Politics

[Guest alex]

Couldn't agree more. Can't blame the Tories for taking us into Iraq (I know we've now withdrawn btw) and Afghanistan though. Not that they'd have done anything differently, mind.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

Economics editor of Newsnight just said in his opinion the cuts will cause a double-dip recession.

 

 

Seriously, I think the leaders have looked at 3 possible scenarious.

 

1. The economy will grow sufficiently to wipe out the defecit over the next five years. Keep pumping money in and it will come right.

 

2. The economy is only going to bump along for the next five years with miniscule growth so extra money pumped in will make little difference other than vastly increasing the debt. Even bigger cuts and tax rises will be needed then.

 

3. Tax and cut now and gamble that it will work out with less pain than option 2.

 

 

I think (as will probably be announced next Monday), they have ruled out option 1 and see option 3 as the lesser of two evils.

 

Hows my economist training going btw

 

But those three options aren't independent of each other are they? Meaning if you cut back too much now you run the risk of halting, or even reversing, growth, which will lead to more pain overall. It's a question of balance and whether you are confident the tories can get it right.

 

I've asked you several times now on your opinion of their policies during the crash itself and you seem unwilling, or unable, to give an answer (re: letting NR go to the wall, recapitalising the banks, and providing fiscal stimulus). If we can agree, along with most analysts, that their policies during that time would have been catastrophic, how confident does that make you of the tory decision making machine now?

 

 

Simon Jenkins --- The Guardian

 

Same old problem. Just when you need a Labour party there is none in sight – and clearly not one in the coming election. On Monday evening the parties' three economic spokesmen went head to head and stroked each other to a draw. They nattered away like cleaning ladies over how to clear up after the great bankers' ball. There were smashed derivatives, defaulted swaps and toxic turds strewn everywhere – and who, they said, was going to pick up the £170bn bill?

 

None of them discussed whether the party should have been allowed in the first place. I suddenly craved some good old Labour blood and guts, an Arthur Scargill, a Tony Benn, a Michael Foot, a Nye Bevan, someone to shout in their faces: "You blew it! When those petrified, knock-kneed smoothies from the City came pleading for help, you caved in and gave them the people's money. You panicked, you bunch of creeps."

 

That is what a real Labour party would have said: "When, back in October 2008, the bankers told you they were too big to fail, you believed them. You were conned. Your economics was too rusty to call their bluff. Now you have wrecked everything we stand for, everything you and your government have done in a decade. You, Darling, are a banker's stooge, another Ramsay MacDonald."

 

A Labour spokesman on Monday night would have pointed out that taxes would now rise, hospitals would close, workers be sacked, students lose grants, child poverty increase, all because Darling lacked the guts to stand up to the City. He had done more damage to the British economy in one year than Scargill's miners or Jack Dash's dockers ever did. Look at the mess we are in.

 

Labour would not have moped over whose "efficiency savings" were the more meaningless but pointed out that the three spokesmen were peas from the same pod. The Tories' George Osborne never questioned the bank bail-out because his friends were bankers. Indeed, he thought the Treasury should have panicked sooner. Vince Cable, whose path to political sanctity is endlessly to curse sin and bless virtue, was equally bamboozled by the City ramp. He bought "too big to fail" in his book, The Storm, and his only response was a Liberal Democrat miasma of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other.

 

Of course we shall never know what the world would be like today had Darling reacted differently in 2008. It could hardly have been worse. I gather some smart business schools are starting to play the relevant "war games". Some scenarios, such as just letting the banks fail, are undeniably hairy, though the global market in finance is astonishingly resilient and would, by now, probably be picking up the pieces and getting back to normal. America still eats and breathes, despite the failure of Lehman Brothers.

 

More plausible, a Labour party would argue that Darling should have properly nationalised the ailing banks, in a version of what he did to Northern Rock the year before. He could then have secured ordinary deposits, up to any limit, ringfenced business lending (as the Treasury did when it nationalised banks during the war), and put the casino divisions into bankruptcy administration, dumping their worst debts on the vulture fund market. He could then have rebuilt good and bad banks, and eventually resold them.

 

The impact would have been traumatic, and much of the money now being extorted from present and future taxpayers would have been lost to them in some other way. Insurance and pension funds would have taken a pounding as defaults cascaded through the financial system. But much of the burden would have fallen on those who had benefited from the bubble in the first place, and the racketeers would have been hung out to dry.

