant (strike out not applicable)...
Now, if you would like to continue on a note of relating to a particular point, please do so, it would be welcome (along with your cat) the need to pick apart a post is important, but please, make it worthwhile - we have enough of the idiocy with Derek!
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#139 derekbarkingmad
"Most people have used this thread as a means of attacking labour,"
===
I think you will find, on countback, most people have used this thread as a means of ridiculing you!
By the way, what the heck does this mean?
"Well! scargilwasright, has mickey mouse growen up a cow?"
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I think Mr. Osbourne sees himself as the new voice of Conservatism .. not that I was ever too sure what the old voice was talking about ... but I see that Mr. Brown's latest idea is to starve NHS patients in hospitals to death, thus saving us all huge sums of money - well, that's what I read in the Daily Mail - so it must be true ... mustn't it ?
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#144 derekandthedominoes
You are truly excelling yourself.
"Good words dont make it a good read,"
"I could give you all the rhectoric but Hey! utopia is some-where-where one day all the pragmatist may be happy."
===
"Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow."
Oscar Wilde
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Nick,
I see in the Guardian that the Government is to underwrite business loans:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jan/10/economic-policy-small-business-loans
Doubtless this is in direct response to the pressure brought by the Tories to do exactly that. It was, in fairness to the Tories, their idea - and I assume you will be pointing that out in your column and broadcasts.
Interestingly, The Guardian was the first organ to carry the story (and, given the fact that this comes from Mandelson's office, I think we all know who leaked it to them - and only to them).
I can only assume this announcement (whether or not it becomes a reality is another thing with this lot) is so that Labour can vote down the Tories' tabled amendment to the Banking Bill, in favour of their 'own' strategy to do a similar thing.
Already, the cry from Madelson is that the Tories are playing catch-up, which is being obediently pushed by the Beeb. In reality, it is the other way around.
But closer inspection of Mandelson's proposal reveals it has its limitations. For example, no company will qualify for the scheme unless it turns over £50m a year, or employs more than 50 people. This completely ignores the 95% of businesses (not a guess) that will not meet the criteria, but will face the prospect of going under without access to the banks' credit.
Serious observers (and that means I do not include some of those who use your blog as a puffer-jacket yaboo-sucks forum) will conclude that this is politicking.
What lies behind Mandelson's strategy is not rescuing small business, but finding an affordable way to enable the motor manufacturers to extend credit to consumers who cannot really afford to buy new cars.
There is an air of desperation about all of this, and a complete misunderstanding that consumers will not start spending again until the economy turns upward - you can't get blood out of a stone.
In any event, you should cease asking Labour when the election will be. I think we all know it will be in spring 2010, shortly before Gordon Brown steps down as leader of the party, having never been elected to that position, nor as this country's premier.
See you in the pub later.
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It is good to see common sence in some of the contributions. George Osborne's ideas and comments bring a breath of fresh air to the dreadful situation facing our country.
Brown, a man asleep on the job. A man who removed regulatory powers from the Bank of England thus disabling their ability to monitor. This allowed unchecked abuse of bank's collateralised loan obligations involved in sub-prime markets. This was a 'killer blow' to our domestic economy when Brown finally discovered, much to his suprise, he had not put an end to 'boom & bust'.
The VAT proposition was misguided and no solution except to cost the tax payers £12.5 billion pounds, lengthening the crisis and adding unnecessarily to the deepening debt our grand children will have to pay off. The Tory idea of a cut in income tax would have been direct and far more effective.
Brown's incompetence is costing thousands of jobs daily. These are genuine people with real responsibilities and some with families to support. Pathetic remarks from Brown's supporters will not solve the problem, are disingenuous and unwarranted. It is the Tories, articulating through George Osborne, that are putting forward sound solutions of consequence. Brown's hesitation in accepting them proves he is unfit to govern. He is not a Prime Minister of ALL the people. He just cannot accept help or ideas from the Tories. He refuses to accept sound reality. He would rather twist and turn to try and maintain his false image as the 'saviour of the World'. This narcissistic psychological flaw is costing real jobs. No doubt he will twist and spin his interpretation and claim their ideas as his own.
Brown's incompetence at helping small businesses should be exposed as a fraud. Those companies, with annual profits below £10K paid no corporation tax. However, despite the credit crunch, they are now forced to pay the new small companies rate of 21%. This actually means the least profitable companies face extra tax costs of £3,483 over three year's equivalent to 10 months profits. This prejudices employers' ability to sustain the business and risks jobs. His much trumpeted funding for small businesses only represents 0.01% of what is actually needed. His gesture politics are promoted by spin doctors and defunct economists who have no real experience or business acumen.
The electorate can see through this fraud and know the Tories are the only Party with the solutions. Those that spin and bait the Tories are full of prejudice, defunct of ideas and want to be told solutions to the crisis this dysfunctional Government has created. I am sure that if an election were called, a Tory Manifesto would be full of well thought out policies that will salvage what is left of our country.
Gradually Cameron and Osborne are getting their ideas across, because the longer Brown remains in power, the more jobs will be lost. There is a real urgency for an early election but the electorate will probably have to wait till 2010 to deliver their verdict on Brown's laughable competence.
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#17 laughatthetories
I just said it was a idea.
If you have debt use CCCS who manage debt problems. You tell them who your debt is with and how much, when the money is paid from the Governmment it then is paid the CCCS who then pass it on the ones you owe money to. You would not see the money in your hand.
Then you are given a credit rate a bit like being bankrupt and you cannot get credit for so many years.
Like you say its better than giving it to the banks to keep because all they done is been given loads of money kept and are still chasing people for money they owe.
I just thought to for the government to give money direct to the public who need the money is better than giving it to the banks.
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#29 PhyrexianReaper #33 Kingloneranger
I did not mean to include mortgage in with your debt. I just mean loans, credit card that kind of thing.
#37Chrisleopard
When most people took a loan out of some kind they proberbly had a well paid job, (not all) and had the loan a few years ago and did not see a problem like this credit crunch coming. Those said people have now been made redundant and cannot keep up with their debt. Now you can say that you should save for what you want but good old Brown did not want you to do that did he.
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#115 Purpledogzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
What a great blog easy to understand perhaps Nick could get Brown to read it and give his view?
Could politics be like football, an easy game made complicated by fools and idiots.
Can anyone name any Idiots in politics today?
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PurpleDogszzz
115
"This was NOT a failure of capitalism, but the failure of an egotistical and incompetent socialist control freak, pretending to be a capitalist regulating a free market."
If anyone wants to truly understand what was the seed of this destruction this subtle but devastating point is it.
It is something I saw back in 1997.
My way of expressing it is.
It is easy to say you believe in something to get elected but when that is a complex balance of actions based on an economic philosophy that goes against everything you used to stand for then there is no way you will administer that strategy with any competence.
Brown. "I'm a lifelong socialist".
Thatcher proves that a regulated free market is the most efficient way to run an economy.
Brown "I'm a free market economy man so much so I will follow Clarkes spending"
"I now no more than anyone look what I've done. I can now be a free market man and a socialist at the same time its the 3rd way.
I can spend spend spend"
"I've ended boom and bust"
"We are best placed to ride out this storm"
"I saved the world"
"we will come out of recession 3rd Q 2009"
Pencils up nose underpants on head
"Wibble!"
I keep saying it, what level will our debt rise to by the time Brown gets draged away screaming and kicking?
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#25 chrisleopard:
"Instead of a VAT cut why not issue a special set of currency (or voucher) that cannot be banked and is only accepted for a limited period of time."
You don't seem to realise that the government is already doing this - they are called £5, £10, £20 and £50 sterling notes, soon to be replaced by £500, £1000, £2000 and £5000 notes (oh for a pound character that works!).
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# 68 Some real sense at last. Labour are the KNOW NOTHING PARTY. You forgot to mention the BILLIONS spent on management consultants.
Nick, what is actually happening on the Election tour right now, which we are paying for?? Labour have no money in the coffers so this is just another way of making us pay for their pre-election tour. By all means visit areas that have problems, but why bring all the cabinet?
What results and information do you have on the inititatives that have been talked about by the Labour party? Of course they are just that, talk, talk, talk. Are we to be enlightened by the BBC on whether these initiatives are new or regurgitated form a previous time.
Tony McNulty had great problems on Newsnight remembering whether the apprenticeship places were in addition to those from last year or not.
That is one of our problems, we have not got an unbiased BBC to report to us. That is their job, that is what we pay for.
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The UK economy is likely to have shrunk 1.5% in the last three months of 2008, its worst performance in 28 years, a closely-watched study has concluded.
This bleak picture comes from the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), which said the economic downturn is worsening.
Official data said the economy shrank 0.6% between July and September.
The UK will formally be in recession if official figures show this contraction continuing in the fourth quarter.
"While the recession began in May, the rate of recession increased sharply in the autumn," said NIESR.
"Since 1955, when quarterly figures were first produced, there have been only five quarters in which output has fallen more sharply, with the lowest figure of -2.6% in 1958."
There are growing signs that the economic downturn is worsening.
Meanwhile, the number of people out of work in the UK rose by 137,000 to 1.86 million in the three months to October - the highest level since 1997.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7820728.stm
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Spin that, Labour!
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British energy bills are rising at four times the pace of elsewhere in Europe.
UK consumers have suffered the biggest increases of any European Union country over the past year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said yesterday.
Utility bills rose 16.7 per cent in the year ended November, compared with an average of just 3.8 per cent in the EU. In the euro area, the figure was a mere 0.7 per cent.
German consumers saw a rises of just 1.5 per cent, while prices in France actually went down by 0.6 per cent in the period ended November. And in the U.S., energy prices tumbled an extraordinary 13.3 per cent.
Yesterday's OECD report showed the costs of other household basics is also surging at a much more rapid rate in Britain than elsewhere.
UK food prices rose by 10.6 per cent in the 12 months ended November, compared with 4.6 per cent in the EU and only 3.7 per cent in the euro area.
Overall consumer price inflation rose 4.1 per cent, nearly twice the pace of the euro area.
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Does Gordon, or any of his apologists, still think we are uniquely well-placed to ride out this recession?
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If Brown was in any other job would he have been sacked by now? We are all in the Brown stuff because of single minded way.
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Nick,
I like the bank bail out. I think that it is really good government policy.
For example giving money to LloydsTSB because apparently they have to pay a fine to the US government for breaking sanctions. Ah, yes the bank bail out. Is it any surprise if another bank does not lend them money, they might have been guilty by association.
It does seem to have gone very quiet on the fact that much of the bail out has also gone to the Scottish run banks, Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of Scotland. Nothing at all to do of course with employment in Scotland.
It will be interesting to see what Mandelson does with regard to Jaguar/Land Rover, those companies owned by very rich entrepeneurs. This is not a bail out, this a loan, a very good loan, to help through a difficult period, and the loan will due to be repaid after we, Zanulabour, have lost the next election.
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Nick: where is this speech? On the NuCon website only the loan scheme is featured, and only this is reported in the FT and Indie today (10/1) written apparently from the press release rather than the text of the speech?. Curiously the Guardian has withdrawn its report. Do you have the text? or dis George whisper it in your ear?
My other quick review of the press rumours/spin (which is a little muddled) suggest this is a spoiler action for what Gordon will do very soon. Is it?
I agree with Vince Cable's propsals = actively giving a short term bonus to benefits.
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Nick,
doesn't an Internship sound so much better than cheap labour?
Or what was that other government sponsored scheme to keep people off the dole, could somebody remind me, my memory isn't quite what it was.
These poor students have now got their university education and still what are they, cheap labour, what on earth is going to happen to those who haven't got a university education?
I think we will not get the second Great Depression, we are now heading for the Great Depressed.
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Nobody could be more greedy than Crash and his gang, Barking.
Why on else would they implore us to go out and spend spend spend?
Must have must have, must have ad infinitum....
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From the IMF website: It is critical that this fiscal stimulus isn't seen by markets as undermining medium-term fiscal sustainability. That would be counterproductive, including in its effects on demand today. Indeed, we've said that not all countries can afford a fiscal expansion.
How the stimulus package is designed is also key: fiscal measures should be reversible, and governments may want to precommit to unwinding some of the policies.
My comments: since even the Government now admit that the projections in the Pre-Budget Report, published a few months ago, are wildly optimistic we can conclude that the UK has no credible medium-term fiscal strategy. Any potential benefits arising from a badly-designed fiscal stimulus (e.g. a VAT cut) will be outweighed by a reduction of consumer spending caused by the certain knowledge that taxes will have to rise substantially in the future.
Raising employer and employee national insurance contributions (a tax on jobs) in the future, as Labour have promised, is exactly the WRONG approach. The Conservatives have correctly opposed this particular tax-raising policy.
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yellowbelly1959 157
It is very much worth making the point that the job losses you record in your post are due in large measure to the failure of small and medium-sized companies because their working capital has been cut off by the banks.
The scheme which Osborne is proposing (as in Nick R's original post up at the top of this thread) is the kind of thing that is necessary to stop this steady collapse in employment.
It is very significant that the Conservatives have been calling for a substantial loan guarantee scheme for literally months now. When the next quarter's unemployment figures come out, which will almost certainly show further job losses over the 250,000 mark, they will be testament to Brown's utter intransigence over this vital measure.
All we have heard from Brown in a long, long time is propaganda, mainly designed to deride the Conservatives and to try to boost his own electoral position. Not a single job-saving measure of any significance has actually been enacted. And while this goes on, jobs are being lost and families impoverished. It is poverty being induced purely because Brown will not take up a scheme that originates from the Conservative side of the house, and therefore purely so that he can keep repeating his idiotic "Tories-who-would-do-nothing" mantra.
Scraping through the thin surface of Brown's inane rhetoric, we find a do-nothing Prime Minister and behind him a collection of worthless ditherers in his cabinet. Time is being lost, productive people are being flung on the scrap heap. The scale of the recession, and the time it will take for the nation to recover from this mess, are increasing dramatically. It is an absolute scandal.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
Brown's economic plan:
"Just one more bet! Just one more bet! I know I'll win this time!"
Meanwhile the NuLab-sponsored underclass grows, NuLab begin intercepting and reading our emails and Britain goes to hell.
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So the Government will institute a period of "sponsored internships" for gradualtes which appear to be paid at a rate equal to the university grants.
What happened to the minimum wage and if university graduates can be interred how about those drawing benefits? There's enough litter around the UK to keep an whole army fully employed for months.
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Blair should take a trip to the Hague for his war crime trial which shall surely come once the Iraq war enquiry is over. Brown should be prosecuted for his economic war crimes too. Both these gangsters have lead the proud country to defeat and bankrupcy. This blog also proves that real FREE speech doesn't exist in the country and all comments posted are subject to the censorship of the BBC .... Browns broadcasting corporation. Hang your heads in shame if you voted for this pair of wreckers who have reduced our standing in the world and are impoverishing the people at home .....Zimbabwe style.......with our comical currency, mega debt, and our future of no growth, hyperinflation and mass unemployment. Hang your heads in shame!
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State-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland has refused to pass on the Bank of England's full rate cut to borrowers.
The group, which is 58 per cent owned by the taxpayer, said it would pass on only half of the historic reduction in the base rate.
RBS, which owns NatWest, will reduce its standard variable rate mortgage by 0.25 of a point.
It said it would not pass on the Bank's full 0.5 point cut because it needed to 'strike a balance' between the interests of savers and borrowers.
Halifax, Britain's biggest mortgage lender, has also said that it will reduce its equivalent mortgage by only a quarter point.
The decisions will be controversial, given both firms benefited from the Government's £37billion rescue in October.
The Bank slashed its official rate to 1.5 per cent on Thursday, the lowest since its foundation in the 17th century.
Other lenders are sitting on their hands, with only HSBC, Lloyds TSB and Nationwide so far passing on the full cut.
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So, state-owned RBS and HBOS wont play ball, but privately-owned HSBC and Nationwide will.
Where are OUR representatives on the Boards of these state -owned companies?
And why is more not being done to get lending to businesses restarted?
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Gordon Brown is putting the finishing touches to a second attempt to rescue the banks, it has emerged.
Ministers confirmed a fresh package was being put together and could be published within a fortnight as the Tories prepared to force a parliamentary showdown on the credit crunch.
