General Election 2010

[Guest alex]

Aye but that word could be used to describe most of the electorate tbf.

 

It would be interesting to see the reaction to someone who was just totally honest = sort of like Alan Bas'tard combined with the Jim Carrey character in Liar Liar. "You spoilt middle class cunts", "Underclass charver scum", "Coffin dodging homphobic, racist twats" would be good ways to address crowds.

Used to love The New Statesman

[Renton 22047]

How the fuck do you forget you are still wearing a microphone??

 

Five Live has just described how an anonymous tech person at the BBC left a microphone on a particularly demanding and obnoxious diva when she went to the toilet. Apparently the resulting noises were eye watering.

[Craig 6700]

The problem is that there is a large proportion of the electorate who consider themselves 'floating voters' and who honestly do not yet know which way they're going to vote.

 

They all have concerns on different issues and many see this lady as having put her concerns across, maybe not as succinctly and PC as you'd expect but then she's simply a voter who wants answers.

 

Trouble is, this a woman who has backed Brown's party all her life and gave him absolutely no suggestion she wasn't going to do the same in a week's time. Whether 'bigot' is the correct choice of words or whether he said it in the heat of the moment is largely irrelevant. He was seen to be out of touch and totally misunderstand a voter who clearly had already made up her mind (at that point).

 

Consequently it's bound to have a massive knock-on effect to those 'undecided' voters and there's several I've talked to this morning who's attitude is "well I'm certainly not voting for him, he's miles out of touch".

 

I suspect their opinion is shared by many.

[Phil 6]

I hope this doesn't distract the debate tomorrow night from focusing on the key issue, i.e. the bare-faced lie that is "Brown as economic saviour".

 

Well, compared to Cameron he pretty much is actually. What would have happened if Cameron and Osbourne had let the banks collapse?

 

Sorry, I should have clarified: the line needs to be that it's a bit rich positioning yourself as the great rescuer when you were complicit in creating the problem and exposing the country to the global crisis to a massive extent in the first place.

 

True, but what's done is done now, and we are hardly unique in this aspect. I want to back the best man to get us out of the mess, and think Brown is still best qualified to do it.

 

 

Daftest thing I've ever read.

 

 

Brown got us into this mess by piss poor planning. We had the biggest economic boom in ages and rather paying off our debt and saving for future issues like the pension time bomb or banking collapse like the Australia did, he wasted it while making arrogant claims (e.g. 'end of boom and bust' etc...).

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it.

 

What baffles me is Gordon has the cheek to attack the Conservatives aim to cut 6 billion spending to try and reduce it, while claiming he will reduce it by half in four years. Wake up and smell the coffee mate, even Shepard would agree borrowing 14 billion a month is wrong.

 

 

The conservatives have laid out their plan to regulate the banking sector and force them to lend, which will stimulate SME and grow the economy. Super Gordon wants to piss away more money on public services which has created an unsustainable reliance on the public sector.

 

 

If you want the country to stand any chance vote conservative, if you want to work until you die and live in a crappy over crowed care home with a worthless pension, stick with Gordon - the debt is out of control.

[Happy Face 29]

I hope this doesn't distract the debate tomorrow night from focusing on the key issue, i.e. the bare-faced lie that is "Brown as economic saviour".

 

Well, compared to Cameron he pretty much is actually. What would have happened if Cameron and Osbourne had let the banks collapse?

 

Sorry, I should have clarified: the line needs to be that it's a bit rich positioning yourself as the great rescuer when you were complicit in creating the problem and exposing the country to the global crisis to a massive extent in the first place.

 

True, but what's done is done now, and we are hardly unique in this aspect. I want to back the best man to get us out of the mess, and think Brown is still best qualified to do it.

 

 

Daftest thing I've ever read.

 

 

Brown got us into this mess by piss poor planning. We had the biggest economic boom in ages and rather paying off our debt and saving for future issues like the pension time bomb or banking collapse like the Australia did, he wasted it while making arrogant claims (e.g. 'end of boom and bust' etc...).

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it.