 

The "quantitative easing" money that simply disappeared, much of it overseas – and which has fuelled the past year's stockmarket boom – should have been used to boost demand in the high street by raising pensions and social security payments and instituting mass scrappage schemes. Public policy would have been directed at restructuring the supply of credit rather than, as now, doing absolutely nothing to stop it all happening again – bonuses, derivatives and all.

 

Such an intervention would have been both properly Keynesian and properly monetarist. There would have been no need for the savage deflation permitted by Darling from late 2008 which emptied shops, collapsed lending and threw thousands out of work. It is reportedly now threatening, according to a Treasury estimate, one third of all spending on the health service by the end of the decade.

 

This deflation is harsher than anything abroad. It is harsher than Margaret Thatcher's medicine of 1980-1. Darling's policy was not a bailout on a par with British Leyland or Upper Clyde. It was a gigantic, unprecedented, overnight evaporation of the nation's cash.

 

We are told on the grapevine that in October 2008, as Downing Street stared "into the abyss" (as bankers love to put it), the chief horror was not the prospect of dismantling 10 years of government and mortgaging the future. The horror was of Darling and Gordon Brown being accused of "old-style nationalisation" by precisely the banks who were now pleading for the new-style version: public subsidy with no strings attached.

 

Darling pretends that the only alternative to his capitulation was "cash machines seizing up and bank doors closing". That is bankers' blackmail. A gambler's family does not have to starve if you ringfence his income and give it to the grocer while denying him access to the casino. Darling merely let the gamblers return to their ways. He won all the disadvantages of bank nationalisation with none of the advantages. He spent the money but failed to use the power. This is the treason against the left of which a Labour party would have accused him on Monday night.

 

Without a Labour party, this argument is dead. The Tories are intellectual lightweights. Nobody dares mention the awful truth that, whatever rescue might have been appropriate when the bubble burst, it cannot conceivably justify the devastation about to be inflicted on Britain's infrastructure and social services. Money on the scale disbursed by Darling a year ago should have gone, if at all, to the public benefit, not to correcting imbalances in bank indebtedness.

 

That is what a real Labour party would have said on Monday night. For once, it would have been right.

 

 

In the heat of the battle I would probably say it was the right decision, but as with all things, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION being an example, these decisions will be debated for many years to come as the writer expresses is already happening in Business Schools.

 

He also raises the point that had the banks being nationalised, rather than bailed out, we would have had more control on getting money through to small business's.

 

Would it have been the end of the world? It wasnt in the states?

 

Did they panic?

 

Apparrently its something like 1 trillion thats being thrown at this and its mostly gone down a black hole. That would have cleared the national debt, the defecit and left enough over for a few crisps.

 

The truth is I dont know and dont know enough of the facts that were able at the time to even begin to guess. Sure the banks are doing okay again now, but at a very great cost to this country for years to come.

 

 

Your whole question though is geared towards the tories got it wrong so I cant trust them now.....

 

What I would say, as Ive said many times is that

 

All parties agree the right course of action is tax and cut

All parties agree this should start next year

All parties agree around 60 - 70 billion is the figure to be cut

 

So your concerns over whether this is the right policy this time are backed by every political party in the country and the entire g20. Surely thats good enough for you?

 

You ofcourse will mention the "timing". This however relates to the 6 billion savings being found in this financial year. Surely even you can now see this was election scaremongering by Labour? The 6 billion saved this year is peanuts compared to what is to come next year and will make no difference whatsoever over a period of 12 months.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

the obvious danger with making the cuts too quickly now is the fragiel state of the global economy. canada got away with it in the 90s because it had a booming us economy to support it during rh e clinton era. likewise with sweden making quick cuts in the 90s when europe was buzzing. obviously that isn't the case now.

 

the cuts clearly have to be made but there is a clear danger of cutting to much, too quickly. it's going to be a difficult balancing act to avoid a double dip recession.

 

The more I read and learn about this I think this may be pretty unavoidable and theirgambling not so much on avoiding it, but rather of getting in and out of it within 4 years so the last year before election they can say " see, the pain was worth it, everythings rosy, vote for us".

 

I can't see how that would ever be a desirable situation, it's one that should be avoided at any cost, as it would delay growth, and therefore delay the reduction of the deficit, the very thing they want to avoid? More unemployed = less tax revenue + more money on benefits = more deficit.

 

Am I missing something here?

 

The alternatives.

 

They pump money in and it gets worse, no meanigful growth.

