Should I forgive the Labour Party?

Huffpost is a joke

says the man who quotes the Telegraph !

Debt is fine whilst you can afford repayments. As Argentina and others have found, unlike with fixed loans, and even more so than with mortgages, the rate the markets demand from you can change rapidly

Exactly. The UK had to go to the IMF under Labour in the 1970’s

n 1976 Britain faced financial crisis. The Labour government was forced to apply to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan of nearly $4 billion. IMF negotiators insisted on deep cuts in public expenditure, greatly affecting economic and social policy.

National Archives – Cabinet Papers / IMF

Greece, loans from the Troika 2%, market rate 10%-20% The Greeks seem to have ignored how much of a favour the eurozone is doing them

grum – Member
How about addressing the points raised rather than an ad hom? Are you going to try the same trick with Paul Krugman?

Any other Harvard-Keynsians you’d like to wheel out while you’re about it? http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-03-23/paul-krugman-wrong-about-uk-and-borrowing

Groupthink means a lot of intellectuals have the same opinion. It does not make them right.

Debt is fine whilst you can afford repayments. As Argentina and others have found, unlike with fixed loans, and even more so than with mortgages, the rate the markets demand from you can change rapidly

You mean like when we lost our AAA+ credit rating under this government?

Almost every country around the world negatively impacted by the financial crises has pursued policies of “austerity”, ie budget cuts. Aside from conspiracy theories what that tells me is that those are the correct policies.

You mean like when we lost our AAA credit rating under this government?

Our rating went down less than it would have done under alternative policies which would have seen much higher levels of debt.

So digga – you think a blog where they don’t even attribute the articles is somehow more credible?

jambalaya – again you have an amazing ability too resent your opinion on what might have happened in alternate scenarios as undisputed fact. FFS.

Difficult to take that article very seriously:

The Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis used to be such a US academic and part of that Krugman-ite anti-austerity set. But he’s very quickly found that in the real world things that were easy to preach about from afar prove rather harder to do when it comes to it.

That is precisely not what Varoufakis has found. He has found that the EZ have the muscle to impose austerity on the Greek economy even though it has patently failed to solve the problem. He has found a political defeat, not an economic one.

UK
…………………………………..1997…./….2007

National Debt (Bn)…………………..348bn…/….500bn
Budget Deficit (Bn)………………….0bn…../….36bn
Public sector pension liabilites………270bn…/….730bn
Personal Debt (Bn)…………………..503bn…/….1346bn
Off balancesheet PFI liabilty…………5bn…../….300bn

VAT – just on that link I posted earlier, can you imagine the fuss there would be if someone proposed VAT on food like there is in the rest of Europe. Don’t forget the united states of europe will require harmonised tax rates.

France 5.5%
Germany 7%
Belgium 6%
Netherlands 6%
Spain 4%
Ireland 4.8%

But grum can’t you see all the evidence points to what I say as being correct ? The only example I can think of the alternative no to austerity policy has been France, they tried it, it didn’t work and now they are cutting spending.

And for the record I am of course putting across an opinion

DrJ – Greece had two choices, accept the EU bailout or go spectacularly bust and exit the euro. Whilst most of us think Greece cannot escape its debt mountain its choice is to go bust and exit the euro NOW. That’s much worse. There is realistically no other option, the taxpayers of the eurozone are not going to write off Greek debt no matter how the Greek’s try and dress it up.

says the man who quotes the Telegraph !

Says the man who quotes the guardian!

The Guardian v Telegrapgh reporting on the same events has been quite amusing this week

Have fun everyone, have to go. POETS day today.

we all know that telegraph content is determined by any advertiser that pays them the cash ala HSBC

and of course we also know that osborne pledged to match labours spending plans while in office, so round we go again….

We all know that both papers have an agenda. They are as biased as each other. Insulting one is insulting them both in my book.

kimbers – Member
we all know that telegraph content is determined by any advertiser that pays them the cash ala HSBC

Totally – agreed. But equally, some things are just fact and are widely reported, by all, so they’re not always wrong. By contrast the Huffpost rarely has anything without some author angle.

kimbers – Member
and of course we also know that osborne pledged to match labours spending plans while in office, so round we go again.

Yes, this is quite so, although once in office and in possession of the full facts (and the kind note left in the treasury) they did have the sense change tack.

@jamba – what you say may or may not be correct, but my point is that it is not Varoufakis anti-austerity policies which have failed, since he never got the opportunity to try them out.

Its quite compelling politically to have “the rich” pay for everything, because the “the rich” means someone else

Lets just gloss over the glaring inaccuracy as no one is asking the rich to pay for everything:roll: Its compelling because its fair. If you must try and explain others views try a little harder will you or I will draw an equally lazy, and uncharitable, caricature of your view 🙄

you have an amazing ability too resent your opinion on what might have happened in alternate scenarios as undisputed fact

Whatever happens he will still be 100 % accurate :?h
That one really did make me laugh even for here

can’t you see all the evidence points to what I say as being correct ?I THINK I AM RIGHT

What is the sense in writing that? its does not matter what view a politician or an economists has they all think they are based on reality. It does not make it the correct view.