The deepening crisis has forced a Government rethink amid warnings from senior sources that another injection of cash may not be enough and more could be needed within months.
Brown, completing a regional tour in Wales, said he wanted banks to honour the commitment they made to get lending back to 2007 levels.
'We will be meeting the banks in the next few days to agree with them on how we can move this forward,' he told Sky News.
The half-point cut in the base rate to an all-time low of
1.5 per cent announced by the Bank of England on Thursday has galvanised ministers, who fear the crisis is not responding to the steps taken so far.
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Well, in your own time Gordon, no hurry, it's not as though we are suffering a recession, get your state-funded election tour out of the way first!
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#165 jrperry
Very succinct and to the point. An added concern is (I think I am right in saying this) that most if not all of Brown's cabinet have never had a real job in either commercial business, manufacturing or financial services sectors. Mostly ex lecturers, ex wannabe politicians or local councillors. Darling was a lawyer before becoming a councillor in Edinburgh. At this point even an old fashioned Trade Unionist would bring welcome experience to the table.
There is also an air of complacency about jobs being lost when small companies go under as they do not make headlines. Nu Labour spin doctors dread more Woolworth's type headlines.
I live in a small town in the Home Counties and it is distressing walking down the High Street now. Lots of small shops with closing down sales, or newly opened charity shops and others with To Let signs in the windows. I fear for the possible loss of community spirit if everything just goes down the toilet.
What this government does not realise is that big companies were once very small at one point. Cosying up to the CBI or the Institute of Directors does not mean that you understand business and their concerns. Robert Peston's blog has some very good points - with this crunch the price of credit (base interest rate) is immaterial. The problem is that the amount of credit available is limited and effectively is being rationed and worse there are no indications of where new credit is going to come from. Sovereign wealth Funds from Gulf states have already indicated a profound disinterest in investing in Europe.
If enough savers proactively decide to move their deposits to an investment that gives better returns (quite probably outside the UK), then the current credit, already limited will then shrivel. In other words deja vu - a run on the banks a la Northern Rock.
Instead of spouting hot air every so often, action is necessary and fast. As you pointed out too much time has been frittered away already. I am not sure if recession defines what is happening, it is more like a deflationary depression. Thinking and new ideas works for me; hot air and spin certainly do not.
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Has anyone noticed what has happened to a whole block of postings on Back To The Fray? I won't even attempt to write anymore until Monday, as I've noticed the weekend shift moderate like crazy. Also, anything halfway serious stands a good chance of being censured. Today the moderators ban our blogs, tomorrow our emails?
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Not a single comment on here so far today in favour of Labour.
Do they only get paid to work Monday to Friday?
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#168
I like your deliberate mistake, interred rather than interned. Freudian or what? Next they will be insurgents.
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This country is in a mess - that, there is no denying.
Some may wonder why, there are those on here who make complaint at what is written here - by the author of this blog.
I am quite vociferal in this pasttime of complaint.
Brown and the rest of the rabbles constant inane rhetoric of we listen to the people just does not work - the very fact he keeps saying it is akin to the statement - me thinks the lady doth protest too much.
One thing a Govt don't like is bad press. There is especially at the BBC and especially with Nick's blog what we can only sense as being scared of labour - so they do not perform any critical analysis of Govt policy which might make them prick up their collective ears and do something about.
Nick, doing what he does is tantamount to giving approval to each and every utterance from Brown's mouth - majority of which are lies, the remainder pure hot air. there is nothing wrong with this essentially, but what is wrong is that there is only analysis of opposition - hypothetically wondering what they would do - which they can't - it's as if Labour are actually looking for answers without asking questions.
This Govt are extremely weak - weak because they blame others: therefore not strong enough to protect us in the first place and weak because they will not admit to getting things wrong and listening, for once to advice they are given - they tell us they listen, but there is absolutely no evidence pointing towards that.
It is Brown who is, in all of this to blame solely. He is a man that runs his party by fear - he tries to run this country by fear and intrusion - and thus a leader who does this (think Mugabe) is inherently weak, fragile and delusional.
One may wonder how we actually got to where we have, when evidence has been right in front of Brown's face that things are going wrong - he did nothing about it - taking instead the insanity route of either doing nothing or doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the result to be different.
And Nick Robinson actually supports this ideal!
yet the evidence is clearer still - there is preparation afoot to bail more money into the banks - why? It has not worked? Why keep doing it - until we are bankrupt! It would seem so. He will not want to be seen to be going to the IMF - thoiugh they themselves have voiced grave concern over the state of this country - no that is too damaging - but he will print more money (which he has already started to do) - wich will then bankrupt this country and lead to huge inflation.
The banks are ina no win situation - though I have little sympathey for their financial wizards who got us here - they have brown giving them out money, wanting big returns and at the same time telling them to lend with almost no reurn - how is it supposed to work - well, the rules in the financial markets will again be relaxed so they can gamble in the hope of making a return and thus the vicious cycle will continue - until we are completely Broke.
If brown were a mobster - his track record would be impressive - he is however supposed to be a public servant serving us - I have yet to meet anyone who can say with a straight face we feel like we are being served - no, we feel like we are being ruled by a Govt that has no authority to actually do that.
You know who I would vote for in a party all of his own? Vince Cable - I could expect him, the only honest, forthright and straight talking MP who could take on the role of PM, Chencellor, Home Secretary, Defense Secretary and all the other roles as a one man band...I wish there were more people like Vince in the Tories.
But here we go again - Nick gives us hypothetical analysis all over again ad infinitum and what difference does it make - None whatsoever.
The geatest problem with what is happening is what we leave to our children - and that is a tragedy that that not even Shakespeare could pen.
Thanks Brown, thanks zanulab, thanks wacki jacki...
Oh and thanks Nick - for nothing!
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138 Scargill
The reason Dogz (115) can't explain how it is that someone who has been the free-marketers' bete noire since 1997 for over-regulation, ie our Scottish friend, is now lambasted by the same people for not interfering enough, is that there is simply no case to answer.
It was never any politician's job, nor even the FSA's, to regulate which assets any bank could own. Even if you argue that someone somehwere in power should have realised that this debt bubble was coming and done something, it is not possible that Brown or even Bush could have done anything about it.
We've done this to death already on these forums, but what all the Brown bashers seem to fail to understand is the sheer scale of the major global banks' power and arrogance between around 1980 and 2007/8.
As a banking insider with no political affiliation, I can tell you that no senior banker in the Square Mile or any other major financial centre would ever have accepted the kind of curtailment of their activities (which were very profitable for a good while, and chiefly involved selling Middle-Eastern and Asian investors dross for gold) which Dogz and other Brown-haters seem to think was possible. The bankers believed they were gods, and most still do(!), way above the kind of person who becomes a politician- they paid themselves weekly what Brown earns in a year. Even now most get 7 figs a year.
The US authorities did make some attempts to have a look at the situation in 2002-3, but were told to butt out by the major US players- it was anti free-market, un-American, etc. to question what they were up to, just look at the profits, share prices, dividends etc.!
Much of what the top 20 banks global were up to took place in cyberspace between tax havens and financial centres. It was truly global in the sense that banks from every continent were heavily involved- the biggest two were Citi and UBS; in contrast, happily, the worst UK culprits (RBS and HBOS) were way behind these two, though their involvement was big enough to cause their downfall.
It only became possible for governments to retake a measure of control over the banks when the money ran out last year.
Dogz and those with a political axe to grind want to pin it all on Brown, that's fine for them.
How those bankers who have survived with much of their fortunes intact (the majority) are laughing, when they read that Brown was at fault for not regulating them more!
To bankers regulations, like banning short-selling, are an anathema because they prevent the kinds of easy profits which they revel in. Do you think they have any scruples about causing wider carnage in the global economy if there's a few million dollars in it for them?
I note in today's FT that the Conservatives have taken the shilling of the boss of The Man Group hedge fund, Mr Fink. He's to become their treasurer, apparently.
I'm sure that he personally is above scrutiny, but you've got to question whether it shows good judgement to be so closely associated with so many City men, particularly hedge funders.
What these guys have profited from above all is global free-market banking. Does anyone truly believe that the party of the individual, riddled with City money, would be tougher on regulating the banks?
As for Osbourne to call for easier terms for the UK banks who got money from the bail-out, it is frankly amazing.
Without the UK taxpayer, there'd be no RBS or HBOS. 12% is the least we deserve for bailing the schmucks out. Barclays paid 14% to the oilmen for their recapitalisation.
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175. At 11:34am on 10 Jan 2009, T A Griffin (TAG) wrote:
#168
I like your deliberate mistake, interred rather than interned. Freudian or what? Next they will be insurgents.
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A good way to bury bad news!!!
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#169
You remind me, what has happened to Zimbabwe, has the economy suddenly changed for the better. Has the cholera outbreak been brought under control. What is happening in Dafur, ah, let's just look at Gaza shall we. In the meantime Russia cuts off the gas. Now what about the freezing Europeans?
I told you long ago that Gordon is a one trick pony. Others are at last catching up with me.TAG.
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It appears no politician has any substantive ideas to prevent UK sliding into recession and the banks have thing other than maintaining their profits and perks.
This being so shouldn't we now be asking questions as to how and why banks were able to create such a situation? Like many others I was pre-disposed to accept the sub-prime mortgage fixing in the USA and the 150% lending here in UK were major factors. However, in the light of Lloyds TSB's payment to the USA Treasury one has to question whether these assertions are all merely the tip of an iceberg of abandoned integrity, honesty and probity. If this is the case then those running these institutions should find themelves in the dock of a criminal court in short order. If the legislation to provide for this does not already exist we have the example of the Dangerous Dogs Act. If we can criminalise a vicious dog overnight, a meretricious banker should be muzzled much more easily.
Another question deriving from the first is how did our governments manage to evolve a British economy which depends solely on real estate to provide the only likely profitable investment most people are able to make? We all know the shortage of housing, plus demands of unrestricted immigration has pushed up prices which accounts for some of this but what hasn't been analysed is how much the inflated prices have absorbed funds in unsustainable payments due to excessive taxation. If that sounds a little strange then ask yourself whose money is being paid back to people who are in desperate financial straits because of the hikes in interest rates in 2008? That this is happening at all is tacit admission we have been paying a burden of over-taxation for years. Less tax would have meant less owed to buildings societies and banks for responsible people. The very ones mainly penalised by the present situation.
The present situation cannot be resolved by giving the banks more money to lend - they have already shown if they lend at all, it'll be at rates profitable to themselves without concern for business; that they are what we already know - untrustworthy. Reducing all taxation substantially would make a huge difference coupled with massive reductions in the bloated public sector and would benefit un-featherbedded workers in the private sector and the businesses they work for directly.
The past few years have proved politicians and bankers cannot be trusted to ensure the financial wellbeing of the public - perhaps it is time the public be trusted to manage their own fiscal affairs and government at all levels returns to being a tenth, at least, of it's present size. One that is genuinely affordable without the necessity of 'printing money' to sustain it.
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#177
Get real why stop at 1980. Just go back to the outbreak of WWI when th Government extended the August bank holiday because of the financial implications of war on the banking system. Oh, and also whilst you are about it look at the question of American neutrality in WWI, they soon worked out that they would go bankrupt if they were financially neutral and treated Britain the same way as Germany. You underestimate the historic power of the banks if you think that you need go no further back than the 1980s. TAG.
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The banks will not lend as they are desperately trying to improve both their balance sheets and their liquidity.
Another potential disaster is on the horizon as the FSA temporary ban on the short-selling of financial shares is due to end on 16 January.
Are we in danger of seeing another run on banking shares in the weeks to come?
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?The banking sector will probably stay okay, but it?s going to be a while yet before it?s bouncing back fully,? said Stephen Pope, global market strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald in London.
?If they are still in a situation where they are not lending to one another and they are still showing there are writedowns on their books they need to take, or they need more government assistance, then banks will be put under pressure.?
UK bank shares were generally weaker yesterday, with the FTSE 350 banks index down 0.4 percent.
Short selling ? which involves selling borrowed stock in the hope of repaying the loan at a profit by buying the shares back at a lower level ? was partly blamed for confidence-sapping share price declines of major financial institutions, including the country?s biggest mortgage lender HBOS."
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I sometimes get fed up with people raising the intellectual arguments for fiscal start up policies, quantitive easing, etc. directing us to this or that website (of which I can be guilty at times).
In fine art there are two values, intellectual and emotional. What you know is there and what you think you can see. Picasso?
I know politics is NOT art but in some ways it is similar. It can be subjective and objective.
Now, let's face it. Most of us just vote with our hearts, purses, wallets, instincts, gut reactions etc. Men and women (and those who can't make up their minds) alike.
Most of us just KNOW this government is wrong and we are on a slippery slope, hanging on a tenuous link. Ending up in the glue.
Time for a change. Me, I will again vote Conservative. I think they are canny. I think they are the wise sages sitting, watching and waiting and boy they must have learned what NOT to do.
Got to be better all round.
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Apparently Crash's latest plan to solve the credit crunch is to recruit Optimus Prime leader of the Transformers.
He apparently said it on a radio interview yesterday in Birmingham and the story is repeated in the Sun today on page 20.
The Sun pic of Crash made up as Optimus is almost worth the purchase price on its own.
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168.
There's enough chewing gum welded to London's pavements to keep some of them employed removing it for the next five years. Does all this spitting bring TB into the country? I see it is on the rise again.
There's enough stacked and stored waste paper and products which council's don't know what to do with to keep some of them employed for five years - on a slow boat to China?????
Oh, there is SO much the mind boggles. I have to lay down in a darkened room, I can't cope with the visions of it all.
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172 excellentcatblogger
Those are thoughtful points. Likewise, I also live in a small town, and in the last few weeks, we have lost from the high street an estate agent, an independent jeweller and a chemist. We already have six charity shops!
About the smaller companies. Their importance to the wider economy cannot be understated. Very often, they are suppliers to larger companies, and so the potential loss to the economy when one goes under is not their own productivity, but the productivity of the company that they supply to. It's not a great example for present times, but take the case of a car manufacturer who suddenly loses his seatbelt supplier. It's a component that only costs 1 percent of the total cost of the car, but the car can't be sold without it. In short, larger companies depend on their supply chain, which is a myriad of smaller companies doing very specific jobs. The knock-on effect of Brown's intransigence, failing to support smaller companies, could be utterly tragic.
Separate subject - savers' investment returns. You don't necessarily need to go outside the UK! It is very interesting to look at the stock market at the moment. Some fairly well-arranged and managed companies have done quite well in recent months and deserve watching closely. For example the small brewers and pubcos have put on over 40 percent recently. Caveated with a huge wealth-warning, I would say that there is still good money to be made on the stock market if you are careful.
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#183 flamepatricia
"It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art."
Oscar Wilde
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184. OMG well he already employs a troll who is heavily involved with Duke Nukem on here doesn't he?
Games, dreams.....
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187. True. He has the vested interest... and art needs patrons.
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croydo@155
£=£
the Number is the ascii code for the £ symbol look up ascii codes and ampersand codes. The software doesn't seem to accept £
You could paste the characters you need into a notepad file or something then copy and paste them when required.
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£
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191 tried that didn't work. see above190 if its still there.
Why won't they moderate me!
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#190 dhwilkinson
I must be being obtuse here.
&163
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Back to little square boxes for me then!
££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££££
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181 TAG.
It was around 1980 when the major banks started playing games with the parcelling up of mortgages and the related deriavtives. That is just one example of the exponential growth from around then in 'products' traded and profits harvested by the top 20 / 30 banks, and more recently hedge funds.
Obviously banks played a significant role much earlier than 1980 as you say, but it was only in the 1980s that the whole investment banking game mushroomed into the only-recently tamed beast it is now.
By the way, there's no need to sign your posts 'TAG'- your name automatically appears at the top of each post.
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We, the British public, did not elect Gordon Brown.