[Dr Gloom 22139]

Theres an article in the Guardian this morning which I agree with which would give LM an instant stroke - a suggestion that if Osbourne want's to talk about "once in a lifetime" changes then why not completely cut the defence budget - ie to zero.

 

£45bn per year.

 

 

not wasting all those billions on renewing the trident missle system that we don't need anymore would have been a start. that's the main reason why i voted lib dem. annoyingly it was one of the policies they had to drop as part of the coalition agreement. seems bonkers that money is going into a weapons system that we simply don't need anymore when there's such a massive hole in the public finances.

[spongebob toonpants 4124]

George Osborne braced the country for cuts in government spending of up to 20 per cent as he laid the ground for an austerity programme to last the whole parliament.

 

The Chancellor announced an unprecedented four-year spending review in which every Cabinet minister will have to justify in front of a panel of colleagues every pound they spend.

 

Mr Osborne said the task ahead represented “the great national challenge of our generation” and that after years of waste, debt and irresponsibility it was time to rethink how government spent its money.

 

This was really gets on my wick about the "new politics" they keep claiming. No acknowledgement of the problems caused by the banks, and the global recession that followed. Not only that they have "ring fenced" education and the "nhs" -so how can that be claimed to be irresponsible.

 

I would also like to hear CT's response to Rentons question about the Osborne/Cameron response to the sub-prime crisis (edit now i have)

Edited June 9, 2010 by spongebob toonpants

[NJS 4411]

Theres an article in the Guardian this morning which I agree with which would give LM an instant stroke - a suggestion that if Osbourne want's to talk about "once in a lifetime" changes then why not completely cut the defence budget - ie to zero.

 

£45bn per year.

 

A complete cut in the defence budget is unfeasible, but I'd withdraw from all Afghanistan and not get involved in any future conflicts wherever possible immediately. That, or education and health. Not a difficult decision for me.

 

I probably agree a total cut is not on but the thrust of the argument that if every other government department has to justify every penny they spend then the armed forces shouldn't be exempt from that is a good one. Of course it would take balls the size of Buster Gonad to stand up to the generals and the ensuing shit storm but vague enemies and threats should be explained and justified.

[Guest alex]

Btw, the public consultation thing is a piss-take. It's shades of Shepherd reneging responsibility over Glenn Roeder because he was the 'fans' choice'. I.e. it'll be a case of 'well, it was what the public wanted'. However, if the public come out overwhelmingly in support of huge defence cuts and pulling out of Afghanistan, do you think that'll happen? No chance.

[Renton 21978]

Economics editor of Newsnight just said in his opinion the cuts will cause a double-dip recession.

 

 

Seriously, I think the leaders have looked at 3 possible scenarious.

 

1. The economy will grow sufficiently to wipe out the defecit over the next five years. Keep pumping money in and it will come right.

 

2. The economy is only going to bump along for the next five years with miniscule growth so extra money pumped in will make little difference other than vastly increasing the debt. Even bigger cuts and tax rises will be needed then.

 

3. Tax and cut now and gamble that it will work out with less pain than option 2.

 

 

I think (as will probably be announced next Monday), they have ruled out option 1 and see option 3 as the lesser of two evils.

 

Hows my economist training going btw

 

But those three options aren't independent of each other are they? Meaning if you cut back too much now you run the risk of halting, or even reversing, growth, which will lead to more pain overall. It's a question of balance and whether you are confident the tories can get it right.

 

I've asked you several times now on your opinion of their policies during the crash itself and you seem unwilling, or unable, to give an answer (re: letting NR go to the wall, recapitalising the banks, and providing fiscal stimulus). If we can agree, along with most analysts, that their policies during that time would have been catastrophic, how confident does that make you of the tory decision making machine now?

 

 

Simon Jenkins --- The Guardian

 

Same old problem. Just when you need a Labour party there is none in sight – and clearly not one in the coming election. On Monday evening the parties' three economic spokesmen went head to head and stroked each other to a draw. They nattered away like cleaning ladies over how to clear up after the great bankers' ball. There were smashed derivatives, defaulted swaps and toxic turds strewn everywhere – and who, they said, was going to pick up the £170bn bill?

 

None of them discussed whether the party should have been allowed in the first place. I suddenly craved some good old Labour blood and guts, an Arthur Scargill, a Tony Benn, a Michael Foot, a Nye Bevan, someone to shout in their faces: "You blew it! When those petrified, knock-kneed smoothies from the City came pleading for help, you caved in and gave them the people's money. You panicked, you bunch of creeps."