 

What baffles me is Gordon has the cheek to attack the Conservatives aim to cut 6 billion spending to try and reduce it, while claiming he will reduce it by half in four years. Wake up and smell the coffee mate, even Shepard would agree borrowing 14 billion a month is wrong.

 

 

The conservatives have laid out their plan to regulate the banking sector and force them to lend, which will stimulate SME and grow the economy. Super Gordon wants to piss away more money on public services which has created an unsustainable reliance on the public sector.

 

 

If you want the country to stand any chance vote conservative, if you want to work until you die and live in a crappy over crowed care home with a worthless pension, stick with Gordon - the debt is out of control.

 

Or if you think they're both shite go with one of the many other options.

[Renton 22047]

I hope this doesn't distract the debate tomorrow night from focusing on the key issue, i.e. the bare-faced lie that is "Brown as economic saviour".

 

Well, compared to Cameron he pretty much is actually. What would have happened if Cameron and Osbourne had let the banks collapse?

 

Sorry, I should have clarified: the line needs to be that it's a bit rich positioning yourself as the great rescuer when you were complicit in creating the problem and exposing the country to the global crisis to a massive extent in the first place.

 

True, but what's done is done now, and we are hardly unique in this aspect. I want to back the best man to get us out of the mess, and think Brown is still best qualified to do it.

 

 

Daftest thing I've ever read.

 

 

Brown got us into this mess by piss poor planning. We had the biggest economic boom in ages and rather paying off our debt and saving for future issues like the pension time bomb or banking collapse like the Australia did, he wasted it while making arrogant claims (e.g. 'end of boom and bust' etc...).

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it.

 

What baffles me is Gordon has the cheek to attack the Conservatives aim to cut 6 billion spending to try and reduce it, while claiming he will reduce it by half in four years. Wake up and smell the coffee mate, even Shepard would agree borrowing 14 billion a month is wrong.

 

 

The conservatives have laid out their plan to regulate the banking sector and force them to lend, which will stimulate SME and grow the economy. Super Gordon wants to piss away more money on public services which has created an unsustainable reliance on the public sector.

 

 

If you want the country to stand any chance vote conservative, if you want to work until you die and live in a crappy over crowed care home with a worthless pension, stick with Gordon - the debt is out of control.

 

The debt was perfectly manageable until the ripple effect from the sub prime crisis in the US fucked up just about every economy in the Western world. We are not alone in this and would have been completely fucked if we had followed the tory plans during the peak of the crisis. And now its the same old story from the Eton brigade - tax relief for the super rich and specific plans to fuck the North East over as Cameron admitted last week. As for tax relief for married couples, parents setting up new schools etc, what a joke. Amateur stuff which hasn't been properly thought out.

 

Your last sentence reeks of scaremongering, or perhaps you've just not had a very good time of it of late. For me personally I recognise all the good things Labour have done whilst in power - massive improvements to the NHS, to schools, minimum wage, working tax credits, winter heating allowance for the elderly, etc, etc. The fact that the tories in opposition objected to most of these things tells its own story. In the last decade since Labour has been in power our citiy centres have also been virtually rebuilt (for the better in general). We've had genuinely good times and now are suffering the hangover of a global recession, but it is NOTHING compared to Thatcher under the 80s.

[NJS 4411]

I know its "what if" but the Tories wouldn't have put the money away as Phil suggests - they would have given out tax cuts which would have fuelled even more of a housing boom here which would have made the crash sooner/deeper.

 

Given a choice between that money having been spent on the public services or the rich, I favour the former.

[Happy Face 29]

For the nth time, I will point out the difference between strategy and tactics and suggest that David Cameron and George Osborne are rather better at the latter than the former.

 

Watching Gordon Brown, Alistair Darling and Peter Mandelson take apart the Tories’ National Insurance deception – glad to see they were calling a spade a spade – was a reminder of that esssential Tory weakness.

 

They assume that if they get a good media hit out of something, they have won the day. And they think if they win enough days in the media war, they will win with the public.

