Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:38 am  

XBrettKennyX wrote:

I wouldn't say they "brought" it to it's knees. What they did is proved that they have no idea when it comes to managing the economy though.

No money put aside for a "rainy day". Instead they, like the rest of the country, overborrowed.

Time after time, Labour overspend, screw up the economy and the Tories come in and fix it for the country.

Happened in the 1970's, is happening again.

Could you expand on what is meant by "overborrowed" please? ... and specifically how you manage to apply that term to Labour but not to the Conservatives.
You see, according to the stats, the last Labour administration borrowed LESS (at times no borrowing at all) all the way through Gordon Brown's chancellorship than the previous Conservatives did.
Even after that, just before the banking crisis hit, the level of borrowing was only just ahead of what John Major's bunch left behind.

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 12:03 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Could you expand on what is meant by "overborrowed" please? ... and specifically how you manage to apply that term to Labour but not to the Conservatives.
You see, according to the stats, the last Labour administration borrowed LESS (at times no borrowing at all) all the way through Gordon Brown's chancellorship than the previous Conservatives did.
Even after that, just before the banking crisis hit, the level of borrowing was only just ahead of what John Major's bunch left behind.

I also seem to remember that the Tories were promising to match Labour's spending plans before everything went tits up.

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 1:17 pm  

I take issue with the idea that the Tories are incompetent. IMO, they seem to have been largely successful at maintaining the dominant social class, pandering to the financial sector and pursuing their political interests as a party and on an individual basis.

I mean, sure, the country is in a mess and the bottom 94% upon the earnings ladder are finding it hard to make ends meet. But these are ostensible concerns at best for the media savvy Tories.

You still hear people describing Reagan's presidency as "incompetent" despite the fact there is ample evidence that proves he not only knew precisely what he was doing when he slashed public spending for welfare whilst granting massive sums to the military, deregulated everything not nailed down, ran up a colossal deficit, incarcerated half of America etc. but wholeheartedly approved of such, too.

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 1:40 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Could you expand on what is meant by "overborrowed" please? ... and specifically how you manage to apply that term to Labour but not to the Conservatives.
You see, according to the stats, the last Labour administration borrowed LESS (at times no borrowing at all) all the way through Gordon Brown's chancellorship than the previous Conservatives did.
Even after that, just before the banking crisis hit, the level of borrowing was only just ahead of what John Major's bunch left behind.

Thats true but you have to be fair to John Major's government, he inherited the mess that Maggie had left.

Inflation was just under 10% and the economy had just entered a recession that lasted from autumn 1990 to autumn 1991. Also (although Major can't escape blame for this as he was Chancellor at the time) Maggie had signed us up to the Exchange Rate Mechanism which meant that to keep rough parity with the Deutschmark our interest rates had to match the Bundesbank which was using very high interest rates at the time to stop the reunification investment that the West German government was putting into East Germany, from becoming inflationary. So our interest rates were being dictated by Germany rather than in London.

The result was the British economy was stagnant for at least the first two years of Major's time in office until we fell out of the ERM, unemployment went on a steep rise upwards and Major's government was left borrowing and running deficits from 1992-97 similar to those that the Labour government would run from 2002-07.

The difference was that Blair's government didn't take over from a previous administration that had got us in a mess with high inflation and signed away our own monetary independence to Europe leaving us at the mercy of events in Germany that didn't allow us to get out of our own recession. Major's government did thanks to the disaster that was left to him by Thatcher. For all his faults, Gordon Brown would never have allowed British monetary independence to be sold to the Europeans.

So the Tories do have a fair excuse for John Major's deficit financing.

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 2:42 pm  

sally cinnamon wrote:

...So the Tories do have a fair excuse for John Major's deficit financing.

No, whilst John Major could maybe blame it on Maggie's tenure, it wouldn't be credible as he was her Chancellor (as you acknowledge) and it was he who took us into the ERM.
Either way, I was replying to someone who was saying that the Conservatives always have to sort out Labour's overborrowing.
And both Major and Thatcher were Conservatives.

We could have a complete separate discussion about the similarities/differences between the ERM and the Euro but I'd contend that adopting an exchange rate for the pound based on the exchange rate of the DMark left the pound seriously exposed to the Soros-crowd who had more money to gamble with than any small offshore island could lay hands on ... hence they won that hand of poker.
That couldn't have happened if we'd been in the (as-yet non-existent) Euro.
However, the rights and wrongs of the Euro is a separate discussion really, so I won't go down that road.

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:04 pm  

XBrettKennyX wrote:

I wouldn't say they "brought" it to it's knees. What they did is proved that they have no idea when it comes to managing the economy though.

No money put aside for a "rainy day". Instead they, like the rest of the country, overborrowed.

Time after time, Labour overspend, screw up the economy and the Tories come in and fix it for the country.

Happened in the 1970's, is happening again.

Remember that one fella who worked at the treasury, left a note saying there was no money left.

You know you are in trouble.

It's like being in control of a runaway train, jumping off and saying to the nearest passenger. Here you go, you try and stop it now.

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 8:23 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Could you expand on what is meant by "overborrowed" please? ... and specifically how you manage to apply that term to Labour but not to the Conservatives.
You see, according to the stats, the last Labour administration borrowed LESS (at times no borrowing at all) all the way through Gordon Brown's chancellorship than the previous Conservatives did.
Even after that, just before the banking crisis hit, the level of borrowing was only just ahead of what John Major's bunch left behind.

Pft! There you go again, using actual real facts to kick a fool's argument up the backside.

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:42 pm  

Looks like the mother forgetter ((c) Robert Webb on buzzcocks) has been given and accepted £963000 as a bonus. While people struggle to make ends meet this douchebag laughs in the face of taxpayers

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 9:44 pm  

El Barbudo wrote:

Could you expand on what is meant by "overborrowed" please? ... and specifically how you manage to apply that term to Labour but not to the Conservatives.
You see, according to the stats, the last Labour administration borrowed LESS (at times no borrowing at all) all the way through Gordon Brown's chancellorship than the previous Conservatives did.
Even after that, just before the banking crisis hit, the level of borrowing was only just ahead of what John Major's bunch left behind.

I should blinking well hope so!

The last Labour govt were in power in one of the biggest period of economic growth that the world has ever seen.

Remember that idiot Brown claiming, rather smugly that his policy had achieved the "end of boom and bust"? How foolish must he feel now?

Re: RBS bonuses - "Labour stitched us up" : Thu Jan 26, 2012 10:07 pm  

XBrettKennyX wrote:

I wouldn't say they "brought" it to it's knees. What they did is proved that they have no idea when it comes to managing the economy though.

No money put aside for a "rainy day". Instead they, like the rest of the country, overborrowed.

Time after time, Labour overspend, screw up the economy and the Tories come in and fix it for the country.

Happened in the 1970's, is happening again.

So basically, we have a massive Catch 22 situation.....Tories spend a period in power, 'fixing' the economy - Slang for massive under investment in public services.

Labour take back over, have a longish period, 'overborrowing' - Code for re-building the public services (schools, hospitals, public transport, etc) that the Tories screwed over in their previous period in power.

The Tories take back over, 'fixing' the economy, etc, etc.......you get my drift??....

Maybe we need a Tory/Labour coalition??....Somewhere between the two, there might just be a half decent government??