 

That is what a real Labour party would have said: "When, back in October 2008, the bankers told you they were too big to fail, you believed them. You were conned. Your economics was too rusty to call their bluff. Now you have wrecked everything we stand for, everything you and your government have done in a decade. You, Darling, are a banker's stooge, another Ramsay MacDonald."

 

A Labour spokesman on Monday night would have pointed out that taxes would now rise, hospitals would close, workers be sacked, students lose grants, child poverty increase, all because Darling lacked the guts to stand up to the City. He had done more damage to the British economy in one year than Scargill's miners or Jack Dash's dockers ever did. Look at the mess we are in.

 

Labour would not have moped over whose "efficiency savings" were the more meaningless but pointed out that the three spokesmen were peas from the same pod. The Tories' George Osborne never questioned the bank bail-out because his friends were bankers. Indeed, he thought the Treasury should have panicked sooner. Vince Cable, whose path to political sanctity is endlessly to curse sin and bless virtue, was equally bamboozled by the City ramp. He bought "too big to fail" in his book, The Storm, and his only response was a Liberal Democrat miasma of on-the-one-hand-on-the-other.

 

Of course we shall never know what the world would be like today had Darling reacted differently in 2008. It could hardly have been worse. I gather some smart business schools are starting to play the relevant "war games". Some scenarios, such as just letting the banks fail, are undeniably hairy, though the global market in finance is astonishingly resilient and would, by now, probably be picking up the pieces and getting back to normal. America still eats and breathes, despite the failure of Lehman Brothers.

 

More plausible, a Labour party would argue that Darling should have properly nationalised the ailing banks, in a version of what he did to Northern Rock the year before. He could then have secured ordinary deposits, up to any limit, ringfenced business lending (as the Treasury did when it nationalised banks during the war), and put the casino divisions into bankruptcy administration, dumping their worst debts on the vulture fund market. He could then have rebuilt good and bad banks, and eventually resold them.

 

The impact would have been traumatic, and much of the money now being extorted from present and future taxpayers would have been lost to them in some other way. Insurance and pension funds would have taken a pounding as defaults cascaded through the financial system. But much of the burden would have fallen on those who had benefited from the bubble in the first place, and the racketeers would have been hung out to dry.

 

The "quantitative easing" money that simply disappeared, much of it overseas – and which has fuelled the past year's stockmarket boom – should have been used to boost demand in the high street by raising pensions and social security payments and instituting mass scrappage schemes. Public policy would have been directed at restructuring the supply of credit rather than, as now, doing absolutely nothing to stop it all happening again – bonuses, derivatives and all.

 

Such an intervention would have been both properly Keynesian and properly monetarist. There would have been no need for the savage deflation permitted by Darling from late 2008 which emptied shops, collapsed lending and threw thousands out of work. It is reportedly now threatening, according to a Treasury estimate, one third of all spending on the health service by the end of the decade.

 

This deflation is harsher than anything abroad. It is harsher than Margaret Thatcher's medicine of 1980-1. Darling's policy was not a bailout on a par with British Leyland or Upper Clyde. It was a gigantic, unprecedented, overnight evaporation of the nation's cash.

 

We are told on the grapevine that in October 2008, as Downing Street stared "into the abyss" (as bankers love to put it), the chief horror was not the prospect of dismantling 10 years of government and mortgaging the future. The horror was of Darling and Gordon Brown being accused of "old-style nationalisation" by precisely the banks who were now pleading for the new-style version: public subsidy with no strings attached.

 

Darling pretends that the only alternative to his capitulation was "cash machines seizing up and bank doors closing". That is bankers' blackmail. A gambler's family does not have to starve if you ringfence his income and give it to the grocer while denying him access to the casino. Darling merely let the gamblers return to their ways. He won all the disadvantages of bank nationalisation with none of the advantages. He spent the money but failed to use the power. This is the treason against the left of which a Labour party would have accused him on Monday night.

 

Without a Labour party, this argument is dead. The Tories are intellectual lightweights. Nobody dares mention the awful truth that, whatever rescue might have been appropriate when the bubble burst, it cannot conceivably justify the devastation about to be inflicted on Britain's infrastructure and social services. Money on the scale disbursed by Darling a year ago should have gone, if at all, to the public benefit, not to correcting imbalances in bank indebtedness.

 

That is what a real Labour party would have said on Monday night. For once, it would have been right.