 

Yet even with the media heavily loaded in their favour, and even with the hit they enjoyed with their NICs rabbit the other day, and the roll-out of business support, it does not appear to have had the desired efffect. And it is interesting that is they who want to move the debate away from this particular issue, and Labour and the Lib Dems who want to keep a focus upon it.

 

I had all but forgotten about the James Report until GB mentioned it this morning. It brought back awful memories of the last campaign in 2005 when this heavy tome was unleashed upon us, identifying all sorts of areas where government could save money and so fund the promises being made by the Tories.

 

It took a while, but bit by bit we pulled it apart until its credibility was gone. The same is now happening to the four page memo on which DC and GO appear to be basing their entire economic ’strategy.’

 

By happy coincidence, this morning’s press conference took place against the backdrop of an OECD report suggesting the UK was better placed than other countries to emerge from the recession strongly.

 

That sense of recovery, and the government’s role in it, is without doubt one of the reasons why the Tories are failing to pull away in the way they had hoped to by this stage of the campaign. But the inexperience and judgement of DC and GO are also factors, as is the sense many people have of their elitism and their lack of connection with most people’s lives.

 

One of the most efffective parts of this morning’s event was when Alistair Darling reminded people of the serial misjudgements Osborne and Cameron made at the time the global economic crisis struck. This latest misjudgement – a promise of a tax cut without real explanation as to its funding days after saying the deficit was priority number 1 – stands in a long line.

 

As GB mentioned a few times in PMQs exchanges in the last year or so, the Tories were wrong on the recession and wrong on the recovery. Tactics will only take you so far if your strategic response to the single most important event of the last Parliament, and the single most important issue for the next one, is wrong.

[ChezGiven 0]

Attributing causality to a global economic recession to a UK policy-maker is daft iyam.

 

The only expansionary method to re-ignite a stalled economy when real interest rates are 0% is a Kenynesian fiscal approach. You cut the debt by growing the economy, cutting government expenditure will not open opportunites for private investment when banks are not lending. If you want the private sector to invest more, you try to get their money out of banks and into projects by reducing interest rates (and to ensourage borrowing). When the interest rate is effectively 0 but investors are not lending, then you have to use other methods to kick-start the economy. Hence Kenynes is back in fashion.

 

All that needs to happen is for the UK economy to grow which will increase tax revenue, reduce government liabilities and reduce the debt. The debt is an issue because short-term bond traders are bearish due to lack of growth in the economy. Reverse that and you reverse the problem. So who is best placed to deliver growth?

 

Vote for who you want but dont base it on what Brown said about the Conservatives expenditure plans, as most experts agree with Brown.

 

Parky is right in that whoever wins this election is in for a shit-storm in 6 months IF the economy is still stagnant.

[brummiemag1 0]

I hope this doesn't distract the debate tomorrow night from focusing on the key issue, i.e. the bare-faced lie that is "Brown as economic saviour".

 

Well, compared to Cameron he pretty much is actually. What would have happened if Cameron and Osbourne had let the banks collapse?

 

Sorry, I should have clarified: the line needs to be that it's a bit rich positioning yourself as the great rescuer when you were complicit in creating the problem and exposing the country to the global crisis to a massive extent in the first place.

 

True, but what's done is done now, and we are hardly unique in this aspect. I want to back the best man to get us out of the mess, and think Brown is still best qualified to do it.

 

 

Daftest thing I've ever read.

 

 

Brown got us into this mess by piss poor planning. We had the biggest economic boom in ages and rather paying off our debt and saving for future issues like the pension time bomb or banking collapse like the Australia did, he wasted it while making arrogant claims (e.g. 'end of boom and bust' etc...).

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it.

 

What baffles me is Gordon has the cheek to attack the Conservatives aim to cut 6 billion spending to try and reduce it, while claiming he will reduce it by half in four years. Wake up and smell the coffee mate, even Shepard would agree borrowing 14 billion a month is wrong.

 

 

The conservatives have laid out their plan to regulate the banking sector and force them to lend, which will stimulate SME and grow the economy. Super Gordon wants to piss away more money on public services which has created an unsustainable reliance on the public sector.