Eleven years ago the Labour government was voted in and Tony Blair became the great hope of the people. He was charismatic and seemed more in touch with the ordinary man and woman in the country. However, he spent much of his time getting on and off planes and showing off on the world's stage leaving the people of this country to just get on with it. Those who were socialist became disillusioned with him as his "new Labour" seemed to be more in line with Tory policy. Those who liked him for other reasons soon became disenchanted with him. Meanwhile back at the ranch (remember, he is seen frequently on the news as jetting about the world), the British people were getting into debt, becoming greedy, living on credit and to cap it all millions, yes millions of foreigners saw this as a land of milk and honey for them (their words not mine) and arrived here unchecked. Some of them were indeed good for the country but others came from lawless lands and got benefits, houses, etc. whilst the infrastructure started to bend. Our hospitals, school, police force, roads etc. all bore the brunt of this unchecked immigration. But Tony Blair was laughing his way around the world and palling up with Bush to start a war which put us in even more jeopardy from terrorists. Those Muslims here who had hitherto been integrated are now looked at with suspicion by all. There is horrendous knife crime in fragmented areas around our cities perpetrated by young men mostly who do not have decent families who have taught them right from wrong.
We voiced our displeasure at Blair and he eventually stepped down and a "caretaker" in the form of Brown took over to keep it all in the Labour family.
Brown is stubborn, loves the power, and a control freak. Does he love this country?
What made me a strong supporter of Edward Heath (for all his faults and foibles) was that he stood up and strongly announced "I love this country". Can a Scot truly say that?
All we want is for somebody to state the same and to be honest and upright caring - as a good father - for the country and doing what is in our best interest.
David Cameron has a strong and loyal team around him. They have waited in the wings and observed and researched so much that they are now ready to govern.
They love this country but have learned not to be arrogant or let power go to their heads. They will not be complacent.
David Cameron is strong enough to make the tough decisions that will need to be made. And he loves this country.
He will restore it to a good and decent place with a society that my father and grandfather fought for in two World Wars.
David Cameron will keep the home fires burning!
This "new world order" spoken of by Brown - is it just social engineering? It seems very sinister. Is it a fait accompli organised behind our backs? Are we to lose our heritage and identity and become "one world"? It just wouldn't work! Do a Google search on it - scary! Will the falling pound be a fait accompli for Brown to take us into the Euro? Will America follow and join all the Americas into the Amero currency?
And to Brown, I say,
"No wonder you are afraid of the opposition, Cameron, Osborne and Co. They will come to government because the people want them to. Different ball game altogether."
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$ £ !"£$%^&*()_+$33
seeing if I can get the pound sterling sign to work. Probably get moderated.
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#195
Thanks for advice re 'TAG' I always try to end my comments with my TAG, it's long story.
Just to say that I used to work during the 70s and 80s for one of the Merchant Banks which became an Investment Bank. I do understand what you are saying.
Some of the contributory factors behind the failures in the City in general were :-
the end of 14 day trading and settlement
the bringing in of short selling
contracts for difference
the end of the split between jobbers and brokers
people being able to buy 'desks'
the total failure of accountants to do their job properly
the end of my word is my bond
Could go on but I think others may be able to add to the list. TAG (which could also mean something in Norwegian).
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Why don't we just merge with the $, make things a lot easier!
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#197
Refer to as GBP, as in Great British Pounds. TAG.
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#196
Some of us have been saying exactly the same even before he 'took' office. In any country it would have been called a Coup d'Etat.
Even Mugabe has had to go through an election process. As for those who say that historically that Brown was 'elected' as PM, that did not happen either.
The point is Brown has no legitimacy and he knows it and we know it. Call an election, the man is too scared. As for the idea that he is PM because that is the way things were done, it does not mean that they should be accepted as the way to do things today. TAG.
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@ 177. At 11:36am on 10 Jan 2009, MunichMadrid,
This is the way I see it. Gordon Brown and his acolytes (including the BBC) have spent the last 12 years repetitively and constantly telling us that HE is the reason the economy was growing and that boom and bust was over and all the rest of it.
Now when things go wrong, all of a sudden he is NOT to blame???
Well IF he was in a position to effect the economy to the extent that he was responsible for the boom times, then surely he was in a position to effect the economy to stop the rampant and massive gambling that caused the financial bubble to grow unsustainably???, If not, then he can take NO credit for the good times....
House prices should have levelled out in 2003 and should have only rose with inflation from then on as the housing market was rising unsustainably from then. Anyone could see that having house price inflation running at 10x domestic inflation was unsustainable and if Gordon was not in a position to do anything about that, then what the hell use is he? what is he there for?
I am merely using labour's argument against them in pointing out the contradiction in their crediting Brown with any economic competence whatsoever, when he is clearly incapable of correcting the current "downturn".
My actual belief is that, as you say, "The bankers believed they were gods, and most still do(!),"
Well that is because in this globalised economy built upon central banks running a fractional reserve banking system run from Basel using fiat currencies, they ARE gods. They have the power to decide exactly how much money is in circulation and largely where that money goes.
They have enormous power and they effectively own the governments of the world. They run the intelligence and security services and they effectively own the media and the think-tanks that decide policy.
I know that Brown has very little real power, that is why I posit the question, IF Brown really is superman, with all this power that his acolytes claim, WHY has the economy collapsed and WHY did he not prevent all this gambling? and WHY has his current bail-outs failed so far?
If he has the power, then he has been incompetent. If he hasn't, then he has been dishonest in claiming credit for the boom and in reality has merely been lucky to inherit a golden legacy and a benign global economy, just like Tony Blair stated recently.
So far from Brown all we see is incompetence AND dishonesty in his tragically desperate attempt to placate his ego to wrestle some sort of legacy other than total and complete failure and he is using a trillion of OUR pounds (and counting) so far with which to do so.
He COULD and SHOULD have taken action years ago (as people were warning him at the time) to do something to cool the housing market and he should have been doing more to boost our exporters in an effort to reduce the grotesque balance of payments deficit. But oh no, we do not need to manufacture anymore said Gordon as he was utterly enthralled by the easy money flowing round the city. We can satiate our socialistic urges to over regulate in the manufacturing and service and local authority sectors, whilst letting loose the city to pay for it all. No more boom and bust, we found the perfect economic scenario....
The reality was somewhat different. What Gordon did in reality was cede economic control to the the City of London and he sat back and overtaxed and over regulated the rest of the country. So long as the city could create ever more exotic ways to create profits, Gordon was onto a winner, an easy job. He could be the overbrearing, over regulating control freak in the real economy and domestically. Over regulating businesses and introducing more and more track and trace and control freak policies for the country whilst the City of London generated the revenue to pay for it all. So grateful was Greedy Gordon that he was utterly enslaved to the banking fat cats and the hyper rich elitists in a way that would even make Thatcher blush, but he didn't care. It was working like a dream. But we have all begun waking up now. His decision to double income taxes on the poorest was a shrill alarm call. The collapse of our economy (and his entire economic model with it) have woken even more people, or at least turned the dream into a nightmare.
There are those like Derek who still want to stay asleep, enjoying the dream, but in reality Gordon is the City of London's lackey and now that their incorrectly regulated gambling has started to collapse, Brown has been found wanting.
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#177
We've done this to death already on these forums, but what all the Brown bashers seem to fail to understand is the sheer scale of the major global banks' power and arrogance between around 1980 and 2007/8.
Oh yeah. It's got to be from around 1980 because then the Brown apologists can claim it was all Margaret Thatcher's fault.
Yeah. Of course.
Poor old Brown. Just a straw in the wind compared to the British banks and the legacy of Margaret Thatcher.
As a banking insider with no political affiliation
Pull the other one.
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pound?=œ(œ)
source
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Instead of trying to get a pound sign, I now write 'pounds' after a number. It is easier than messing with ascii codes or HTML or whatever. If I ever see a pound sterling sign on here I will be sure to ask the poster how they did it. In the meantime, I will continue to write the word 'pounds'
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I would like to know why I have been barred from commenting when I have only pointed out that I feel Nick is totally biassed towards Labour as indeed are the BBC generally in my opinion. I have seen posts equally critical which are allowed. Please let me know why I am gagged.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
@ 201.
I do not actually oppose elected MP's in a party taking the role of Prime Minister mid-term. So long as they continue the manifesto on which they were elected to Parliament on. Or at least make changes in line with the popular opinion of a clear majority of the people.
What I DO oppose is when they become PM and then immediately tear up the manifesto that they were elected on to break those manifesto promises in direct opposition to the vast majority of public opinion.
When John Major took over from Thatcher, he did away with the hated community charge. This was a break from the manifesto, but it was doing something that the public, by and large, wanted.
Brown took over from Blair, but then refused us a say on the EU treaty. Something the public did NOT want.
Brown claims to be listening? Well when can I vote to reject the Lisbon treaty? Why am I still going to be forced to pay for and carry a bio-metric ID card to be able to interact with government at all?
Nope I see no evidence of a government listening to it's people at all.
Brown has done more to bury democracy in this country than Mugabe has in his!
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Amazing how so many Brownites on here are still pushing the falsehood that DC would have proposed to do nothing about the present economic situation. I suppose they think if they say it often enough it might eventually become fact. It's Gordon Brown who has been in power for an appreciable length of time and it's beginning to look as if he's moving towards the idea of printing money Mugabe style to try and get himself out of the ever developing hole he is currently digging for all of us. Goodness only knows what the value of sterling will be a few months down the line.
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It's Playschool for Georgie boy, again demonstating his total lack of experience and grasp of the current situation.
He wants to recapitalise the banks, guarantee all loans and prop up all business, and none of this is going to cost a penny.
In yer dreams Georgie!
The barefaced cheek to criticise Labour's plans when he comes out with grandiose ideas but not mentioning how much he thinks they will cost.
As for VAT, if the economy is to contract by a couple of percent, the VAT cut is quite a clever way of offsetting that....the price elasticity of demand is such that a 2 1/2 % cut in price could increase sales by quite a bit and Xmas does not seem to have been the disaster everyone had predicted.
And for Ozzy to say that the talk of soaring national debt has been damaging is hypocritical coming from the man who hamfistedly triggered the run on the pound, not displaying the kind of circumspection one would expect!
And as for 196 flamepatricia ...it is a shame to have to revisit the Tory disaster years....Edward Heath???...the man who brought about the 3 day week and visited Saddam Hussein before the war started ....the man who caused the 1971 crash , the run on the pound, the 3 Day week, and 27.9% inflation Labour got blamed for (but Labour actually sorted out...they got the blame for going to the IMF but actually Healey and Callaghan did great things for the UK economy ..... before the Tories came in 1979 and wrecked it again with raised Vat at 15% and increased inflation from 5% in 1979 to 20% in 1980 and decimated industry.....this lot are so dangerous they should be thrown overboard the yacht of one of Georgie's Russian billionaire friends! What else was going on in that boat that we do not know? Does anyone know and cannot say? What is the story there?
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209 Sicilian
We know what Dave and George would do.
They are the only two politicians/economists who think you can save your way out of a recession!! Save Save Save says Dave who already has his inherited 23 million saved, probably somewhere in the CAyman Islands.
The USA and a backtracking Germany will both announce fiscal stimulus packages shortly, both also have a higher debt to GDP ratio than the UK. Don't be surprised if Germany don't also cut their VAT rate to crown this U Turn.
But Hey they're mugs just like Brown, everyone should now Save Save Save as the Hindsight Party say that will really help manufactures, small businesses, Retailers and the Service Sector. Well done Dumb and Dumber.
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Derekbarker hasn't been on this site all day. How many bloggers work Monday to Friday and get paid to blog?
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The thing is, sentiment is negative and nothing a Golem like Gordon will do can reverse that. Indeed, everything he does seems to make things worse. He recapitalises certain banks (and let's remember it is only a handful, Barclays and HSBC have so far evaded his clutches), but then punishes them with a 12% interest charge when the BoE interest rate has tumbled to 1.5%. That's naked profiteering.
He cuts VAT which has no effect whatsoever. If people find themselves with a few extra pennies in their pocket they're leaving them there. This is no time to be squandering money, seems to be the course sensible and prudent people are deciding to steer. After all, a £12 billion tax cut as well as billions and billions - in fact, a trillion - of national debt is going to have to be re-paid, if the government can actually raise it in the markets.
Once again a Labour government has looted the national treasury and I can see is beating a path to the IMF for help.
So, what can the Golem do to turn sentiment around? Well, as Captain Blackadder might say, his "immediate resignation and suicide" would be start.
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#210:
'He wants to recapitalise the banks, guarantee all loans and prop up all business, and none of this is going to cost a penny.
In yer dreams Georgie!'
You bet it's going to cost money but not new money in the form of borrowing rather current money in the form of cutting waste.
'The barefaced cheek to criticise Labour's plans when he comes out with grandiose ideas but not mentioning how much he thinks they will cost.'
All of us including Her Majesty's Opposition have the divine right to criticise Labour's plans because they're useless and unworkable.
As for pre 97 economic history that's exactly what it is history, a complete irrelevancy in terms of our present position. Turning to the goings on at yachtgate what exactly is the story with Mandy? We've not got to the bottom of this one yet.
'As for VAT, if the economy is to contract by a couple of percent, the VAT cut is quite a clever way of offsetting that....the price elasticity of demand is such that a 2 1/2 % cut in price could increase sales by quite a bit and Xmas does not seem to have been the disaster everyone had predicted.
This measure has been a complete waste of 12. billion of taxpayers money as many retailers have already said.
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201. Purple Dogz. Yes. You are spot on. Brown the understudy has crashed in on a failing actor's spot and ad libbed his way through the play.
He hasn't seen his new version through though and he hasn't a hope in hell of getting a curtain call.
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202 dogz
I don't think you can accuse the entire BBC of blindly accepting that Brown was solely responsible for the growth between 1997 and 2007.
The fact is that anyone with half a brain could see that it was the City wot caused it- and Brown merely spent it wisely / unwisely depending on your viewpoint..
Brown showed no evidence of wanting to tame capitalism in his first ten years, I suppose that he too he made the Greenspan mistake of believing that bank directors would look after their and their institutions' medium term interests. The end user (in this case investors, mainly from the Middle-East and Asia) would pick up the tab- if it all went wrong, as the price for believing that yields of 6-8% were possible risk-free when US rates were 1-2%.
Unfortunately for all of us, too many major banks and insurers like AIG were holding / underwriting this junk.
I fail to see what any of this has to do with politicians. How was Brown or Bush supposed to regulate UBS, for example?
It's like blaming the Singaporean Govt. for what Leeson was up to.
203 U
Read for example 'Liar's Poker' if you don't believe that the rot began in the 1980s. I'm not saying it was Maggie's resposnibility, there were far greater forces than any UK politician behind it.
What is really amazing is that some, nay many, on this forum seem (a) convinced that a Conservative Govt. would have regulated the City more closely than Brown etc. and (b) unconcerned that free-market capitalism ate itself last year, yet we the taxpayers are supposed to bend to its yoke again.
If we're going to prop the whole thing up (no-one else will) we taxpayers must have some control. That's not an argument for a laissez-faire regime, is it?
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sicilian29 at 209
Unfortunately the "Tories-who-would-do-nothing" theme has already become a sort of fact - a "factoid", perhaps. It is so frequently repeated (e.g. see Nick's second para) that it has entered the modern political lore.
It is useful for Labour for two reasons. First of all it upsets Tories (who know it isn't true). Listen to Geoffrey Robinson's interview on Today, this morning. He used it as a gambit, purely to wrong-foot Michael Fallon, who was being interviewed alongside him, and was, up to then, getting the better of the debate. It had the desired effect, and Robinson was able to get away with some terrible rubbish on "fiscal easing".
The other thing the theme does is disguise the truth, which is that it is in fact Labour who have done nothing. Think about it - the PBR amounted to borrowing a huge amount of money to maintain existing government spending levels in the face of collapsing revenues, and the temporary VAT rate reduction, which is proving to be a disaster. Beyond that, we have had nothing - sure, a few recycled old announcements, and the PM has flounced around the country "feeling our pain". Much has been said, but absolutely nothing done. No measures that have been trumpeted in the last few months have been put into operation. Policy factoids have been made up on the hoof and then promulgated as if something was going to happen, but without even briefing the ministers and departments responsible for implementation. Take poor old Tony McNulty on Newsnight earlier this week - utterly unprepared to answer even the simplest question on the apprentices announcement, as if he had only heard of it five minutes before.
Frequent repeating of "The Tories, who would do nothing" stifles debate, gives the public the impression that the choice is between Labour Action and no help whatsoever, which is a fiction, and, most important for Brown, prevents the government from being held to account for its own inactivity. With the media seemingly held by Lord Mandy in a vice-like grip, the theme is perpetuated unendingly.