 

 

In the heat of the battle I would probably say it was the right decision, but as with all things, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION being an example, these decisions will be debated for many years to come as the writer expresses is already happening in Business Schools.

 

He also raises the point that had the banks being nationalised, rather than bailed out, we would have had more control on getting money through to small business's.

 

Would it have been the end of the world? It wasnt in the states?

 

Did they panic?

 

Apparrently its something like 1 trillion thats being thrown at this and its mostly gone down a black hole. That would have cleared the national debt, the defecit and left enough over for a few crisps.

 

The truth is I dont know and dont know enough of the facts that were able at the time to even begin to guess. Sure the banks are doing okay again now, but at a very great cost to this country for years to come.

 

 

Your whole question though is geared towards the tories got it wrong so I cant trust them now.....

 

What I would say, as Ive said many times is that

 

All parties agree the right course of action is tax and cut

All parties agree this should start next year

All parties agree around 60 - 70 billion is the figure to be cut

 

So your concerns over whether this is the right policy this time are backed by every political party in the country and the entire g20. Surely thats good enough for you?

 

You ofcourse will mention the "timing". This however relates to the 6 billion savings being found in this financial year. Surely even you can now see this was election scaremongering by Labour? The 6 billion saved this year is peanuts compared to what is to come next year and will make no difference whatsoever over a period of 12 months.

 

 

Well, thanks for answering anyway. Like you I am fairly ignorant of these matters but I'm not sure what authority Simon Jenkins has either. I love this quote:

 

Of course we shall never know what the world would be like today had Darling reacted differently in 2008. It could hardly have been worse.

 

What utter bollocks. Look at Iceland - it could have been so much worse.

 

I was under the impression that the vast majority of commentators and politicians from around the globe had praised Brown's and Darling's swift intervention, and I'd like someone other than Jenkins to tell me otherwise.

 

I'm not talking about the 6 billion cuts btw, it goes much further than that with the tories. I just don't trust their fiscal competency, or their belief in equity and fairness, at all. They don't inspire me with confidence even before political considerations come into it. And worse, they are not a properly elected government. No choice now but to wait and see what happens I suppose.

[Renton 21978]

the obvious danger with making the cuts too quickly now is the fragiel state of the global economy. canada got away with it in the 90s because it had a booming us economy to support it during rh e clinton era. likewise with sweden making quick cuts in the 90s when europe was buzzing. obviously that isn't the case now.

 

the cuts clearly have to be made but there is a clear danger of cutting to much, too quickly. it's going to be a difficult balancing act to avoid a double dip recession.

 

The more I read and learn about this I think this may be pretty unavoidable and theirgambling not so much on avoiding it, but rather of getting in and out of it within 4 years so the last year before election they can say " see, the pain was worth it, everythings rosy, vote for us".

 

I can't see how that would ever be a desirable situation, it's one that should be avoided at any cost, as it would delay growth, and therefore delay the reduction of the deficit, the very thing they want to avoid? More unemployed = less tax revenue + more money on benefits = more deficit.

 

Am I missing something here?

 

The alternatives.

 

They pump money in and it gets worse, no meanigful growth.

 

Not suggesting that CT. I suggest a measured response to cuts which avoids the possibility of a double-dip recession.

[Happy Face 29]

Governments around the world might be heralding an age of austerity, and warning citizens that they will need to cut public services, but the aftershocks of the global financial crisis have had little impact on military budgets, a leading thinktank says .

 

Last year, $1.5 trillion (£1tn)was spent on weapons, an annual increase in real terms of 5.9%, according to the latest report by Sipri, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

 

The US accounted for more than half of the total increase, though arms spending increased fastest in Asian countries, with China raising its military expenditure most, followed by India. Global spending has risen by nearly 50% over the past decade, said Sipri.

 

The US headed the list of the world's top 10 arms buyers last year, spending $661bn on military equipment. It was followed by China (spending an estimated $100bn), France ($63.9bn), Britain ($58.3bn), Russia (an estimated $53.3bn) and Japan ($51.8bn), according to the report.

 

Though some large-scale weapons programmes were cancelled in the latest US budget plans, notably the F22 stealth fighter, more money was earmarked for other projects, including unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and cyberwarfare, said Sipri.

 

The British government is likely to follow suit in the forthcoming strategic defence review, though it is expected to make significant cuts in the number of F35 Joint Strike Fighters proposed for the Royal Navy's two planned large aircraft carriers. Sipri notes that the US has actually increased its JSF programme.