 

 

If you want the country to stand any chance vote conservative, if you want to work until you die and live in a crappy over crowed care home with a worthless pension, stick with Gordon - the debt is out of control.

 

The debt was perfectly manageable until the ripple effect from the sub prime crisis in the US fucked up just about every economy in the Western world. We are not alone in this and would have been completely fucked if we had followed the tory plans during the peak of the crisis. And now its the same old story from the Eton brigade - tax relief for the super rich and specific plans to fuck the North East over as Cameron admitted last week. As for tax relief for married couples, parents setting up new schools etc, what a joke. Amateur stuff which hasn't been properly thought out.

 

Your last sentence reeks of scaremongering, or perhaps you've just not had a very good time of it of late. For me personally I recognise all the good things Labour have done whilst in power - massive improvements to the NHS, to schools, minimum wage, working tax credits, winter heating allowance for the elderly, etc, etc. The fact that the tories in opposition objected to most of these things tells its own story. In the last decade since Labour has been in power our citiy centres have also been virtually rebuilt (for the better in general). We've had genuinely good times and now are suffering the hangover of a global recession, but it is NOTHING compared to Thatcher under the 80s.

 

Agree with you 100%. A lot of people must have short memories or be too young to remember the Thatcher years if they planning to vote Tory.

 

Once elected the Tories will see this as an historic opportunity to smash the public sector and the public sector unions once and for all and finish the work Thatcher started- it will be a world of sevices being contracted out to the lowest bidders with low wages, non unionised labour with no rights and mass unemployment. This will help fund tax cuts for the better off.

 

After a couple of years of a Tory Government an awful lot of people will bitterly regret the day they were stupid enough to vote Conservative

[Happy Face 29]

As reported in the US....

 

Did you know that The U.K. is having its own adorable election right now? Prime Minister and noted bully Gordon Brown is in a bit of hot water for calling an old lady a "bigoted woman." Into an open mic. Right after talking to her. And she is (or was!) a supporter.

 

The lady is named Gillian Duffy. She's a lifelong Labour voter. She was apparently heckling Brown as he gave an interview, and Brown's aides suggested that it would be very statesmanly of him to talk to her instead of ignoring her. Her primary complaint: there are too many Eastern Europeans in England!

 

Brown reasonably pointed out that there are lots of British people in Europe, and Europeans certainly aren't thrilled about that, and then they had a nice little talk and that was the end of it. Until Brown got into his car and a hilarious Armando Iannucci programme broke out.

 

PM: That was a disaster. Should never have put me with that woma ... whose idea was that?

Second voice: I don't know, I didn't see her.

PM: It's Sue, I think. It's just ridiculous. (Muffled sounds)

SV: What did she say?

PM: Ugh, everything - she's just a sort of bigoted woman, said she used to be Labour. It's just ridiculous

 

The best part of the video is not actually the PM calling her a bigot (while bullying an aide). The best part is that Brown is the least charismatic person on that entire island of uncharismatic sallow depressives. "Helping people, that's what we're about," he drones to the lady, lifelessly. As she leaves he belatedly remembers to ask this pensioner about her grandchildren, and he seems like he immediately regrets that decision once she turns back around to actually talk about them.

 

Brown's day continued to be a savage satirical mockumentary as he was then taped listening to the tape of him embarrassing himself:

 

 

In England, this sort of thing is called an "Uncle Major," which is Cockney rhyming slang for "a hilarious gaffe committed a week before the election by the guy polling in third place already."

 

Here's LibDem leader Nick Clegg—currently the most popular person in the UK solely because he is neither Gordon "Bigot-Bully" Brown nor an unctuous Tory—saying Brown was right to apologize, because it's rude to say mean things about old ladies in the privacy of your car when you forget you're wearing a live mic.

 

 

Thanks to Britain's first-past-the-post voting system, Brown can probably call every pensioner in Greater Manchester a bigot and still end up with, at the least, a Labour/LibDem coalition government.