While at the same time, people are losing their jobs, going bust and being evicted from their houses, with barely a critical comment. It is appalling!
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212 Skynine
A common point made on here that if you show some Government/Labour support you must be getting paid.
Ironic really when the Tory blog on here is VASTLY disproportionate to actual opinion in all polls. Even if you took the worst polls for Labour at around 25% support you would still get 1 in 4 on here, but actually any Labour support is outnumbered at least 10 to 1. So surely if anyone has organised/paid bloggers it isn't Labour is it?
Do you have a counter arguement or will you deploy the usual right wing line Labour Trolls, Public Sector, Quago BBC , Social engineering blah blah whinge, give me my tax back
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#211:
Spend spend spend borrow borrow borrow is what got us into this situation. I have plenty saved because I've behaved sensibly and prudently. Would that The Government had done the same to prepare us more successfully for our present situation.
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Osborne was right that the vat cut was counter-productive; Brown basically said/implied with it:
"Here's about 10p a week for you if you're lucky. But we're going to take it back (and more) from you next year because our economy will be bankrupt in a few months and this extra 10p won't help do anything to stimulate growth anyway. Sorry. Not my fault. Blame the yanks and thatcher."
The vat thing was just weird; it costs the tax payer a fortune, doesn't really benefit anyone, doesn't boost the economy, and will be reverted in a few months anyway.
The only reasoning I can think that's behind the vat cut is:
1) Scorched Earth
(ie Brown is intentionally destroying the economy like he did via the stamp duty leaking when he intentionally destroyed the property market; he knows he'll be out of power in 2010 so he wants to make the tories' life as difficult as possible if/when they take over)
2) Stupidity
(ie Brown had the same "mental blockage" with how vat wouldn't stimulate demand as he had with the 10pct tax rate doubling. ie his "2 plus 2 equals 2. Don't tell me otherwise" mentality; he simply doesn't understand how the world works or basic maths.)
I think it's both. Everyone I know thinks it's both. I've yet to meet anyone who doesn't think it's both.
BBC/Labour are backing the wrong horse in every sense.
Labour's finished, they just don't know it yet because there hasn't been a vote.
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210 onward-ho
And this is just the kind of thing that stifling the legitimate criticism of government inactivity results in. I thought your remarks were crass and ignorant, but I agree, they have currency because of the way the debate has been undermined by Labour.
Just to cover a few of your points, intervention in the banking industry has only half-worked, because it has been done wrongly. If it had worked, lending working capital to businesses would have re-started and we would not be losing more than 300 businesses a week, as we are now, with all the consequences for jobs of ordinary, good, honest, hard working people.
Of course credit insurance is going to cost money - though probably not as much as you think. The point is, not doing it is going to cost more!!
The notion of Osborne having successfully talked down the pound is ludicrous and has no currency outside Labour spin-making circles
And by the way, yes indeed, something very interesting was going on in that yacht, possibly involving Deripaska, Lord Mandy (as you well know, he was there too) and EU aluminium tarrifs. Find us a journalist who will dare to ask the right questions, and we shall all be very interested in the answers!
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Eatonrifle - you surely didn't go to Eaton!!!
I could be mistaken for a paid blogger but I most definitely am not.
Why cannot you just accept the fact that those who say they support a Party, well, Conservative Party, are speaking honestly for themselves and not for financial reward?
Conversely, any who speak for this present government (and there aren't many are there?) are highly suspicious because NOBODY could be that stupid unless they are being paid.
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217 Perry
Said.
"While at the same time, people are losing their jobs, going bust and being evicted from their houses, with barely a critical comment. It is appalling!"
So how will "Save Save Save", Do Nothing Dav's current Mantra, help to stop more companies going bust and therefore more job losses.
Surely the lifeblood of an economy in recession is the money generated by consumption of goods and/or services. To squeeze that money cicultion further would be an unmitigated disaster hence the whole world now introducing fiscal stimulus measures and lower interest rates.
THis is not to say that on an individual basis anyone should borrow what thay can't afford however as has always been the case borrowing and lending is a transaction between two consenting adults/institutions with the freedom of choice on both sides.
NO one has EVER, EVER forced someone to borrow.
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222 Flame.
Do you mean Eton?
Actually Yes, I was there at the same time as DC and between you and me he was a complete Dead-Head. I always had to help him with Maths and he could hardly string a sentence together in English. Rumour had it that all his qualifications were bought bu Daddy!!
Keep it under your hat though.
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218 Eatonrifle
The Labour party sends regular "lines to take" messages to its little helpers. Rather carelessly, it also sends them to one or two others, myself included. Therefore I find it quite easy to spot the Labour trolls, by recognising the arguments and even the phrasing in the blog messages. One of the little helpers (derekbarker) was even daft enough to copy and paste a big, highly recognisable passage into one of his messages in the last thread.
Trolls are indeed here.
And just for info, I am a Conservative voter, not a party member, not organised in any way, not even receiving Tory "lines to take" messages, if they exist. I am here because I am cross about the government, I enjoy a good argument and its cold outside!
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213 subed
'The thing is, sentiment is negative and nothing a Golem like Gordon will do can reverse that. Indeed, everything he does seems to make things worse. He recapitalises certain banks (and let's remember it is only a handful, Barclays and HSBC have so far evaded his clutches), but then punishes them with a 12% interest charge when the BoE interest rate has tumbled to 1.5%. That's naked profiteering.'
If 'sentiment is negative' that's a reason not to make every effort to reflate the economy?
How was 12% naked profiteering when Barclays paid 14% at around the same time? FYI, base rates were 5% then, not 1.5%.
How can 12% be a punishment fro the banks? A punishment would be prosecuting the directors and ex directors for negligence / fraud. Given the risk that the taxpayer is paying, 12% seems reasonable.
These guys (yes, by and large) have either retired on huge piles of loot, or are still employed, being paid huge piles of loot.
The clowns who were / are running the banks would now love a government of whatever party to come in and abolish tax on savings interest.
When the fuss has died down, with any luck the banks will be refloated, and it won't have cost us too much- we might even as taxpayers make a small profit overall.
The main thing is, however, that confidence in the financial sector will slowly return. Would this have happened if the Govt. had shied away from saving the savers of NR, B&B, HBOS and RBS, as Mr. Osbourne suggested?
No-one's saying it's a perfect solution, but the bank recap. was the only effective thing anyone could have done.
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The weird thing is that with the total annihilation of the uk economy by Brown, our company's getting tons of orders from abroad, because with the pound now being worthless everyone wants to buy our services/products (ie we're effectively exporters) because they're dirt cheap for foreigners.
As long as we don't want to import anything or go on holiday, exporters are currently in a great situation.
But that'll be short-lived; soon we'll be entering into hyper inflation domestically, so my plan is to get as much of the foreign money as possible into our uk accounts, then try and get a ticket and live abroad before hyper-inflation sets in here.
Rest assured, hyper-inflation *will* set in soon with labour in charge. I give it about 6 months before we all have to buy wheelbarrows to cart around tons of 50 pound notes.
Watch this space; it's just a matter of time before Darling/Brown announce massive physical printing of money and then start dishing it out to everyone.
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219 Actually we all know that we're here 90% because of the Banking Industry ppractice.
You still haven't said how save save save will help in the recession because you know it can't possibly help.
A National economy in a globalised economy does not work the same as your personal finances I'm afraid.
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Eatonrifle 223
Actually, the failure of credit supply is capable of being related in part to the lack of capital within the banking system (as we well know). In addition, as we also know, quite a large number of people live on the earnings from capital - from down-sizing their houses and from selling their businesses on retirement (which is wahat a lot of small traders do). Low interest rates for savers (which as you know very well is what DC has highlighted) therefore reduce the credit supply in general, and reduce the incomes of a specific group of people, mainly the elderly. DC's criticism of low savings interest rates is therefore vaid and reasonable.
If you think this recession is going to be cured by me heading down to the shops and buying foreign-made white goods, you are very wrong indeed!
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I would like to tick you off Nick Robinson for poor reporting.
I have taken the time and trouble unlike your good self to find out exactly what Obama is saying with regard to the economy. What I find is that Obama is not saying at all the same things as G. Brown. What Obama proposes is a boost to the economy over a short period, that much is true, however his main aim is to cut taxes for businesses and workers and cut waste in the state, that is to us the public sector. These are certainly not things Brown is intending to do. Furthermore he has stated that the economy has been run badly by Government and needs reform, this he is able to say because he played no part in making the mess. This again Brown can not say because he made the mess we are currently in. If Brown cannot admit what went wrong, how can he put it right. Browns aim I suggest, will be to prevent us knowing the true state of the public finances, he will hope that his anti deflationary measures will make us feel better just long enough to get him back in Government.
All Brown's policies are for political reasons and short term so as to keep himself in Government. Meanwhile we are being dragged back to the seventies with economic stagnation were the country ground to a halt, and the disaster that was to this country. When the state of the awful public finances are known, inflation will take off and by then he hopes to be back in Government no doubt helped by your good self.
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227Get rid.
Not one for wild exageration then.
So a panel of the Uk's leading economists at the BoE are concerned with deflation through 2009 and you predict hyper-inflation in 6 months with wheel-barrows of cash?
OK put your money where your not in considerable mouth is, and sterling is fine by me. Inflation at less than 3% in 6 months I say. You say?
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#225
jpperry! nonsense/piffle/ utter lies
Jeez! the conspiracy theorist clap/trap
Go on then perry, tells us how the conservatives will save jobs/save the banks/save peoples homes.
Just one big laugh after another with the conspiracy tory mob!
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#228:
I don't go along with your Bank responsibility factor of 90%. that figure is far too high. The Government were fully aware of the crazy lending and borrowing practices that were going on. In fact they actively encouraged it. They also spent vast amounts of public money + money they didn't have on an appreciable number of projects which bit the dust.
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229
I'm fairly sure that the Tories wanted the MPC to reduce interest rates when they did.
Why do you think every developed mixed economy is facing the exact same problems simultaneously and adress ing the problems in virtually the same way?
Who else is saying what Dave and George are saying as a solution?
Germany who offered some criticism a few weeks a go are about to back-track and don't be surprised if they cut their VAT to.
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flamepatricia
"..Conversely, any who speak for this present government (and there aren't many are there?) are highly suspicious because NOBODY could be that stupid unless they are being paid."
and others.
I think most people have left because you have been rumbled . You seem to be trying to hard these days. people pick up on that. You should realize that there are a wide range of opinions of all colors out there and that some people wont agree with you we are not all the same.
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Whatever happened to CEH and grandantidote? Miss their silly comments on here.
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#222
flamepatricia,
Christ! are all the tories shooting off with those magic bullets.
There is becoming a VERY SERIOUS CASE OF CONSPIRACY tendencies, within the tory camp!
A little Hay! A little Ho'
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Derek at 232
You've been exposed (actually, you unwittingly exposed yourself). Accept it. Move on.
As far as saving jobs is concerned - the one minute summary, which is my summary, not the Conservatives' one, goes like this.
Business credit insurance
Re-negotiating bank bail-out
Reduce employers' NI
Targeted aid to specific industries
Targeted benefits to employment measures
Funded by...
Restore 17.5 percent VAT
Cancel ID cards
Cancel certain other government computer projects
Cancel most government spin and "consultancy"
More could obviously be said, but that will do for now.
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223#
So are we experiencing the biggest economic coincidence in history?
Every country took their eye off the banks at exactly the same time?
Blaming any government for this mess is like blaming the Police when a mugging takes place rather than blaming the Mugger.
You can go on about regulation as much as you want but the bottom line is that many major banks made disastrous high risk lending and investment decisions and had to be rescued. Just because they had the freedom to do so doesn't mean they had to do it, they just got too greedy and we all have to pick up the tab now. You're right about the 90% it should be higher.
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234 Eatonrifle
At the moment, the entire government stimulus package amounts to 13 billion thrown away on the VAT rate reduction, plus a lot of waffle, hot air and back-of-the-envelope minor policy announcements that haven't been implemented yet (and probably never will be).
I would be very surprised if Germany went for an across the board VAT rate reduction - but we shall see, I suppose.
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214 + 217
I'd rather not get to the bottom of any Tory problems!
The debate has been undermined by Labour.....you mean won by Labour!
People are not stupid and can see through your Georgiespin.
Naughty Yachtie Ozzy is 18 months too late with his new plans....while he was schmoozing and wasting time, real changes were being made....real interest rate cuts, real banks being saved, real international agreements.
And the money printing argument by Tory trogs is the second nutty Tory gangplank (Georgie's being the first)attempt to trigger a run on the pound.
What on earth are you playing at?
It is nasty and dangerous .
There are real people and real businesses out there Tories, and your adolescent bad taste economic outbursts, like your bad taste parties, are no laughing matter.
And if pre-97 is history, and irrelevent, it must be because you want to forget it.....well remember that the one Tory who had any sense,pre 97 , the one you knocked back for ShamCam, ie Clarke, borrowed and spent his way out of recession and we are all grateful to him for that...but you have whitewashed away the fact that monetarist nonsense caused more harm than good and even you guys realised that after a while !
No , Georgie has been told by his masters that all this talk of savage spending cuts, his inertia and his let's watch the economy bleed to death approach.... this whole approach is a no-goer and he is trying to backpeddle his way back to reality.
At least we didn't have to endure him as Chancellor this year.Can you imagine the carnage which would have ensued?
Georgie's Christmas panto exploits were enough for anyone to bear!
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#238
Move on from what, did you get my post?
Nonsense/piffle/utter lies!!!!!!!!!!
Perry, look at what your advocating/please
Do you really want to replace apprenticeships with YTS schemes, a mindless set of youth opportunity programmes.
What do you mean by re-negotiate the bank bail-out- Jeez did you read the introduction on this thread, sound very like Osborne.
Restore 17.5 vat?
What do you mean by targeted aid, to business? a lottery help some for some nothing for others?
No wonder the tories dont want to talk?
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235. What on earth are you talking about. I have been "rumbled"? I know you are American but surely I should be able to understand your American English.
Perhaps you could translate it for me.
I don't try hard. Sometimes I feel like writing more than others and that is what everybody is like. Unless, maybe they are getting paid for it.
Touche.
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224,
Can't believe you went to Eton. My schooling or part of it was at Harrow.
Daddys don't buy qualifications from Oxbridge you buffoon!
Did you get any? Perhaps that is why you are so scathing of those who did.
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Is it me or do economists and politicians treat the "economy" (and "society" for that matter) like physicists treat forces and energy. They all seem to be looking under rocks for immutable laws. There is a Nobel awaiting the v = I x r of economics.
But the feeble science of economics is really the only slightly less feeble science of psychology writ in green pieces of paper. People spend money for complicated reasons all of their own. They don't usually spend money because they are compelled to do unless it is tax. Even when faced with what looks like compulsion (eg they need food, water or fuel), they make conscious and semi-conscious choices. They often want irrational things. No one really needs a plasma screen TV or the latest Take That album, but people buy them anyway. The problem is no one really knows why people make the decisions they do in the numbers that they do.
Our politicians appear to spend very little of their lives amongst those people who do the spending. I believe we have about 650 elected MPs, approximately 1 per 55,000 of the population. I would imagine that somewhere in the order of 50 people are running the Government's idea of the economy. They cannot possibly know why people spend their money, nor where and when they will do it. They also probably have safe and cosy jobs, and the sort of CV that buys them entry into another cushy number, in a bank, other business or University when they do get their P45s. Oh, and a lovely brown envelope stuff with fivers when they go. The rest of the population is looking over their shoulders to see when their employer is going to throw in the towel and let them have the Government's approved slim brown envelope partly filled with a handful of said fivers. Perhaps a little more time spent by the cabinet out of their offices, giving their protection the slip and going into a pub to talk to some "working" people might not go amiss. But I dream.
The Emperor Brown has so clearly saved the world ... correction, banks that he might need to save them all over again. And he might need to print some more money just in case that doesn't work. Can anyone do this or is it just Brown? I'd like to know. I've still got my John Bull printing set in the loft, left over from a time when John Bull stood for something in the world.
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And another thing....
Isn't it funny (strange) that this mess arrived with Brown and not before?