 

Of European countries, Britain accounted for the biggest absolute increase (of $3.7bn) followed by Turkey and Russia. Cyprus increased military spending most in real terms, taking inflation into account.

 

Given its financial woes, Greece, which has traditionally devoted a higher percentage of its wealth to defence than most Nato countries, has already decided to cut military spending this year, the report says.

 

Natural resources, notably oil, can be a source of international or national conflict, inevitably leading to higher military spending. Sipri points to Nigeria where, it says, "the massive environmental damage caused by oil extraction and the lack of benefit to oil-producing regions has generated grievances", and to Brazil, which has justified planned purchases of submarines "in terms of the need to protect newly discovered underwater oil fields".

 

It adds that in Afghanistan, where the conflict has fuelled global arms production, insurgent groups and warlords have been collecting up to $400m a year from the opium poppy harvest.

 

Only six of the biggest armed conflicts last year concerned territority, with 11 fought over the nature and makeup of a national government, according to Sipri's report. It said that only three of the 30 big conflicts over the past decade were between states.

 

Sipri's 2010 Yearbook also says that eight states - the US, Russia, the UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel - possess between them nearly 8,000 operational nuclear weapons. Britain deploys 144 nuclear warheads, it says.

 

William Hague, the foreign secretary, told the Commons last week that Britain's total number of nuclear warheads would not exceed 225, including the maximum 160 already declared as operationally available.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/0...-rise-recession

[Renton 21978]

Btw, the public consultation thing is a piss-take. It's shades of Shepherd reneging responsibility over Glenn Roeder because he was the 'fans' choice'. I.e. it'll be a case of 'well, it was what the public wanted'. However, if the public come out overwhelmingly in support of huge defence cuts and pulling out of Afghanistan, do you think that'll happen? No chance.

 

Devolve responsibility in the bad times to deflect criticism, centralise it in the good times to gain praise. Taking the piss basically.

[Happy Face 29]

Btw, the public consultation thing is a piss-take. It's shades of Shepherd reneging responsibility over Glenn Roeder because he was the 'fans' choice'. I.e. it'll be a case of 'well, it was what the public wanted'. However, if the public come out overwhelmingly in support of huge defence cuts and pulling out of Afghanistan, do you think that'll happen? No chance.

 

Funny watching Paxo rip the shit out of it on Newsnight.

 

"who makes the ultimate decision?"

"The government!"

"So why are the public involved? They've elected you to govern!"

"So we can implement their ideas"

"but the country is full of widely divergent ideas, you can't implement them all"

"yes, we'll make the ultimate decision"

"So why involve the FUCKING PUBLIC DIPSHIT?"

 

Gimmicky bollocks that's no different to listening to voters in constituencies....and ignoring them.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

George Osborne braced the country for cuts in government spending of up to 20 per cent as he laid the ground for an austerity programme to last the whole parliament.

 

The Chancellor announced an unprecedented four-year spending review in which every Cabinet minister will have to justify in front of a panel of colleagues every pound they spend.

 

Mr Osborne said the task ahead represented “the great national challenge of our generation” and that after years of waste, debt and irresponsibility it was time to rethink how government spent its money.

 

This was really gets on my wick about the "new politics" they keep claiming. No acknowledgement of the problems caused by the banks, and the global recession that followed. Not only that they have "ring fenced" education and the "nhs" -so how can that be claimed to be irresponsible.

 

I would also like to hear CT's response to Rentons question about the Osborne/Cameron response to the sub-prime crisis

 

for your last point see above.

 

With regard to the banks bit your wasting your time. Every newly elected government blames the last government for everything including the weather. That's just politics I'm afraid. It's like labour blames everything to do with manufacturing decline on Thatcher and not the fact that countries like china could build ships for a tenth of the price of the Uk.

 

With regard to the ringfencing, it is only frontline jobs they have said will be ringfenced in nhs and education, it is the middle managers they are going for.

 

 

This is why I get a little peeved that Labour and to a lesser extent the other two, didn't get into this before the election. If they had then voters would have had a selection of cuts to vote for. Having said that they would probably roughly be going for the same areas.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

Btw, the public consultation thing is a piss-take. It's shades of Shepherd reneging responsibility over Glenn Roeder because he was the 'fans' choice'. I.e. it'll be a case of 'well, it was what the public wanted'. However, if the public come out overwhelmingly in support of huge defence cuts and pulling out of Afghanistan, do you think that'll happen? No chance.