 

http://www.salon.com/news/gordon_brown/ind...d_woman_britain

 

[NJS 4411]

Parky is right in that whoever wins this election is in for a shit-storm in 6 months IF the economy is still stagnant.

 

The problem for me is that if the Tories win and the economy "naturally" recovers then they'll live on the kudos for another 2 or 3 terms which will give them time to do real, Thatcher style damage to the country.

 

I do think Brown overstated his good management after effectively taking over an economy in decent shape in 97 so I think the broad alignment of the 2 parties on the economy won't make that much difference - but I think theres a huge difference in how they'll shape society.

[Guest alex]

As it was pointed out on Newsnight last night, Cameron is polling similarly to how Michael Howard was doing 4 or 5 years ago. Made me feel slightly better about the general public and their ability to see through 'Dave'.

[Craig 6700]

I recognise all the good things Labour have done whilst in power - massive improvements to the NHS, to schools, minimum wage, working tax credits, winter heating allowance for the elderly, etc, etc. The fact that the tories in opposition objected to most of these things tells its own story. In the last decade since Labour has been in power our citiy centres have also been virtually rebuilt (for the better in general). We've had genuinely good times and now are suffering the hangover of a global recession, but it is NOTHING compared to Thatcher under the 80s.

 

I'll pull you up on Tax Credits Renton. Been an absolute fucking disaster IMO, almost as much as the CSA carry-on...

[Craig 6700]

Parky is right in that whoever wins this election is in for a shit-storm in 6 months IF the economy is still stagnant.

 

The problem for me is that if the Tories win and the economy "naturally" recovers then they'll live on the kudos for another 2 or 3 terms which will give them time to do real, Thatcher style damage to the country.

 

I do think Brown overstated his good management after effectively taking over an economy in decent shape in 97 so I think the broad alignment of the 2 parties on the economy won't make that much difference - but I think theres a huge difference in how they'll shape society.

 

Trouble with that one is the Tories are arguing that's exactly what happened back in '97 and formed the basis of re-election for Blair both in '01 and '05 and to a degree they are right. The economy was in decent shape when Blair won in May '97 and it was considerably better than when Major had taken over from the witch 6½ years previous.

[Phil 6]

I hope this doesn't distract the debate tomorrow night from focusing on the key issue, i.e. the bare-faced lie that is "Brown as economic saviour".

 

Well, compared to Cameron he pretty much is actually. What would have happened if Cameron and Osbourne had let the banks collapse?

 

Sorry, I should have clarified: the line needs to be that it's a bit rich positioning yourself as the great rescuer when you were complicit in creating the problem and exposing the country to the global crisis to a massive extent in the first place.

 

True, but what's done is done now, and we are hardly unique in this aspect. I want to back the best man to get us out of the mess, and think Brown is still best qualified to do it.

 

 

Daftest thing I've ever read.

 

 

Brown got us into this mess by piss poor planning. We had the biggest economic boom in ages and rather paying off our debt and saving for future issues like the pension time bomb or banking collapse like the Australia did, he wasted it while making arrogant claims (e.g. 'end of boom and bust' etc...).

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it.

 

What baffles me is Gordon has the cheek to attack the Conservatives aim to cut 6 billion spending to try and reduce it, while claiming he will reduce it by half in four years. Wake up and smell the coffee mate, even Shepard would agree borrowing 14 billion a month is wrong.

 

 

The conservatives have laid out their plan to regulate the banking sector and force them to lend, which will stimulate SME and grow the economy. Super Gordon wants to piss away more money on public services which has created an unsustainable reliance on the public sector.

 

 

If you want the country to stand any chance vote conservative, if you want to work until you die and live in a crappy over crowed care home with a worthless pension, stick with Gordon - the debt is out of control.

 

The debt was perfectly manageable until the ripple effect from the sub prime crisis in the US fucked up just about every economy in the Western world. We are not alone in this and would have been completely fucked if we had followed the tory plans during the peak of the crisis. And now its the same old story from the Eton brigade - tax relief for the super rich and specific plans to fuck the North East over as Cameron admitted last week. As for tax relief for married couples, parents setting up new schools etc, what a joke. Amateur stuff which hasn't been properly thought out.