Groupthink means a lot of intellectuals have the same opinion. It does not make them right.

That is not really what groupthink means*
You would need to prove
1. It was actually a group
2. That this was actually happening.

* i am not going to debate it with you just read the wiki link will you.

although once in office and in possession of the full facts (and the kind note left in the treasury) they did have the sense change tack.

You mean the recession happened ? they entered the election on a pledge of austerity , cuts and balancing the books. I am surprised you have forgotten and got that so wrong, its almost as if you wrote it , irrespective of the facts, just to defend him and have a pop at labour.

This illustrates the problems of defining things in crude political terms (and also avoiding the facts)

So LWers argue that it is unfair to blame Labour for the problems that arose under their watch but fair to criticise the Tories for problems that arose under their watch and vice versa. But that clearly doesn’t make sense.

Grum is correct to observe that the Labour party was not unilaterally responsible for the crisis (nor were the bankers) and has posted evidence that supports that. That does not exonerate them (Labour)though (reasons given earlier.

The Lord Turnball (? cant be bothered to go back) is a little silly though because foreign investors are the single biggest holders of UK gov debt (followed by the BoE). If they lost confidence, then there was an obvious indirect cost in terms of the cost of servicing UK debt and the crowding out effect on the private sector.

Equally austerity and impact on GDP. Cutting spending and increasing taxes will directly reduce aggregate demand (national income). But lets not forget that at the moment we are still running a deficit ie revenues < spending, its just that the gap is getting smaller. Nonetheless, debt continues to grow. So austerity George has still been spending more than he collects, just not to the same extent. the real trick he got away with was to relax austerity but maintain the façade to the market that he was not doing so. Cheeky but smart. But then he got caught out by weak earnings leading to weak tax revenues and guess what? No party addresses the cause of that – our chronic productivity problem. They (esp Lab) gloss over this with the Min Wage band aid instead of dealing with the underlying problem. Plus ca change!

And lets not also forget that a large amount of gov debt is off balance sheet so the 70-80% number is nonsense anyway!!

and of course we also know that osborne pledged to match labours spending plans while in office, so round we go again….

Apples and pears – this was a commitment to 2% real not the 4.4% real that had preceeded it under Labour or the 0.7% under the Tories.

That’s much worse

Than a 25% reduction on economic activity, 30% wage deflation and high 20s% unemployment.

Tell the folk in Greece about “much worse” and see if they agree!

that clearly doesn’t make sense.

True we should judge them on how they handle what happens on their watch rather than just what happens.

No one can control the market [ even less so a global one] Blaming anything other than its nature for the cycle of boom and bust is foolish.

As for Labour, they should be storming into power on tbe back of the last 5 years of Conservative non governance. They should be genuinely embarrased they are where they are in the polls.

Right-wing commenter Jeremy Warner in the Daily Telegraph doesn’t agree with you, he thinks it should be the Tories who should be embarrassed :

The economy isn’t working a ‘miracle’ for the Tories

Nine times out of ten, it is perceived economic competence that determines the outcome of British elections; the party that leads the polls on economic management ends up winning. Yet this time, the rule doesn’t seem to be holding.

Judged by polling on which party has the best policies on the economy, the Tories should be romping to victory.

I agree. Not that a government which significantly delayed the recovery and which quietly dropped planned cuts and other economic targets to give the economy a little boost a year or so before a general election can be credited with economic competence, but that a political party which is perceived to have economic competence generally can expect to do well in the polls.

And as the result of an extremely compliment right-wing press, excellent marketing skills, and the utter and breathtaking inability of the Labour Party to effectively challenge the Tories or even defend their own record, spineless, pathetic, and scared of their shadows that they are, the Tories are able to portray themselves in the eyes of a less than well-informed but significant section of the electorate as economically competent, absurd as that is.

Surely we are talking about degrees of economic incompetency Ernie?

And to think for a brief while Gordie and Ed were actually doing a reasonable job of minimising incompetency before hubris took over!

Still for a historian. GO could have done even worse.

It is quite extraordinary that CMD lacks the balls to play the economy card though. Still given that he is
even embarrassed about his education (instead of celebrating it) perhaps that is not totally surprising!

Still the odd thing is the desire among some to let these folk run large sections of the economy!!!!!

Ran out of policies ? 😆

Still given that he is even embarrassed about his education (instead of celebrating it)

No he is not he is merely shrewd enough to realise that voters see him as the man of privilege and its probably best to not over play his private education background as it mayl cost him votes.
The cadre of folk who would celebrate this , as you do, is very very small. I dont think you had to go to eton to work this out.