Look back to George Bush the First. It has been his greatest wish to bring about a New World Order. Little George has succeeded at the nth hour to start it off. Blair was almost there but bottled out. Brown the heavyweight crashed in and took it on. Straddling the world - shaking it into his ideals. Globalisation.
Makes him feel good and, he thought, what the hell, here today gone tomorrow. Time may be running out. Let's do it.
And he is.
Fiscal this. VAT that. It's the man causing the problem, not the problem causing the man.
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241
Most of your post is too incoherent to respond to, but as far as yachting is concerned, the real question is what was Lord Mandy up to? He was there too, remember? For longer, and for a purpose which was, I would suggest, far from social. Why do bloggers from the left want to airbrush over the Lord Mandy/Deripaska relationship?
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Post 206. Same thing happens to me on here. REAL free speech is dead. This blog is censored by either the Brown Broadcasting Organisation or self censored by fear of polical correctness especially with the moderators. This is just an extension of Brown's Stalinist state apparatus which is planned to be extended with identity cards , dna archives and the state interception of phones calls webbrowsing and emails. I doubt this will be posted in here as the thought police will no doubt press the delete button and place me on Brown's Orwellian Agitators Secret Hit List.
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onward-ho 241
I have never in my life read such utter nonsense, in fact it is so bad I would advise people not to answer. Full of insults and no facts what-so-ever.
I can not even be bothered to show you the error of your ways.
If you represent Labour they are bound to loose.
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This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the House Rules.
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_CWBTL33MpA
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244 Flame
You've rumbled me Pat I didn't go to Eton but at least I knew how to spell it unlike yourself, despite the Silver-Spoon start in life.
No, I was a straight forward Grammar School kid of the 70's, Red Brick University and double first in Political and Economic History.
Currently Diversity Officer at the Potato Council, 100k per year and gold plated pension, retiring next year at 50.
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Susan-Croft 249
Nicely put!
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241 wrote in relation to George Osborne:
'At least we didn't have to endure him as Chancellor this year.Can you imagine the carnage which would have ensued?'
And what we are seeing now is not carnage of course. Thousands of jobs lost every day, sterling in freefall, mortgages defaulted on and businesses going down like nine pins. No I can't imagine a worse situation.
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Susan Croft - I had a skirmish with "onward ho" once and also found him/her totally incoherent. Suggested he/she took convalescence at Westward Ho!
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207
I've never really gone in for this left v right dichotomy loved by the Tories. It is stale, divisive nonsense.
Mandy is not the wannabe Chancellor. He is a political advisor who is doing his best for Britain and boy has he got the Tories rumbled.
And none of you Torytorials have ever or could ever make the slightest whiff of impropriety stick about Gordon Brown or Alistair Darling....they are upright and selfless.
People at the top of the tree mix with other people from the top of the tree.
I am not a politician or a member of a party, but I can see through hypocrites and buffoons.
Do Tories hate everyone...is there no end to their anger and bile?
Cheer up and have a wee sherry, jrperry!
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Love this new site from Labour. Not high brow political debate obviously but makes the point about Osbourne et al pretty effectively. Whatever he's coming up with now the fact remains that there is clear blue water between the 2 main parties now and that can only be a good thing.
http://www.davidcameronseconomicpolicy.co.uk
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Fragmeister. My brother had a John Bull printing outfit and such fun he and I had with it.
Don't make toys like they used to.
I fear that is how we will end up. Back to basics with the good old Royal Mint printing its own with plenty of elbow grease.
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239 eaton.
Try as you may, you'll never convince them that it was the free-market wot ate itself.
They need it to be Gordon's fault, or they'll have to face the horrible truth.
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#177 Munichmadrid7980
Thanks for that, it puts into words my worst fears about the way things were. Because I belive the true power lay in the city (and still does) I don't think sacking Brown and holding an election would do any good in the short term - it would just be a distraction.
Like many others I want to lash out at those to blame but think we ought to wait until things are a bit more stable and have
a sensible and wide ranging enquiry with teeth. Unfortunately I don't think the gods will allow it.
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Eaton then why do you say you know DC and why do you say his father bought his qualifications? You should know better.
DC is highly educated but, you may not know, Boris is actually more highly educated than DC.
I went to boarding school then state school briefly, art school, the Treasury as a secretary (and part time at uni. English Law, Social and Economic History 18th Century, introduction to English Bookkeeping to trial balance, and the structure of modern commerce). Not much of which I remember but still have one ancient book! Was actually offered a post at the House of Commons but declined - much to their chagrin (!). They had never heard of anybody declining an offer to work in such a prestigious place. Truth was, I found it stuffy and restricting again after being in commerce.
There. Potted history for them as is interested.
I am not too bright but take a keen interest in present day politics. Am somewhat incensed by this present shower and their leader as you are no doubt aware.
Good luck to you and your beliefs!
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249 253 255
jrperry,(were you the old guy in the yellow pages ad ?) isn't that funny, you ARE trying to have a wee sherry!
And do I smell cowpat again?
Is it Tory manifesto time !
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259 Munich
I know that's true of course, but when you see some of the nonesense on here, some laughable, some weird, some downright scary, you just can't help but respond to it.
Of course they need to make it Gordons fault as you say, they've been waiting for this moment for 11 years with fingers crossed. The sad thing for the country is the determination they show to talk down the economy even further and undermine fragile confidence with the usual Tory Politics of Fear.
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#257:
That link would be quite funny if The Government hadn't made a total pig's ear of managing the economy themselves. They are the ones holding the reins and they are the ones who must take partial responsibility for our present ills. Gordon Brown is now a dangerous joke, a joke that is getting totally out of hand. Attempting to deflect attention onto an unempowered Opposition in an attempt to escape blame isn't going to wash with a majority of The Electorate. Nick Clegg's claim that they will not do a deal with The Labour Party unless they have the majority of seats in the General Election isn't going to do him any good either.
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#259:
It wasn't me Guv won't work forever. Pretty soon the chickens will be coming home to roost.
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#202 Purpledogzzz.
I think this post makes your position clear, another excellent analysis.
I agree there is too much regulation in the real economy, box ticking, micro management and stupid targets (my wife is a senior nurse in the NHS).
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#259:
Perhaps you could expand on what you consider to be the horrible truth. Might prove to be an interesting debating point.
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263 wrote:
'I know that's true of course, but when you see some of the nonesense on here, some laughable, some weird, some downright scary, you just can't help but respond to it.'
My thoughts exactly. Well put. Shame about the spelling error in nonsense but I can see what you're driving at.
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#213 subiei.....
According to Wiki a Golem is an artifical creation used to protect the Jews......does this explain his fondness for the city
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onward-ho 262
I can see through your distraction tactics!
Why not have a go at the Lord Mandy/Deripaska question - what were they up to on that yacht? It sure wasn't wine tasting.
And while you're there, identify anything in Brown's economic stimulus policy, other than the failed VAT rate cut, that the government have any genuine intention or capability to do.
300 businesses a week, thousands of peoples' jobs, are going to the wall while your man dithers and vacilates.
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Stanley Fink, former chief executive of hedge fund man group, Is the tories new election fundraiser.
Stanley has donated 1million of his own dubious funds to the conservative party.
Wow! the city is awash with the publics dosh and stan the man is the "FINK" behind the conservative clowns.
Scargilwasright, It's on America's tortured brow, that Mickey Mouse Has grown up a cow!
You have never been in a protest in your natural.( yes) tell the truth!
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Whoa, the Labour trolls are suddenly out in force this afternoon, after being totally absent this morning.
What was it lads, an emengency briefing from Dolly because you have been losing the argument (and the plot), and now Saturday afternoon unpaid overtime?
Shouldn't you all be at the shops anyway, Spend, Spend, Spend, you know it's the right thing to do, Viv Nicholson said so.
Onward-ho, so much rubbish in your post at #210 I am going to take Susan-Croft's advice and ignore it.
Except to say, you must be a fool.
".....this lot are so dangerous they should be thrown overboard the yacht of one of Georgie's Russian billionaire friends! What else was going on in that boat that we do not know? Does anyone know and cannot say? What is the story there?"
Marrakesh Mandy was on the same yacht, and his motives for being there were more dubious. And talking of billionaire friends, it may have escaped your notice that the owner of the yacht, Nat Rothschild, also owns a luxury villa in Klosters, and guess who joined him there for some apres-ski fun at Christmas? Clue, it wasn't Osborne.
It was our unelected, unaccountable Business Secretary, appointed by our unelected, mandate-free sub-Prime Minister!
So, before making your sneering comments, check your facts, as you have just made yourself look foolish.
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And here comes Aloisius Penfold (alias yellowbelly) Mr Finks side-kick.
All Anorak and very narrow vision.
Laugh....Laugh.....Laugh........
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#225 jrperry
I see exactly what you mean!
Out in force this afternoon, and all spouting exactly the same line, except derek who, if he can't cut and paste, spouts his usual incoherent nonsense.
Go easy on him though, he deserves our sympathy, not our ire.
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#273
QED
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Hello derek, nurse let you out for the afternoon, did she?
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#273:
Shouldn't that be woof .............. woof ................ woof
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#275
No comments about the appointment of Stanley Fink? thought not, the do nothing tories, dont do anything in terms of questions.
Is the power house conservative mouth piece all awash or does his blue Anorak give him protection.
Laugh...Laugh...Laugh...
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275 derekbarker
Didn't think it was worthy of comment, especially as it's off topic. But I can't see what your problem is. He's a man of considerable positive reputation, regarded with enthusiasm by those who have dealt with him, unimpeachable in his business reputation. He stepped back from the MAN role quite a while ago, and has since spent most of his time and about a quarter of his wealth on charitable ventures.
Seems like quite a nice guy really. So Derek, what's your problem?
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270 272
Talk about being savaged by dead losses!
A bunch of past-it moaners.....have any of you ever run a business or have you forgotten what it was like?...do any of you have any staff, any development projects, bank loans, any risktaking , in fact any idea at all about the real world and the situation with the world economy?
Go and visit Iceland where they are now on the breadline. Or visit California, the richest place in America, where the majority of houses for sale are repossessions......is that what you want here....because that is what is happening all over the world and but for the action of Gordon Brown would be happening here too....we are sneezing here , the rest of the world is developing pneumonia and all you can do is take pathetic potshots because all you care about us your rotten little political party.
Shame on you.The country needs your solidarity and effort, not everending blame and negativity.
I want to hear the Tories saying "the pound is a blooming good currency, it is undervalued".
I want to hear them say "we are all going to be okay , back to business everyone .Buy that house, buy that car, extend that factory, develop that new gizmo, do that overtime....this is a great country"......but no, all I hear is hissing and whining.
Nobody is ever going to vote for such a bunch of Tory losers...that is why I have been pro-Labour in my comments .....because no other party in the UK has done a single constructive thing to help this national worldwide situation.
And as far as Manderson is concerned, what kind of business secretary does not know any businessmen? I do not care , he is batting for Britain , he is not trying to make it look bankrupt to the rest of the world.
None of you Tories have any backbone or courage and that is why you have been out of office for the past nearly 12 years.
Are you for Britain or are you against it?
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#279
Well Perry, at a time of irresponsible all round banking and short selling, Is it wise to appoint a former chief executive and remember he still holds a chief executives post, It must be nice to just give a 1million pound sum to a cause and not miss it?
Come on perry is the sherry going to your head.
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Now, you intelligent people out there, I need some help.
What is a billion, and what is a trillion
When I was in school,
a British billion was a million million (10^12)and there didn't seem to be a trillion.
It appears that the Americans use a billion for a thousand million (10^9), and a trillion seems to be the old British billion - a million million (10^12), or a thousand billion.
I am a Chartered Engineer, and the SI units give 10^6 as mega (M), 10^9 as giga (G), 10^12 as tera (T).
Can anyone enlighten me, please.
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#278 derekandthedominoes
Hello Derek!
"No comments about the appointment of Stanley Fink? thought not, the do nothing tories, dont do anything in terms of questions."
===
I think if you look back through my posts I have done a lot in terms of questions. I ask them all the time!
Did you mean I don't do anything in terms of answers?
Oh well, here we go then.
Do you mean this Mr Fink?
"In May, Mr Fink stepped away from his day-to-day position as the head of Man Group, one of the world's biggest hedge funds, founding a smaller firm, Isam, a few months later and stepping up his charitable work. The new company also hired Lord Levy, who was Labour's chief fundraiser at the time of the cash-for-honours affair.
Mr Fink, who has an estimated fortune of £116 million, is said to be the 698th richest person in the country. He gave £35 million to charity in 2006 alone.
A brush with death four years ago in the form of a brain tumour increased the 51-year-old's philanthropic endeavours and he has given funding for a children's hospital as well as building an academy school, Burlington Danes in White City, west London."
Hhhm, 35 Million to charity in 1 year. Funding for a children's hospital. Building an academy school in West London.
Sounds like a good sort to me, there should be more people like him.
Now it's my turn to ask the question Derek.
What have you done?
And, do you think the Government is about to embark on Quantitative Easing, and is that the right policy to pursue or will it lead to rampant inflation and prolong the recession?
Over to you.
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Lloyds TSB, which has clearly been studying the Asian market in Britain, has already introduced free Islamic banking and mortgages for Muslims in the UK. ...
When I read this, I was amazed at how in these hard days a bank could afford to offer interest free loans. Now, after reading about the under the counter deals with Saudi, Libyia and other unauthorised countries I know!
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David Ross, the founder and former deputy chairman of Carphone Warehouse, who was forced to resign last month after he failed to disclose that he had used £130m of his shares as security against personal loans, is off the hook.
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) today admitted that its rules were not totally clear, and said it would not be taking enforcement action against anyone who had failed to disclose doing what Ross did.
===
I expect we will now see lots of apologies on here from those who previously accused Ross of wrongdoing, or worse!
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283
Another Tory trying to cause a run on the pound!
Shame on you
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281 derekbarker
Interesting parallelism between you and onward-ho on the sherry subject!
Sounds also as if you need to be told what a hedge fund actually is... in fact it is quite possible to run one without immediately becoming the Arthur Daley of the financial world. Really, it sounds just as if you have issues with successful people.
But if you have a specific problem with Stanley Fink, do tell. I'm sure we would all be interested.
Still, if you want to go on with an inuendo-laden "Tory Toffs" distraction line, then go ahead. It really worked well for you in Crewe and Nantwich.
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267.sicilian
'The Horrible Truth' is that the events of 2008 mean that free-market capitalism is dead, and reflationary policies only can help us now.
No-one can now advocate with a straight face the kind of 'you can't buck the market' economic philosophy which seems to be so beloved of a certain sector of society, over-represented on BBC blogs. It has been tried by the world's banks for 20 years plus, and shown to fail. Interventionalist capitalism is the only possible model for democratic societies for some time to come. Are the UK Conservatives now ready to endorse nationalisations, and massive state borrowing, as the US Republicans have had to?
It has now been demonstrated that when push comes to shove the state whether US, Swiss, UK or elsewhere, must underwrite the most important sectors of economic activity, in this case banks, whatever the consequences in terms of public debt.
We couldn't do what George Osbourne said he wanted us to last year, ie let the banks go, because that would have been it for capitalism itself, not merely the free-market kind.
We cannot fail to support reflationary measures now for the same reason: this is bigger than left-right, bigger than party politics. If western societies do not hold together now, we can kiss goodbye to democratic capitalism itself. If the end result of last year is that unemployment in the west goes to 15% or higher, mass repossessions, etc. then we'll be heading for civil unrest and plenty of nasty events. Oddly enough, it will be worse for those with the most to lose- wealthy Conservative voters- if that happens, so they should really be praying that Brown's reflationary measures work.
This is not scaremongering, we all know how delicate the fabric of western society is. It relies on the millions being able to access the basics at very low prices in relation to income. If not, riots ensue.
Oddly enough, it is only reflationary politicians who will be allowed to administer the pretty nasty medicine (higher taxes) which will follow their own reflation.
Can you imagine a UK Conservative government bringing in a set of tax changes (such as those suggested thus far) which would widen the gap massively between wealthy ex-bankers and the unemployed and repossessed? The troops better be home from Afghanistan then, because they'll be needed on the streets.
That's what I mean by the horrible truth.
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#283
Yes Yellowbelly I did mean questions.
Before Atlee's social welfare policy was introduced yellowbelly, there used to be a law, called the poor law, rich, titled people
would donate a portion of their excessive wealth to the poor.