 

Your last sentence reeks of scaremongering, or perhaps you've just not had a very good time of it of late. For me personally I recognise all the good things Labour have done whilst in power - massive improvements to the NHS, to schools, minimum wage, working tax credits, winter heating allowance for the elderly, etc, etc. The fact that the tories in opposition objected to most of these things tells its own story. In the last decade since Labour has been in power our citiy centres have also been virtually rebuilt (for the better in general). We've had genuinely good times and now are suffering the hangover of a global recession, but it is NOTHING compared to Thatcher under the 80s.

 

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it and are lending a further 14 Billion a month and you think this is beacuse of the sub prime crisis?

 

Northern Rock cost us 90.7 billion, which was too much for a failing company.

 

The Tory's were right, we should have let it go bust and transfered the Morgages and savings to the Post Office setting up a national bank. Companies go bust all the time, Rover being a good example. Why are Northern Rock and Lloyds any different.

 

The improvements were paid for by the housing market boom and continued by racking up debt. Gordon is spending £4 for every £3 in tax, how on earth can this be sustained.

 

 

The Conservative party have said in their manifesto they will try and keep interest rates as low as possible for as long as possible. You have to let Thatcherisms go, everything about her was wrong and the current Conservative manifesto show her views are no where near the current parties.

[ewerk 31237]

Companies go bust all the time, Rover being a good example. Why are Northern Rock and Lloyds any different.

 

It's hard to take anyone seriously with views like that, you either don't understand the issues being discussed here or are being deliberately difficult.

[NJS 4411]

The Conservative party have said in their manifesto they will try and keep interest rates as low as possible for as long as possible. You have to let Thatcherisms go, everything about her was wrong and the current Conservative manifesto show her views are no where near the current parties.

 

Look at the people not the manifesto. They are all black hearted evil bastards and always will be.

 

I don't care if that sounds irrational - I have a shit load of evidence from history.

 

(I'd also point out that NR have paid back nearly all the money)

[Guest alex]

I get the impression most manifesto pledges aren't fulfilled anyway.

[Renton 22047]

I don't think even the Conservatives would agree with you now that it was a good idea to let our entire banking industry go bust Phil. The country would have gone into meltdown - have you actually thought the implications through of even a small high street bank like NR going to the wall? Incredible.

 

Anyway, the government will also recoup most if not all the money spent on the banks, and may even make a tidy profit. Thank God that Phil or Dave weren't in charge two years ago.

[Happy Face 29]

Channel 4 checked up on the labour pledges and they did canny....

 

Conclusion

 

The government's record on its pledges is not bad - most have been achieved, in name at least. And if there are caveats, then you'd hardly expect otherwise.

 

But a few questions remain. This progress was achieved at the cost of billions of pounds of taxpayers' money. Was it worth it? And, given the two massive parliamentary majorities Blair had, could he have achieved more? Many things did get better. But could Labour have done better?

 

 

http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/poli...ge+cards/507807

[Phil 6]

I don't think even the Conservatives would agree with you now that it was a good idea to let our entire banking industry go bust Phil. The country would have gone into meltdown - have you actually thought the implications through of even a small high street bank like NR going to the wall? Incredible.

 

Anyway, the government will also recoup most if not all the money spent on the banks, and may even make a tidy profit. Thank God that Phil or Dave weren't in charge two years ago.

 

 

When have I said let the banking industry go bust? I said transfer the important assets to a national bank, the only people to suffer would be shareholders and employees. I have sympathy for the lower level employees, but how does it differ from Rover? Setting up a national bank would create jobs.

 

 

My point was you have waved the massive debt off as just "one of those things". If you believe Gordon will make a profit on Northern Rock then where are you placing the debt?

[ewerk 31237]

You do realise that by letting NR go bust that it would cause massive problems for other UK banks operating in international markets?

[Phil 6]

You do realise that by letting NR go bust that it would cause massive problems for other UK banks operating in international markets?

 

Simply not true...