 

ofcourse it is but that's politics.

[Guest alex]

Btw, the public consultation thing is a piss-take. It's shades of Shepherd reneging responsibility over Glenn Roeder because he was the 'fans' choice'. I.e. it'll be a case of 'well, it was what the public wanted'. However, if the public come out overwhelmingly in support of huge defence cuts and pulling out of Afghanistan, do you think that'll happen? No chance.

 

ofcourse it is but that's politics.

Even within the context of politics it's a gargantuan cop-out. As is your reply to my post.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

Btw, the public consultation thing is a piss-take. It's shades of Shepherd reneging responsibility over Glenn Roeder because he was the 'fans' choice'. I.e. it'll be a case of 'well, it was what the public wanted'. However, if the public come out overwhelmingly in support of huge defence cuts and pulling out of Afghanistan, do you think that'll happen? No chance.

 

Funny watching Paxo rip the shit out of it on Newsnight.

 

"who makes the ultimate decision?"

"The government!"

"So why are the public involved? They've elected you to govern!"

"So we can implement their ideas"

"but the country is full of widely divergent ideas, you can't implement them all"

"yes, we'll make the ultimate decision"

"So why involve the FUCKING PUBLIC DIPSHIT?"

 

Gimmicky bollocks that's no different to listening to voters in constituencies....and ignoring them.

 

He looked like a terrified little schoolboy in the headmasters office

 

I really hope paxman goes for and gets the next question time job.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

Btw, does anyone know what's happened to Nick Clegg? Has he being locked in the cellar at downing street.

 

He's beginning to look like a man whose just realised he's fucked up, big time.

 

I keep getting this feeling that when he actually gets to stand in for Cameron at PMQ's, Harriet will have him in tears.

[spongebob toonpants 4124]

George Osborne braced the country for cuts in government spending of up to 20 per cent as he laid the ground for an austerity programme to last the whole parliament.

 

The Chancellor announced an unprecedented four-year spending review in which every Cabinet minister will have to justify in front of a panel of colleagues every pound they spend.

 

Mr Osborne said the task ahead represented “the great national challenge of our generation” and that after years of waste, debt and irresponsibility it was time to rethink how government spent its money.

 

This was really gets on my wick about the "new politics" they keep claiming. No acknowledgement of the problems caused by the banks, and the global recession that followed. Not only that they have "ring fenced" education and the "nhs" -so how can that be claimed to be irresponsible.

 

I would also like to hear CT's response to Rentons question about the Osborne/Cameron response to the sub-prime crisis

 

for your last point see above.

 

With regard to the banks bit your wasting your time. Every newly elected government blames the last government for everything including the weather. That's just politics I'm afraid. It's like labour blames everything to do with manufacturing decline on Thatcher and not the fact that countries like china could build ships for a tenth of the price of the Uk.

 

With regard to the ringfencing, it is only frontline jobs they have said will be ringfenced in nhs and education, it is the middle managers they are going for.

 

 

This is why I get a little peeved that Labour and to a lesser extent the other two, didn't get into this before the election. If they had then voters would have had a selection of cuts to vote for. Having said that they would probably roughly be going for the same areas.

 

Chancellor: Labour cuts would be tougher than Thatcher's

Nick Robinson | 16:55 UK time, Thursday, 25 March 2010

 

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

 

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

 

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

 

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/20...chancellor.html

[Happy Face 29]

Chancellor: Labour cuts would be tougher than Thatcher's

Nick Robinson | 16:55 UK time, Thursday, 25 March 2010

 

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

 

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

 

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

 

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/20...chancellor.html

 

As i posted earlier in the thread, on average Thatcher increased spending. She only cut spending 2 years. So ANY cuts will be deeper and tougher than hers.

[Renton 21978]

Btw, does anyone know what's happened to Nick Clegg? Has he being locked in the cellar at downing street.

 

He's beginning to look like a man whose just realised he's fucked up, big time.

 

I keep getting this feeling that when he actually gets to stand in for Cameron at PMQ's, Harriet will have him in tears.

 

I've just made the amateur mistake of searching for 'gimp suit' in anticipation of a witty reply - on a works computer. Time to delete my Google history.

[Renton 21978]

Chancellor: Labour cuts would be tougher than Thatcher's

Nick Robinson | 16:55 UK time, Thursday, 25 March 2010

 

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

 

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

 

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

 

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/20...chancellor.html

 

As i posted earlier in the thread, on average Thatcher increased spending. She only cut spending 2 years. So ANY cuts will be deeper and tougher than hers.