Although I dont have a go at any wanting to help society, I do question why only such a few become so wealthy, I like the idea of the distribution of wealth.
This present situation didn't happen over night, irresponsible bankers, hedge funders and the likes collectively screwed us all over a lengthy period.(yes)
Yellowbelly, To do nothing at this time would be stupid and down right dangerous.
Keyes, the man who helped to secure the anglo-America loan believed the best defence against a down-turn was to spend,
however I do accept that this is not 1946, it's worse, the whole world is on the edge, we must collectively respond, people count yellowbelly all people count not just some.
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280, 286 onward-ho
Frankly, when a government, led by an unelected individual, seeks continually to prop up its own sagging electoral position by dishonestly representing the economic state of the country, the government's part in that (parlous) state, its own actions to remedy the problems and the alternative actions proposed by the official opposition... then that is worthy of comment.
You seem to me to be using weasel words ("trying to cause a run on the pound") to try to place the government beyond critcism of any sort - how very Stalinist.
It seems reasonable to say that Labour finds the points I raised in post 270 and earlier, completely unanswerable.
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286. At 8:12pm on 10 Jan 2009, onward-ho wrote:
283
Another Tory trying to cause a run on the pound!
Shame on you
===
What an ignorant fool you are.
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287
Perry, or is it babySham?
All that sherry is making you paranoid and incoherent.
What have YOU been doing in the hedge?
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#287
Perry on the sherry, god! are you taking the Michael, does the young pretender Cameron thinks his the "arc of prosperity" to all, Wow! short shelling, Mr Fink, run a very large operations. The man group had it's fingers in numerous pie's.
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#223 Eton Piffle
Interesting what Eton has brought up (more like what has been eaten and brought up) by disparaging saving as a means of recovery from this recession.
Are you familiar with the old proverb (you'll find it in the Bible) that the borrower becomes the slave of the lender?
We can borrow in the short term to stimulate the economy, but ultimately what has been borrowed has to be repaid. Repayment can be by paying back from capital or assets (hopefully generated from putting the borrowed capital to work for us) or by borrowing from somewhere else (if there is a somewhere else, which is why Northern ended up on the Rocks) - or the borrower can refuse to pay and hope to gain out of the resulting conflict.
This is the legacy that we are storing up for our children.
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#225 Champagne Perry
Excellent post.
I arrived at a similar conclusion from the way that these "stooges" are unable to follow up and debate points arising from the lines fed to them, and simply resort to scuttlebutt. It is interesting to see it confirmed.
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#289 derekbarkingatthemoon
You didn't answer my comments about Mr Fink, a good sort don't you think, all that philanthropic work?
You also didn't answer my question about quantitative easing.
I await you answer.
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#291
Why do you call people "fools"
I come from a prize champion back ground and I've never called anybody a "fool"
"QUOD ERAT DEMONSTRANDUM"
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#286 onward-ho
You are an ignorant fool.
1) I am not a tory. As a previous poster put it, I am a "vote for a pig's head on a stick" if it stood in opposition to Labour.
2) I asked an open question about quantitative easing and did not offer an opinion. Go check it!
3) You are a fool if you think that I am in a position to cause a run on the Pound.
4) You must have been asleep, or in a drunken stupor given your fondness for alcohol analogies, for the last 6 months. The GBP has already fallen by about 25% in the last few months.
5) You are an ignorant fool because my question was not directed to you.
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290 291
I am not a politician , not a party member, only someone who is concerned that the very people who make pretensions of being able to form the next government after years of deserved exile seem hellbent on wrecking the economy in order to get into government...and shame on them!
And every time someone makes a rational comment about trying to move the economy forwards without a doomsday scenario there is a pack of Tory dogs howling for the kill.
How many of you Tory bullies out there are there?
You are the Stalinists!
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jrperry
Interesting posts from you, sir.
It is also interesting that you get exactly the same juvenile abuse #292 and #293 from onward-ho and derekbarker in consecutive posts.
Could it be they are sitting next to each other, conferring?
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#296
Jeez! go back and read the post again
and stop short picking to suit.
Question, are you that confident that the tories will run Britain better, Christ you obviously weren't around when the tories had power.
The do nothing tories would turn Britain into that police state.
You can talk Britain down all you like, you can talk the British people down all you like, you can talk down the British pound all you like.
Britain and its great people will over come without the likes of you. Kid.
Now! do you and your ideas represent the main stream of conservative policy, please say yes!d.
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Does no one seem to understand.
Debt has strangled the whole world economy. Demand has been pulverised. The ONLY possible solution is to put money back into company and worker's pockets by massive decreases in income/corporation tax and slashing of public spending hard.
It's going to be nasty whatever happens but, by either spending money you haven't got or encouraging others to do so, the situation will be worsened and extended, possibly for a generation.
The revolution cannot come fast enough.
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There has been some posts in defence of Gordon Brown's decision to remove banking sector regulation for the Bank of England to the FSA.
I've posted here before that this decsion was opposed by the Conservative Party and particularly by Peter Lilley MP, who said on record that this was a charter for spivs and speculators.
Who is to blame? Acording to the FSA website, and I quote, the government is responsible for the overall scope of the FSA?s regulatory activities and for its powers. If the FSA failed to use its powers effectively then blame the FSA. If the FSA was not given sufficient regulatory scope then blame Gordon Brown.
Why blame anyone? Firstly, because the rich and powerful, be they bankers or politicians, should be called to account. Secondly, because Gordon Brown claims to be a financial genius and has never apologised for any action he has ever taken. If he was a mere mortal, like the rest of us, then some of his mistakes might be more excusable.
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yellowbelly
Am I alone in thinking there may be fewer people on the board at the moment than the username count might suggest?
If you catch my drift.....
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#301 derek
You still haven't answered my questions.
I answered your questions fully.
You have not answered my questions at all.
To finally give lie to the gossip on here that brands you a fool, please answer my questions fully and properly.
This is your chance Derek, don't let it slip away!
I await your reply.
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231. At 4:11pm on 10 Jan 2009, Eatonrifle wrote:
..So a panel of the Uk's leading economists at the BoE...
So you t
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#304 jrperry
That is exactly what I was thinking, which is what I alluded to about them sitting next to each other, and maybe getting their "brief" from Dolly Draper himself.
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BBC News 24 is the DOOM and GLOOM news station.
Ever 10 mins it mentions recession and bloodshed.
Thank gawd for SKY NEWS ??..
Don?t you think the BBC adding to the doom and gloom ?
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299. At 9:23pm on 10 Jan 2009, onward-ho wrote:
290 291
I am not a politician , not a party member, only someone who is concerned that the very people who make pretensions of being able to form the next government after years of deserved exile seem hellbent on wrecking the economy in order to get into government...and shame on them!
===
onward-ho, or is it derek? Please explain how a party in opposition can wreck the economy when they have no executive power?
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298
You are certainly not a mellowyellowbelly....you seem to have indigestion when you read the truth.
You are a meanie too!
You individually do not cause a run in the pound, but collectively all of this negativity adds up into a big slump and all this carping on about quantitative easing is fine for discussion, but if there are political parties bellowing the flames it is a bit sinister.
I do not think that individual comments on the blog make a difference, but they do illustrate the psychological malaise that the Conservatives are encouraging and bloodsucking from .Markets are all about psychology.They need to hear good news.
As far as the last 6 months is concerned, "onward-ho" only started on 15 December, or should I be paranoid about these blogs?
Do tell me about the credit crunch and how hard it has been....I have been whooshed about by it to the point of nearly folding over, but there are changes on the horizon, and the lower interest rates have changed things enormously.I am a survivor, and I can see how perception is reality and in the middle of this storm what Gordon Brown has been doing is what any good leader ( maybe even ShamCam if he got the chance) would have done, for the realities of the situation have dictated the remedies.And he has done the best anyone could.
Arguing with a bunch of econo-depressives is not very productive and their minds are made up.
I apologise for thinking you were a Tory, a more insulting thing to be called I cannot imagine!
If I am a fool , it is because I believed that there were rational beings reading this blog .
It's nearly ten oclock on a Saturday...maybe it is time I did have a drink, but not a Susan- Croft's or a PerrySham please!
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#177 MunichMadrid
This is an interesting post, and I agree with some but not all of it. You said, and I quote, without the UK taxpayer, there'd be no RBS or HBOS. 12% is the least we deserve for bailing the schmucks out.
My question is, who are the schmucks? The shareholders (some combination of pension funds, large and small shareholders), the directors, the employees are various levels within the organisation, investors in FTSE tracker funds, or retail depositors (like myself).
According to the OECD UK banks have experienced a decline of 300 billion USD in market value during 2008. This is way in excess of any conceivable renumeration that senior management may have received in bonuses during this period. I'm simplfying somewhat, but claw every penny back and you are still left with, say, 299 billion. So who do you want to punish for the remainder?
The answer to this question is why we had a banking recapitalisation, supported by all political parties, in the first place. Fixing the interest rate charged is not easy, but most commentators think that 12% is too high and not actually in the UK taxpayer's interest (the reasons for which would require another post).
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Bluematter
It's a valid point. Incentives have been flattened by heavy taxation over an extended period, and it is fair to say that an incentive-led recovery could very well work. The problem is getting government expenditure really down as far as would be needed. A third of national spend is on benefits of one sort or another - plenty of their recipients can claim at least semi-legitimately to have bought the right to those benefits. We also spend a huge lot on the NHS and education, again with a strong sense of entitlement among the beneficiaries. That means that to get the tax bill down by something useful - maybe £1000 per head per annum, you have to make really deep cuts in what is left. Which is impossible to do without making those cuts obvious and visible.
Where I'm getting to is you can't cut taxes in a big way without borrowing.
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It is hilarious that you are so paranoid.... not the same room, but the same blog, that we are all on, you daft berks.
Or is that how the Tories would work....that would be scarey!
Do I hear the twilight zone music in the background?
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Nick:
I think that George Osborne is correct for action, that needs to be done; to repair the economy....
i am not endorsing any political party and/or platform....
~Dennis Junior~
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#286 onward-ho
Do you remember the Chancellor talking up the economy at the end of August last year?
Darling warns of economic crisis.
Not long afterwards the GB Pound started its slide southward,
It appears that you are short on memory, long on mouth.
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I have taken the onward-ho line because it is the only way to be when times are hard. I have had to be frugal and I have had to work really hard.I have had to cash in savings and cut back on frills.I listened to financial advice and fixed some loans in July 2008 and paid a fortune for doing so....other loans are trackers and are doing well.
Money in the bank fritters away to nothing, there are so many things to spend it on, you need the austerity of illiquidity eg in a property or a bond to stop you accessing funds.
It may be that the flexible mortgages which the lucky few have used to speed up paying off their mortgages have been like a big giant store card for the many who cannot resist buying stuff.
The past ten years of stability resulted in low inflation and low interst rates and the other trends were for lots of early retiremnts and longer living people and pensions not indexed to wage rises.
The Tories are very fly as they are cashing in on saver malaise...
Labour has not appeared to be doing much for savers and that is a big issue for voters.
I think that is why there was only a 50 point fall in interest rates this time.
It is hard to separate one's personal stance from one's politics....if ever anyone should want a Tory government it should be me.....but I remember being poor and in terrible debt and the loss of wages for working men in the eighties when most of the real jobs were lost.
I do not think they have changed heart, whereas I think Labout have tried to help everyone.
And for the UK at the moment the public sector is providing huge stability ...to axe this when the economy is in downturn is madness itself....at least the doctors and the teachers are staying solvent and paying tax and superannuation for their pensioned off colleagues and buying cars and houses and eating in restaurants and providing some stability for the private sector.
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#305
MellowYellow, Your abit obessessed with Zimbabwe, and inflation, under the last tory government borrowing was 43% of GDP and interest rates were as high as 15%.
As I have said on numerous occasions, its the real economy, people lifes and lively hood at stake, you keep alluding to printing more money which you say will have a devastating effect on inflation, (A kind of Zimbabwe situation) so far the government has refused to print new money, GB has said so! however this government will do all it can do to help the great British public through this world wide down-turn.
Borrowing is not new to this nation, and yes I do believe that we must borrow to help in this situation, it's the only game in the world at this time!
If your not a tory, then why do you give the impression of being a tory card holder by indorsing the do nothing plan?
Do you truely understand the full scale of this down-turn, it is on and above the Marshall plan scale, we have got to unite the world and drive forward a recovery plan,. whether that means that America will print new money and loan out, who knows, but it here and it has to be dealt with.
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dhwilkinson @ 190 and 192:
Yours (and everyone elses) still comes up as a little box for me in IE, or if I use Flock as the browser, it's a little black diamond with a question mark in it! ???
Thanks for trying to help!
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Please correct me if I am wrong, but the basis for us getting out of this hole by 2015 and our debt being 'only' £1 trillion is that the recession ends Q2 2009. Am I right?
So why are we panicking? Only 5 more months of turmoil to go. By the time you have a suntan, we will be blazing a trail: growth, jobs, output etc.
Or is it that I am right and the predictions were from a little known place called Cuckoo Land? If so, and the recession lasts beyond Q2, how big does the debt get quarter on quarter and how many more tax hikes will it take to rescue it?
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#310:
The run on the pound has been caused by Government policy not collective negativity you numpty. If you think we're going to stop criticising Gordon Brown because you say it's being negative then think again.
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#310 wrote:
'I apologise for thinking you were a Tory, a more insulting thing to be called I cannot imagine!'
Just about sums up the validity of everything that you have written on these blogs. As grandantidote used to say 'you must be wearing blinkers down to your ankles!'
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I think I might change my user name to tally-ho and go on a prolonged wind up.
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315 God-save-us-fromthe Tories-in-2010
I agree with you,in retrospect I think Darling made a tactical error making that speech and I do not think Brown wanted him to do it, but you can understand why he did it.There were huge storm clouds on the horizon which have not fully cleared and if he had been blandly optimistic he would have been crucified when the world crunch came.
But it does back up my view that being gloomy does not really help, and I think Labour feel like this too now.
Running my own business I know that success occurs on the margin and a series of small changes can tip things into disaster very quickly.You have to keep a brave face on things sometimes, otherwise you would pack it in and not see the sunrise the next day.
And I think a 100% guarantee on all UK savers funds in Aug 2007 , even in December 2008 in retrospect would have helped, and a quiet boost to Northern Rock before it crashed might have averted the queues debacle that made Robert Peston famous.
The banks themselves knew a big crash was on the cards.It was how fast and how deadly it was that shocked everyone apart from the miseryguts-I-told-you-sos that populate blogland.
The problem was that we live now, with what we know, not in retrospect.
And generally Labour have done well.
They have managed to avert the disaster that befell Iceland.
Long on mouth?
Maybe I am doing the Tories a favour telling them where they are going wrong.
Maybe I should keep schtum!
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I am confident that Duff Gordon will be back in the dog house before long. After all he is Midas in reverse.
02 JUNE 2008 - Duff Gordon to announce Nissan backing.
04 JANUARY 2009 - Duff Gordon to create 100,000 jobs under anti-recession plans.
08 JANUARY 2009 - Nissan plant to shed 1,200 jobs
Not Flash - Just Gordon. Yep - Duff Gordon. Roll On 2010
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DerekBarker
Never was much of a Bowie fan, found him a bit too pretentious, plus I thought the dance was a bit ridiculous. Does Gordon think that life on Mars will be labour voters because it is the red planet.
Back in the mid 90's I always attacked the Tories and defended attacks against Labour having no policies by saying that they weren't in power therefore didn't have to have costed policies
That is still true today, the government are in charge (allegedly) and are there to be shot at, the opposition do not have to justify every last detail.
I will admit they have done some good but have made some very serious blunders - the worst of which is PFI. In the late 90s I became disillusioned with spin and sleaze - remember we had just had the implosion of the Major government - Labour turned out to be no better.
I was stupid enough to believe that labour would stop privatisations and the worst ravages of capitalism. However you want to spin it they have presided over the final hollowing out of the British economy, a process which really got going with Thatcher in the 80's. We are now left with a huge balance of payments problem, massive borrowing to be paid back way into the future and an economy which relies on us all selling each other coffee and mobile phones.