 

Banks are greedy they've been taking risks they shouldn't have been doing and ripping each other off by bundling good and bad debt together. The reason we have a mortgage shortage is because the they dont trust each other any more and inter bank lending is almost none existent.

 

..if it were true a national bank for a country with a Tripple A rating would be something of a heavy weight in an uncertain market. I imagine we could cherry pick our investments. Other UK banks would have to make their hedge fund manager earn there pay.

[ChezGiven 0]

I hope this doesn't distract the debate tomorrow night from focusing on the key issue, i.e. the bare-faced lie that is "Brown as economic saviour".

 

Well, compared to Cameron he pretty much is actually. What would have happened if Cameron and Osbourne had let the banks collapse?

 

Sorry, I should have clarified: the line needs to be that it's a bit rich positioning yourself as the great rescuer when you were complicit in creating the problem and exposing the country to the global crisis to a massive extent in the first place.

 

True, but what's done is done now, and we are hardly unique in this aspect. I want to back the best man to get us out of the mess, and think Brown is still best qualified to do it.

 

 

Daftest thing I've ever read.

 

 

Brown got us into this mess by piss poor planning. We had the biggest economic boom in ages and rather paying off our debt and saving for future issues like the pension time bomb or banking collapse like the Australia did, he wasted it while making arrogant claims (e.g. 'end of boom and bust' etc...).

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it.

 

What baffles me is Gordon has the cheek to attack the Conservatives aim to cut 6 billion spending to try and reduce it, while claiming he will reduce it by half in four years. Wake up and smell the coffee mate, even Shepard would agree borrowing 14 billion a month is wrong.

 

 

The conservatives have laid out their plan to regulate the banking sector and force them to lend, which will stimulate SME and grow the economy. Super Gordon wants to piss away more money on public services which has created an unsustainable reliance on the public sector.

 

 

If you want the country to stand any chance vote conservative, if you want to work until you die and live in a crappy over crowed care home with a worthless pension, stick with Gordon - the debt is out of control.

 

The debt was perfectly manageable until the ripple effect from the sub prime crisis in the US fucked up just about every economy in the Western world. We are not alone in this and would have been completely fucked if we had followed the tory plans during the peak of the crisis. And now its the same old story from the Eton brigade - tax relief for the super rich and specific plans to fuck the North East over as Cameron admitted last week. As for tax relief for married couples, parents setting up new schools etc, what a joke. Amateur stuff which hasn't been properly thought out.

 

Your last sentence reeks of scaremongering, or perhaps you've just not had a very good time of it of late. For me personally I recognise all the good things Labour have done whilst in power - massive improvements to the NHS, to schools, minimum wage, working tax credits, winter heating allowance for the elderly, etc, etc. The fact that the tories in opposition objected to most of these things tells its own story. In the last decade since Labour has been in power our citiy centres have also been virtually rebuilt (for the better in general). We've had genuinely good times and now are suffering the hangover of a global recession, but it is NOTHING compared to Thatcher under the 80s.

 

 

We are in £848.5 billion debt (Feb 2010) and have to pay 42 Billion a year to service it and are lending a further 14 Billion a month and you think this is beacuse of the sub prime crisis?

 

Northern Rock cost us 90.7 billion, which was too much for a failing company.

 

The Tory's were right, we should have let it go bust and transfered the Morgages and savings to the Post Office setting up a national bank. Companies go bust all the time, Rover being a good example. Why are Northern Rock and Lloyds any different.

 

The improvements were paid for by the housing market boom and continued by racking up debt. Gordon is spending £4 for every £3 in tax, how on earth can this be sustained.

 

 

The Conservative party have said in their manifesto they will try and keep interest rates as low as possible for as long as possible. You have to let Thatcherisms go, everything about her was wrong and the current Conservative manifesto show her views are no where near the current parties.

 

Yes. The reason we have to service the debt because the economy is in recession. If it was growing, tax revenues would more than cover the debt repayments.

 

The reason for the recession?

 

Also, keeping interest rates low serves no purpose if they are already low and it isnt producing economic fuel.