 

Good point. Although spending less relatively to previous years can be seen as a cut.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

George Osborne braced the country for cuts in government spending of up to 20 per cent as he laid the ground for an austerity programme to last the whole parliament.

 

The Chancellor announced an unprecedented four-year spending review in which every Cabinet minister will have to justify in front of a panel of colleagues every pound they spend.

 

Mr Osborne said the task ahead represented “the great national challenge of our generation” and that after years of waste, debt and irresponsibility it was time to rethink how government spent its money.

 

This was really gets on my wick about the "new politics" they keep claiming. No acknowledgement of the problems caused by the banks, and the global recession that followed. Not only that they have "ring fenced" education and the "nhs" -so how can that be claimed to be irresponsible.

 

I would also like to hear CT's response to Rentons question about the Osborne/Cameron response to the sub-prime crisis

 

for your last point see above.

 

With regard to the banks bit your wasting your time. Every newly elected government blames the last government for everything including the weather. That's just politics I'm afraid. It's like labour blames everything to do with manufacturing decline on Thatcher and not the fact that countries like china could build ships for a tenth of the price of the Uk.

 

With regard to the ringfencing, it is only frontline jobs they have said will be ringfenced in nhs and education, it is the middle managers they are going for.

 

 

This is why I get a little peeved that Labour and to a lesser extent the other two, didn't get into this before the election. If they had then voters would have had a selection of cuts to vote for. Having said that they would probably roughly be going for the same areas.

 

Chancellor: Labour cuts would be tougher than Thatcher's

Nick Robinson | 16:55 UK time, Thursday, 25 March 2010

 

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

 

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

 

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

 

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/20...chancellor.html

 

 

Give over man

 

Surely your not posting that as some sort of proof that these cuts were fully discussed before the election?

 

This should have been virtually the only thing discussed and each party should have being pushed on what was going to be cut.

 

None of them really wanted to get into how bad it was going to be.

[Christmas Tree 4820]

Chancellor: Labour cuts would be tougher than Thatcher's

Nick Robinson | 16:55 UK time, Thursday, 25 March 2010

 

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

 

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

 

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

 

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/20...chancellor.html

 

As i posted earlier in the thread, on average Thatcher increased spending. She only cut spending 2 years. So ANY cuts will be deeper and tougher than hers.

 

according to paxman last night, thatcher increased public spending every year she was in office.

[Happy Face 29]

Chancellor: Labour cuts would be tougher than Thatcher's

Nick Robinson | 16:55 UK time, Thursday, 25 March 2010

 

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

 

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

 

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

 

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/20...chancellor.html

 

As i posted earlier in the thread, on average Thatcher increased spending. She only cut spending 2 years. So ANY cuts will be deeper and tougher than hers.

 

according to paxman last night, thatcher increased public spending every year she was in office.

 

He never said that. He said on average she increased it 1.1% every year. She is responsible for the biggest single year cut in the last 30 years.

 

This is how it breaks down....

 

 

Of course, the increased spending went exclusively on the military and law while she cut the shit out of education, health, housing etc.

Edited June 9, 2010 by Happy Face

[Christmas Tree 4820]

Chancellor: Labour cuts would be tougher than Thatcher's

Nick Robinson | 16:55 UK time, Thursday, 25 March 2010

 

The chancellor has conceded in an interview with me that if Labour is re-elected, public spending cuts will be tougher and deeper than those implemented by Margaret Thatcher.

 

I asked Alistair Darling to spell out how tough spending cuts could be:

 

Robinson: "The Treasury's own figures suggest deeper, tougher than Thatcher's - do you accept that?"

 

Darling: "They will be deeper and tougher - where we make the precise comparison I think is secondary to an acknowledgement that these reductions will be tough."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/20...chancellor.html

 

As i posted earlier in the thread, on average Thatcher increased spending. She only cut spending 2 years. So ANY cuts will be deeper and tougher than hers.

 

according to paxman last night, thatcher increased public spending every year she was in office.

 

He never said that. He said on average she increased it 1.1% every year. She is responsible for the biggest single year cut in the last 30 years.

 

This is how it breaks down....

 

 

Of course, the increased spending went exclusively on the military and law while she cut the shit out of education, health, housing etc.

 

 

Bet that bar chart goes off the scale when the last two years are added on!