Leaders have to lead and get us to do things which we may not like but which will do us good. Labour have been too craven, have basically spun the fairy tale that all was well and would continue to be so. Well now the ducks have come home to roost, on the face of it the problem may be world wide but it is exposing the basic weaknesses in our economy.
It is not all the governments fault, we have allowed ourselves to become brainwashed to believe the line from the supermarkets that we need everything cheaper and cheaper and that they provide it.
Three more points:
1. IRAQ - somehow the blame was shifted onto the BBC and Andrew Gilligan - the one who got it right.
2. Don't think for one minute I am looking forward to having Cameron and his crowd in power, but it is like choosing between being shot or hanged.
3. How do you sleep at night ?
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322 Silly scion13 3/4
"Ithink I might change my name to tally-ho.... " etc.
Try it, it might be a change from being such a gloomy Tory twerp.
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#303 Chopper Harris
Quite right in your post regarding the inception of the FSA.
Furthermore, and this is a hard pill for certain correspondents here to swallow, it is well known that the FSA were "reined in" at various times by the present Prime Minister, as Chancellor, from more tightly regulating the hedge funds.
The reason for this was that there were various inducements for the party in power to treat these funds with a light touch - partly because they believed that they were good for the UK economy (the trickle down effect) and partly because they didn't want to be seen as anti-business.
I'm not implying that there were direct financial benefits to the Labour party (nor that there weren't...)
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317. At 10:52pm on 10 Jan 2009, derekbarker wrote:
#305
MellowYellow, Your abit obessessed with Zimbabwe, and inflation, under the last tory government borrowing was 43% of GDP and interest rates were as high as 15%.
As I have said on numerous occasions, its the real economy, people lifes and lively hood at stake, you keep alluding to printing more money which you say will have a devastating effect on inflation,
===
No I didn't!
===
"If your not a tory, then why do you give the impression of being a tory card holder by indorsing the do nothing plan?"
===
What are you talking about? Show me where I have endorsed (not indorsed) a do nothing plan. Go on, highlight one of my posts that says that.
===
"Your abit obessessed with Zimbabwe, and inflation, under the last tory government borrowing was 43% of GDP and interest rates were as high as 15%.
===
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.
http://tiny.cc/netdebt
So your point on this is?
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Typicial of the Professional Labour bloggers on here to try and talk up Labour policies.
The VAT cut isn't working. I don't know a single person that has welcomed it nor is stimulated to spend more by it. Its costing billions that could be put to better use.
The bald fact is that houses are too expensive, therefore mortgages and rents are too expensive and taxes are too high too, all soaking up vast amounts of wealth, which if stimulus is what you want is where you should focus your attention.
Lower taxes will allow people some disposable funds to spend in the shops. Its easy to afford, just axe any government projects that don't have an immediate savin g or return on their investment.
Funds also need to be put into social housing, to provide cheaper housing. I still don't understand the system where private rents are paide for by the government. Better to have cheap housing stock and save the admin costs.
The same can be said of tax credits: give tax breaks at source and save the huge admin fee of running the tax credits system in tandem with income tax.
Its not rocket science.
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derek@144
I am fed up to the back teeth with Labour quotes, out of context of course, of Margaret Thatcher's "no such thing as society". This is what she said:
""I think we've been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it's the government's job to cope with it. 'I have a problem, I'll get a grant.' 'I'm homeless, the government must house me.' They're casting their problem on society. And, you know, there is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women, and there are families. And no government can do anything except through people, and people must look to themselves first. It's our duty to look after ourselves and then, also to look after our neighbour. People have got the entitlements too much in mind, without the obligations. There's no such thing as entitlement, unless someone has first met an obligation."
Prime minister Margaret Thatcher, talking to Women's Own magazine, October 31 1987
And what are most people, including the Labour leading lights, now saying?
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#323 onward-ho
In November, last year, Duff Gordon decided to saddle each British household with a 40,000 pound debt by 2013 with interest payments collected through the tax system for decades. This will be Brown's legacy to Britain.
This is who will pay for Brown's debt binge.
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Nick
As you are an expert on all things economical now, I would suggest you look out for hyper inflation now our government is proposing to print money to get us out of this situation.
If this government truly had any ideas it would be to use the money it is making available to British Industry. It is only business that is going to get us out of this mess, and that is not the banks, but good sound businesses that make things or grow things or dig up things. That is where true wealth creation is.
Until we start to recognise this fact we are going to continue in this same manner of throwing good money after bad, and this will not restart anything. Also we don't want or need to borrow at the same levels, we just need to have a system to enable business to borrow. It was the borrowing that got us into the problems in the first place!
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318 Croydo
Update on pound sign:
The problem is with the browsers. Most are set on the wrong Text encoding. It should be set to western European. The pound sign does actually work:
On IE7 goto page->encoding->western European ISO. Then the pound sign will show.
On Mozilla Firefox go to view character western 8859-1
On Apple safari its view->text encoding->western European.
As most aren't set up it might be a good idea for the BBC to publish this information maybe it does. Otherwise its either the diamond with the question mark or square box. Or the GBP wish isn't very readable. It must be awful on Robert Pestons blog.
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#325 scargillwasright
As someone who has voted for all three parties (not at the same election, I hasten to add, and usually voted for the losers) I congratulate you on your balanced and reasoned comment. It would be good if more responses on here were like yours.
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'If your not a tory, then why do you give the impression of being a tory card holder by indorsing the do nothing plan?'
Here go again. This falsehood keeps rearing its ugly head on these blogs but it's run its course for anyone with an ounce of common sense. The word in 'endorsing' by the way.
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Derek and Onward
Rarely have I seen two people reach in debate a more ludicrous collective position than you two.
You have managed to tell us both that the nation's economic position is worse than we could ever imagine, but that we should always speak of it as if it was better than we would ever hope.
You say that the great leader is just that, and must never be criticised.
And the Tories are stuck in a policy timewarp best described in terms of a perpetual manic desire for individual enrichment coupled with general unemployment and poverty.
.... and other drivel.
Meanwhile, you cannot actually name any significant Labour stimulus policy other than the VAT shambles.
You also can't say anything about quantitative easing, except that to suggest either that it is going to happen or that it is in any way bad are both treasonous.
Well, the only thing a basically polite guy can say is, thanks for the trip to your private world, and I shall fortify myself for my return some day.
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#333 dhwilkinson:
Magic! - Thank you very much.
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324
Now I am not even in the bloomin' Labour Party but the Tory bias in this comments blog needs to be countered.And there's nothing better than a bit of namecalling.
Nobody knows what is going to happen exactly and when.
It is quaint how the Tories berate Gordon Brown for not predicting 100% of events.
What really sickened the Tories was how spot on Gordon Brown was for the first ten years....he was invincible.
And I think that Labour did have their eye off the ball at the start of the credit crunch, but so did the whole world.
But do not write this man off...he has a habit of landing jam side up and I think he will do it again.
The recent events have created winners and losers and discontent has grown........
look at this blog!
Brown has a heck of a lot to do .
Scargillwasright
The problem was that Blair and Brown had to lead the entire nation, it was not possible to only help a small fraction of the population.
And what happened in the UK was mirrored all over the world.
IRAQ: Gordon Brown is a genuinely good man, he is no fool...he will try to help to sort this out.
Under Labour we have had ten good years and a ropey year and a half.
Under the Tories we had three good years on but mostly off and fifteen rotten ones.....and that will be the choice people have to make......judging on the current situation versus the track record.
Now I understand people are angry, but do not put a cross on a piece of paper that will make most of us miserable under the Tories for the next generation.
And no-one can stop you doing it but you might regret it!
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New YouGov Poll out:
Loosen Britain's ties with European Union, saytwo-thirds of voters.
If this trend continues it looks like UKIP will gain at the expense of NuLabour and the Tories.
I look forward, with interest, to the 4th June!
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Prince Harry for PM
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#328
Agian you only tend to read the bits you like.
Click on your user name, there are a litany of quotes and attacks on the banking bail-out to the vat cuts, Know who else is endorsing those quotes?
Conspiracy or just plain old obsession,
Obese or Obsessed?
Yellow or Mellow?
A tory or A pol pot?
Are you trying to hide something?
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325
PFI
Imagine there had been no PFI....we would not have all these schools and hospitals and we would not be able to afford them now that land and wages are so high in price.
331
40000 pounds debt under Labour at 2 1/2 %pa costs 1000 pounds per annum in 2009 prices which is not a lot compared to 15% of say 15000pounds = 2250 pounds per annum in 1990s prices under the Tories ie about 5000 pounds per annum in 2009 prices....ie 5 x more then than now.
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#338 onward-ho
What a load of tosh!
Tony Blair: Decade of economic growth was luck.
And that is straight from the horses mouth!
It was not down to good management it was down to luck.
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#336
Time to hide the bottle, perry, far too much sherry.
The return of the Jedi.
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#333 dhwilkinson
Many thanks for that, I was stumped too.
===
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Look, Mr Darling, quantitative easing!
???????????????????????????????????
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336
".....us both..."
Perry are you in the same room as sherry?
You old devil you!
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338 onward-ho
How can you say we had 10 good year under Labour?
Rising fuel, tax, food and just the cost of living. NHS millions of pounds thrown at it and missed. Immigrants from allover the world comming here and taking jobs for a cheaper price. House prices going sky so people had to take a mortgage out for more than the are earning. More crime than ever before. Children carring knifes and stabbing each other. Jails are full. Soaring debt public and private etc etc.
Tell me what was good about it.
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dhw@333
As croydo@337 says magic indeed. Thank you so much!
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343
Roll-on deodorant needed ... Tory Bull---- alert !
That says more about the rivalry between TB and GB.
But even you admit ten good years out of 11 1/2 under labour
versus 3 outof eighteenunder the Tories.
And if that is luck then I'm a ........ a Tory with good grace to admit Labour ran the economy better than the Tories ever did.
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339
UKIP all you like , we'll stay awake and in Europe,thanks.
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Hold on who says Blair was joking about the 10 years of growth.
To be fair I liked Blair it was the idiots around him (Brown, Blunkett, Mandy, Prescot etc) that let him down.
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#341 dell
You had your chance and you blew it mate.
A chance to contribute something worthwhile to this debate. Others manage it, and I respect their beliefs, even if I don't agree with them.
You, on the other hand are an incoherent idiot as #341 proves.
You were mildly amusing, but you have lost even that now.
Your village says can you come back, as they are missing their idiot.
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What a lot of Nulab supporters out today. It must be because the Conservatives' business loan guarantee scheme is going to be adopted but in a Gordo thought of it first way. The Dark Lord was spinning it like that in Radio 4's 1pm News on Friday, when he said that business loan guarantee schemes had been mentioned in the PBR. Yes, they had, but the PBR mention was for the Small Firm Loan Guarantee scheme, which is a lesser proposition than the Conservative proposal. The SFLG already exists and has done for years. It guarantees 75% of the business loan for an extra 2% in interest and has limited appeal because not all banks offer it and they may attach conditions such as only offering it to start-up businesses.
Now, as I see it, and fellow bloggers with banking knowledge please correct me where I go wrong, banks want and need to lend because this is how they make their money and they need to make money to strengthen their balance sheets. The govt in its lack of wisdom is trying to get them to do contrary things. It wants them to lend, but has shackled them with repaying govt funding at 12% with bank rate at 1.5%. How can they make a profit in those conditions unless they lend HUGE amounts of money. And they can't lend huge amounts of money because they don't have the required capital to so. The potential result is bank losses which will further reduce capital adequacy, leading to further reductions in lending.
Now, let's take a step back. There are international regulations covering capital adequacy, to be found in the Basle 2 agreement, which IMHO is not the most sensible of documents for various reasons. Anyway, this agreement sets out the amount of capital required to cover the risk perceived in various types of loan and the security taken for those loans, so a loan secured by a 100% cash pledge theoretically has no risk, but a loan with no security pledge carries 100% risk. This may not be completely accurate because I'm out of touch with recent developments, but the principle is that a loan with 100% risk has to have 100% capital cover. Just to cover the cost of capital borrowed at 12% from the govt, the bank will need to charge a risky borrower 12% plus a bit to cover the bank's running costs. This rate of interest charge will make the loan even riskier.
If the govt provides 100% guarantees for business loans, the bank doesn't have to earmark its capital and can lend at a much lower rate and, hopefully, get some businesses back on track. The risk to taxpayers lies in the strength or weakness of a bank's ability to assess the risk in a business's loan application, and I would hope that 100% guarantees are not provided to applications that are considered pretty risky or there will be a huge taxpayer cost.
I think the Conservatives approach is sensible in this guarantee proposal, in the abolition of tax at the basic rate on savings interest, and in increasing personal tax allowances. I noticed that the Nulab line is that it's encouraging people to save when they should be spending. Well, we need people to save what they can to improve the banks' balance sheets so they can lend again and, for those people who rely on savings interest for income, there will be more income so they can spend more rather than apply for state benefits.
Incidentally, does anyone know if the banks have now actually received the promised money? When ministers were making a lot of fuss about banks not lending, they forgot to mention the fact that the banks hadn't received the funds, which I think were supposed to finally appear this month.
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maggyisgod @ 10
"Instead of the Government giving our money to the banks, why not ask how much you owe in debt give you that amount then you give it to the banks you owe money to.
So if you owe around 12k Gordon gives you the 12k you then pay the banks, credit cards etc off. They get their money you have no debt and are free to start spending without going into debt.
Now I'm not saving this what to do its just a idea that might have worked as nothing seems to be working now.
Please can some say if this a good idea or not."
i suggested some time ago now, that the £8000 pounds per person (aged 18 or over), given to the banks in the form of the taxpayer bail out, would have been better going directly to the individual.
regardless of how everyone spent their £8000, the banks would have had this money. brown told us that this was to "stimulate" the economy?
- pay off debts - the banks lower their debts and more money is available for borrowing
- spend it in the shops - business gets valuable turnover and banks get business debts paid off, increasing the bank's turnover
- stash it in a savings account - the bank gains valuable finance and competition for savings accounts is kept healthy
which ever way, the banks end up with the cash.
what better way of "stimulating the economy" could there be?
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Politics should not be like hooligans fighting about whose going to win the league and then lose the World Cup every time.
Try discussing things without mentioning dirty words like Tory / Labour / Liberal etc to improve standards
Brazil have more synergy style and flair in their "Samba de Futebol"
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Big jobs push for the Government this morning on the BBC.
No mention though that Gordon Brown is recruiting a Butler at Taxpayers expense.
Yes everybody else in Britain is worrying that they may lose their Job and Home but Superman the lifelong socialist now needs a Butler.
If it were any other party than Labour Crick and Robinson would have this as the subject of their next blog but we know the score it will be a Tory focused diversion.
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even if you say the government / opposition are bad it sounds objective rather than subjective and more intellectal
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#338 onward-ho
Under Labour we have had ten good years and a ropey year and a half.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Any halfwit can go on a 10 year spending spree that is true Labour.
You just end up looking like a novice when you say you have ended Boom & Bust then the roof caves in.
Even Blair disagrees with you he thinks it was luck due to the rise of China's output deflating prices
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#338 onward-ho
Under Labour we have had ten good years and a ropey year and a half.
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I would also make the point that those ten good years won't look so good after the next 15 + years paying off the debt, unemployment & shattered lives.
The complete mismanagment of the economy over this Labour period will be a millstone round ours and further generations necks.
Even you can surely see that we are at the start of paying for another Labour spending party that will lead where they have lead us every time they have had power, to economic ruin?
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Couple of interesting pieces in the Times this morning.
Apprenticeships are a key plank in developing real skills needed now and in the future. However...
"In 2003, when he was still Chancellor, Gordon Brown promised that there would be 320,000 apprenticeships by 2006, going on to commit himself: "to double apprenticeship numbers to 500,000" last year.
However, figures released by Learning and Skills Council show there were only 239,000 apprenticeships in place by last year."
Brown announced that he (he?) will create an additional 35,000 apprenticeships.
So that should make 535,000 in total.
I keep muttering that it's not the announcement, the sound-bite, the statement of intent that defines a government. It's what they actually DO.
If most Ministers were on "performance-related bonuses", they wouldn't have got much extra in their pay packets...
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Sorry - that should have read a piece in the Telegraph!
And similarly, the following, a nice little bit about recycling / disposal of waste or biomass from Christopher Booker.