* its also possible he does not want to highlight the fact he was done for smoking pot at eton .

Synopsis?

The labour poster might as well guarantee everyone their own aladdin’s lamp with three wishes and be done with it. Running the NHS for patients not profit takers is pretty astonishing pledge when it was Labour that saddle NHS trusts with £300 B of PFI debt.

Still given that he is
even embarrassed about his education (instead of celebrating it) perhaps that is not totally surprising!

Why on earth would anyone wish to celebrate priviledge ? its not as if dave dragged himself up from a sink estate is it.

Education is (one of the) best investments that anyone can make in themselves and in their children. If you have been lucky enough to enjoy its benefits, that is a cause for celebration and more importantly you should make the most of it.

To waste the opportunity is a much bigger crime and that IS something to be ashamed of.

Of course, those who prefer to waste it and have ‘real’ (sic) il-educated (deputy) prime ministers don’t have to look too far back in history to see the folly of that idea.

The last Tory leader who did drag himself out of a sink estate wasn’t that fondly remembered, iirc?

Bartholomew (oh, that sounds a bit privileged) starts an article well today in the Torygraph

This is a make-believe general election – an elaborate game in which highly intelligent people pretend that they are debating major policy issues. They profess to get very cross with each other over minor things.
Someone from Labour says that spending more than 6 per cent of the NHS budget on private providers is a diabolical betrayal of all we hold dear whereas spending 4 per cent – the level under the last government – is absolutely fine. Radio and TV presenters go along with this play-acting because if they pointed out that the stated differences in policy are relatively small, their interviews would be too obviously trivial. Meanwhile, everybody in the broadcasting studio knows that all of them are keeping quiet about really important things. The politicians are under strict instructions not to mention them. They are like shameful family secrets not to be discussed in front of the children.

Quite. The lack of perspective is breathtaking, still we could simply vote on the basis of whether someone is seen as being a posh git instead!!!!

So the tory head office are back at the negative stuff then 😕

In 1992 PFI was implemented for the first time in the UK by the Conservative government of John Major……Despite being so critical of PFI while in opposition and promising reform, once in power George Osborne progressed 61 PFI schemes worth a total of £6.9bn in his first year as Chancellor……Also, research has shown that in 2009 the Treasury failed to negotiate decent PFI deals with publicly owned banks, resulting in £1bn of unnecessary costs.

Bloody labour eh doing what the Tories started and continue to do 🙄

If you must negatively campaign it probably better to pick something the Tories did not start and still do.

IMHO PFI is poor value for money [ I have no desire to defend labours record in this respect] BUT they have all done them. To try and blame labour for them requires one to ignore the facts just to make party political motivated point.

If you have been lucky enough to enjoy its benefits, that is a cause for celebration and more importantly you should make the most of it.

Well he became PM is that not enough for you ?
It also seems you are advising the PM to say I had enough money to go the best private school in the country and therefore enjoy the benefits [ only money can buy] of this. Furthermore I used this advantageous start in life to help me become PM and rule over you…rejoice in my success.
Again its not hard to work out why he is choosing to not make such a big thing about it.

I do agree masses amount of wealth allows you to buy advantage for your kids.
We only disagree in that I think this is unfair and you are comfortable with the wealthy entrenching their [ already substantial] advantage.

I think you are also being pretty rude about Prescott and his status whilst telling us all off for calling Dave a posh git 😕

I don’t think you should have to hide it. Unless your equally privileged chancellor of the exchequor has repeatedly claimed “we’re all in this together” when we’re blatantly not. At that point, you probably do need to be a bit careful what you say, so you don’t appear to be quite so much of a ****.

just5minutes – Member

The labour poster might as well guarantee everyone their own aladdin’s lamp with three wishes and be done with it. Running the NHS for patients not profit takers is pretty astonishing pledge when it was Labour that saddle NHS trusts with £300 B of PFI debt.

What would be truly astonishing would to build on a mistake.

So perhaps just5minutes you can explain why the Tories want to do precisely that?
Or perhaps you can’t?

Equally astonishing is the claim that a health care service being run in the interests of the patients rather than profit is comparable to a wish granted from a magic lamp.

Perhaps you can also explain this astonishing claim too just5minutes?
But then again perhaps you cant?

.

And very funny ha ha the incomplete draft of a template leaflet, something which all parties use. BTW the leaflet seems to be out of all proportions to the doormat it landed on, how big was it?

To waste the opportunity is a much bigger crime and that IS something to be ashamed of.

This kind of opportunity is directly linked with priviledge.

Im still strugging with your concept that priviladge ought to be celebrated.

Perhaps the struggle comes from misunderstanding what “it” is that should be celebrated? 😉