"...The ImechE report asks why, unlike other countries in Europe, we are not using some of the 300 million tons of waste we produce each year as fuel to generate large amounts of heat and power.
Absurdly, because the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has chosen to classify all this under EU legislation only as "waste", it is far too expensive to burn it as fuel, because this would need to comply with the Waste Incineration directive, requiring hugely expensive scrubbing equipment to avoid pollution.
However what Defra, astonishingly, has missed (as also, to be fair, did the ImechE), is that, under EU directive 2001/77, paper, cardboard and other biodegradable waste used for fuel is classified not as waste but as "biomass", counting as a "renewable energy source". The waste incineration directive does not apply.
If Defra was capable of reading EU law correctly, what a remarkable prospect this might open up for Britain, and for all those councils which are making such an outrageous mess of our waste disposal. If we consider waste paper and cardboard alone, we produce around 12.5 million tons a year. If all this could be burned as fuel to generate power, its calorific value is up to 60 per cent greater than that of the wood chips ad other vegetable matter we currently use as biomass, to help meet our EU target of 32 per cent of our electricity from renewables by 2020......"
I bleat on about the masses of legislation pouring through Parliament, with little checking of intent and its real impact.
Surely all these very expensive "advisors" beloved of Ministers could work out what to do about waste mountains here (benefiting us), rather than moaning about not being able to ship it to China?
Dream on.
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How amazing this treatment of Prince Harry over what he may have said to a fellow soldier!
Somebody is not living in the real world because if they were they would know that term is widely used by old and young, rich and poor, black and white across the UK!
Would Prince Harry have been offended had he been called a "Brit" then?
George Osborne has been called worse than that by people on this blog.
This country has gone pc mad. Especially over the last ten or eleven years.
Change is needed fast.
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Re Prince Harry. I am a pommy to the Australiasians. Irish are paddies, NZ people are Kiwis and so on.
I never ever heard them being offended, grabbing headlines etc etc.
If this gets moderated it will be another example.
Absolutely typical of what this country has become under Labour. Hopeless.
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DerekB
You mentioned the better distribution of wealth. Something I guess most Brits would sympathise with.
It's always hard to determine what is a "fair" distribution.
What staggered me was Brown deciding to abolish the 10p tax band. In effect doubling the tax rate for those on low income.
How on earth that helps re-distribute "wealth" completely baffles me.
It just makes lower income citizens/subjects have to grovel to get back money that has to be expensively re-cycled via government departments.
That's definitely NOT fair.
And still unresolved...
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#342 onward-ho wrote: Imagine there had been no PFI....we would not have all these schools and hospitals and we would not be able to afford them now that land and wages are so high in price.
Some facts:
PFI contracts are 30% higher than if they had been publically-funded (I believe Ken Livingstone made this same point some years ago at a time when he was less friendly with Gordon).
By October 2007 PFI liabilities were 56 billion GBP with an ongoing financial commitment to pay GBP 180 billion by 2032.
PFI contracts are off-balance sheet and do not show up in the national debt.
My comments:
Gordon's PFI contracts were a (too-)clever Enron-style accounting scam that enabled him to keep within his golden fiscal rules (which he tore up recently). However, the tax-payer still has to eventually pay back all these liabilities, plus interest, plus profits for the private sector. However, for Gordon the extra billions of debt placed on future generations was a price worth paying (by extra I mean the additional costs of PFI contracts over state-funded borrowing). The PFI scam allowed him to strut the stage in his self-styled role of financial genius, fawned over by an audience of star-struck political journalists.
No one forced Gordon to impose these golden rules on himself in 1997, and no one forced him to circumvent them. I find it difficult to view this particular politician with anything other than total contempt.
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The supposedly 10 good years under Labour that is being pushed on here by a so called 'floater' were exposed as a complete sham about 6 months ago. We were riding on a Govt/Banks fuelled credit bubble which has now well and truly burst with painful consequences for all.
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wrong again it isn't totally the browser. For some reason this site changes the character set to utf-8. so you will have to keep going to text encoding after starting the blog comments. A good idea may be to use both £xxxGBP.£=pound sign using the keyboard no ampersand code necessary.
Blog
BBC News uses the encoding I've mentioned.
If this blog used the bbc news version, then there would probably be no problem with the pound sign. A most useful feature in these times. For both Robinson and Peston. Must be some reason for it beyond my patchy knowledge. Wikipedia is unreadable on the subject.
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#366:
In other words we sold our financial soul to the devil exchanging 10 good years for a long period of abstinence which even a new Government will not be able to turn around quickly, the consequences of which will inevitably be borne by ourselves as well as our children for years to come.
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#325 scargillwasright
A pleasure to read a piece that doesn't try to re-write history.
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# 329 Delphius1
Typical Tory response.
Keep the poor in poverty and in thrall to the state, whilst making the well-off even better off.
When will you learn that trickle-down economics is a recipe from the madhouse?
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#350 onward-ho:
"we'll stay awake and in Europe"
The recession of the early 90's was caused by the government's attempt to support the £ in the ERM, which effectively gave away many billions of pounds of real money to speculators. Being in the ERM, effectively tied to the German Mark, was a requirement to joining the single currency, the Euro.
It would appear that as a supporter of Europe, as were many in the early 90's, particularly in the Libdems and many Labour as well, you would have agreed that being in the ERM was essential. The Europe issue was the reason why the Conservatives became a divided party in the 90's, being a large factor in their downfall in 1997.
The reason why Britain was unable to stay in the ERM was that the British economy was unable to compete with Europe, principally the Germans, so the pound had to sink in value as a safety valve, so our products were still competitive.
Had we joined the Euro, the result would have been mass UK unemployment because those making things in this country would have been unable to make them for as low a price as those in Europe. Unless there is a radical improvement in efficiency the result would be the same if we joined the Euro now.
Coming out of the ERM and devaluing the pound made British industry able to compete again and resulted in the recovery through the mid and late 90's. The downside was that everybody here got poorer because of the devaluation.
As we are not in the Euro, we still have this ability to make ourselves more competitive (and poorer) by devaluation. If we were in the Euro now it would make a bad situation even worse, the only option being for people in this country to be paid less across the board, including the public sector, or to lose their jobs.
Unfortunately for us, much of the fall in the pound against the Euro has now been undone because the Euro has fallen as well, making the pound apparently worth more and eroding our competitive advantage. This will mean that unemployment/pay cuts will have to be greater.
If you are still keen on being in Europe (which I am not against), you have to accept the downside as well.
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# 340 maggyisgod
Sounds like you want a full blooded dilettante for PM.
Probably better to keep plugging for David Cameron then.
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#349 onward-ho
Just were in my post at #343 did I admit to 10 good years under NuLabour?
Looks like you make your gibberish up as you go along and like NuLabour waffle on about anything that fills your empty head, weather its true or false. Like NuLabour you cannot see the difference between the truth and a falsehood.
The following article demonstrates the fallout from the last 10 years of NuLabour:
Housing crash creates tax black hole.
It was during NuLabours first 10 years that they helped dig the Black Hole that we are currently being sucked into. And the best that Flash Gordon can come up with is to keep on digging.
Here is another piece of info straight from the horse?s mouth:
Downing St. last September, admitted that they knew about the Housing Bubble but they decided to run with it!
I feel sure I don?t need to advocate why. That has been done on many blogs by various people on many occasions. Indeed the answer is in the article above.
Ministers knew of housing bubble
#338 onward-ho
324
Your bit at the head of your post at #349 Roll-on deodorant needed ... Tory Bull---- alert !
Says it all.
One last point - Labour are those people sat in the disconnected carriages left in the station when the NuLabour project pulled out of the station in 1997.
We now live in Loony NuLabour land?..regrettably!
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#370:
The Labour Government of course have done a briliant job of making the poor more wealthy and the wealthy poorer off, not.
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370 vor_tecks wrote:
# 329 Delphius1
"Typical Tory response.
Keep the poor in poverty and in thrall to the state, whilst making the well-off even better off.
When will you learn that trickle-down economics is a recipe from the madhouse?"
--------------------------------
Sorry, vor-tecks. Don't understand your comment. Delphius suggested allowing people to keep more of their own money and investing in public housing.
Don't see how that equates to "keeping the poor in poverty and in thrall to the state".
Increasing the tax-burden on the poorer and making them claim "tax-credits and allowances" keeps them firmly under the thumb of the state.
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# 362 flamepatricia
Barely concealed racism is what it is, and it is sad to hear an intelligent person espouse such nonsense.
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364 fairlyopenmind
There's an interesting (I hope!) back-story to the 10p tax debacle
Back when it was announced in the budget, the removal of of the 10p rate was mentioned in the middle of the speech in a fairly anodyne way, with very little response from either the Labour benches or the opposition. Then the reduction of the basic rate, to which it was intimately connected, was announced right at the end in a sudden grand flourish, immediately before DC had to stand up and do the opposition response. What is less well known is that the printed version of the budget speech, which is usually made available to MPs just before the speech starts, was on this occasion delayed until after DC had got up to speak. Inevitably, DC was wrong-footed by the basic rate reduction, because it wasn't easy to see in the heat of the moment how it had been afforded. Accordingly his speech was rather weaker than it could have been. On the other hand, Menzies Campbell, who led for the Liberals, had those vital extra few minutes to read back through the budget speech, appreciate the point (i.e. that the 10p rate removal and the basic rate reduction were intimately connected) and therefore was able to adjust his speech accordingly.
It has always been my view (supported as I recall by whoever was doing the real time commentary for the BBC at the time) that the whole thing was a coordinated stunt, concocted by Brown (who has a peculiar love for such things) to get one over on the opposition. The 10p rate removal can therefore be seen as callous indifference to the people who benefited from it. The whole objective of the entire measure was to mess up Cameron's budget response speech, and Brown didn't care in the least who he stamped on in order to achieve that.
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Labour unrest grows as Prescott supports rebels opposing sale of Royal Mail
Looks like things can only get bitter or was it better, I cant quite remember!
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325 Scargillwasright
Excellent post. I suspect there are many people who feel exactly the same about many of the points you raise.
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flamepatricia
I'm not sure how these secret services work
but maybe when the price is 'out of action'
he's really 'back in action?' but maybe not
(please disregard)
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The one thing I do note on these bloggs
In general conservative posters tend to attack the Government policies - whereas Labour posters tend to be attacking the conservative people themselves - ad hominem - you know Eton toffs etc
A lot is being said about Obama - 12 months ago the response of most people would have been 'Obama who?' He's good at oratory, granted, but he has no experience at runninng a country - in fact his entire strategy for the USA recession is to spend money he doesn't have i.e. increasing the USA National debt bya few trillion dollars. The USA have NEVER reduced the debt that its carrying and if investors decide that the USA is carrying too much then they will sell and the USA will go down in flames. (metaphorically speaking of course).
In fact you can look at any recession and you will find that the end result is that the Givernment soaks up bad debt as the money-lenders' ponzi scheme crashes. - and then starts again.
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Whoops, screwed up link at #378?whatever NuLabour have must be catching!
Labour unrest grows as Prescott supports rebels opposing sale of Royal Mail
Looks like things can only get bitter or was it better, I cant quite remember!
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dhwilkinson @333
Thanks for the advice on how to see pound signs (?).
I'm using Apple Safari and have updated my view of text encoding to 'Western (Mac OS Roman)' and as a result I can now see pound signs galore. (Please don't tell Broon or he'll want to tax me...)
Why has this been a problem only on the BBC blogs? I've never encountered this quirk anywhere else. Is this some kind of dastardly commie-leftie-EU-federalist plot to force us to adopt the euro (?)? I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was.... ;-)
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For any one who is interested here is a blog by Prescott at Labourhome.
No Ifs, No Buts for Barclays' Humbug.
From observations of the comments to his blog it appears he has not rallied the NuLabour Numpties!
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#381 weejonnie
Good post, I agree.
It?s a wonder Flash did not wade in with his usual panache and say:
This is no time for a novice.
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scargillwasright @325 wrote:
"Don't think for one minute I am looking forward to having Cameron and his crowd in power, but it is like choosing between being shot or hanged.
I'd definitely choose being shot: no scratchy rope around one's neck or black bag on one's head, plus you get to have a final cigarette (unless the Health and Safety gestapo won't allow it as it might shorten one's life......
Seriously though, I'd choose Cameron. I don't like him but, as I've said before, I'd vote for a pig's head on a stick if it stood against this shambles of a government.
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refering to my comment 333 about displaying pound signs.
Slightly wrong, for some reason this site changes the character set to utf-8. so
you will need to go to text encoding every time you start up the blog comments. A good idea may be to use both £xxxGBP.£=pound sign using the key no ampersand code necessary.
Blog sets the text encoding like this:
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" />
BBC News uses the encoding I've mentioned like this.
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
If this blog used the BBC News line, then there would probably be no problem with the pound sign. A most useful feature in these times. For both Robinson and Peston. There Must be some reason for it though, beyond my patchy knowledge. Wikipedia is unreadable on the subject.
Sent this again code didn't show the first time either the brackets weren't replaced with ampersand codes or the BBC didn't like me printing the code. Sorry if its the latter. I know this is probably boring but this subject has run its course and has turned into a southern England vs Scotland civil war between the Tories and Derek Barker. so its seems like a good opportunity to take steps to improve the blog from its current failing status.
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#362:
Tend to agree. It wasn't that long ago that a female Big Brother contestant was expelled without warning for innocently using a street term (in friendly conversation with a fellow contestant) accepted by all on the street. Harry slipped these terms in 3 years ago without meaning them to be in any way derogatory towards his fellow soldiers and it was a home movie after all. Typical mud stirring by The News of The World and I would be interested to know how they actually managed to get hold of the film in the first place.
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wee jonnie @ 381 wrote:
'In general conservative posters tend to attack the Government policies - whereas Labour posters tend to be attacking the conservative people themselves - ad hominem - you know Eton toffs etc.'
Agree with you although it is probably a minority of bitter, blinkered bloggers who tend to use this ploy.
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Kikidread. Sorry, but what on earth are you trying to say to me? I cannot decipher your strange code.
Can you tell me plainly what you want to say please?
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Crisis-hit businessmen asked for 20 pounds to meet Gordon Brown.
Prescott
With regards the last remark, I can run with that. I will chip in 50 pounds!
Roll On 2010.
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LOL How did you find out? I shall have to inform the great leader about this. If I don't I will be punished.
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#386 MaxSceptic
I agree. I don?t especially like Cameron or the Tories, but I do hate this shambles we call a government.
Looks like a pigs head on a stick for me also!
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What I can't understand is why can't Labour find anyone with any talent in their own ranks anymore?
Milburn is back
Blunkett is on the cards ( God help us)
Are all of the rest of the 400 MP's stupid or are they just not up to the job?
Whats going on?
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Prince Harry, who as the son of a very broken, dysfunctional marriage, has really done very well, yet continues to be haunted by the press. His work in Africa, his empathy with hungry and ill children, his eagerness to join the armed forces, are all but nothing when the journalists jump upon him for calling people 'names'. Rather the newspapers and the authorities should concentrate on asking why so-called western citizens turn to the barbaric practices of an alien culture and throw shoes at police and others when they have a political agenda. It is not the British way to demonstrate by throwing shoes, next we will be punishing unfaithful wives by stoning to death. Be careful, very careful, that day may not be so far away.
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386
Your dead right.
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flamepatricia
you know and I know name calling isn't a big deal especially in the army, and the army often go on secret missions which become more delicate when the prince is involved
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Morning Folks.
I blogged yesterday a few times questioning the "Save Save Save" policy of the Tories as an effective way to steer us out of the global downturn.
William Keegan, Senior Economist in the Business Section of the Observer gives a much better explanation than myself this morning in his article;
"When there's no cashflow, Mr Cameron, Saving Won't Save us"
The timing is purely coincidental but those with an open mind may want to look, I don't expect the majority of Tory Flag Wavers willl bother.
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343. Roll_On_2010
I missed the luck comment.. fantastic, thanks.
I have wondered how long it would take him to start teasing Brown from the sidelines after
I bet that little off the cuff remark caused at least 3 nights tossing, turning, sulking, brooding and plotting at no 10.
Poor old Sarah Brown, must be like sleeping with bear with a thorn in its arse.
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#325 Left of Scargill
Excellent post and good to find