Sounds like your pinning your hopes on the grass being greener in another country.

 

Except that is demonstrably the case! debt level at 13% of UK's for starters, better work ethic, higher standard of living, better weather, high growth economy, less of a sense of entitlment, welfare state not a lifestyle choice.... so on and so forth!

 

Yeah but what about the snakes and spiders

 

Nah, 'cos that would be like giving up on the UK...and Chris would never do that; this place provides so many tales that spark righteous indignation (and the corresponding posts in non-Scooby related)

 

... and Range Rover Evoques and JCBs

 

Sorry all but there's been a 'mis-post'. What was really meant was...

“George's autumn statement...

Growth up. –Yes, but given that there’s more people living in the UK than last year (normal population growth + 180,000 from net migration) and Osborne’s just funded a ‘cheap mortgage’ housing boom in the South East, it’s blo*dy well going to be up, isn’t it?

Unemployment down – Yes, it’s just got back down to where it was in 2010 when Labour left power. It’s down from the second highest peak in recent times (guess who was in power the time before?). And the 18-24 year old jobless rate is up again at 20% despite hiding the numbers by pushing more of them into further education and training schemes. And worse, for most earners wages are still falling or not even keeping up with inflation while prices of essentials are rising.

Deficit down – Yes, ‘small govt’ dogma is the holly grail for Cameron and Osborne and it’s well on course. The deficit is just the excuse. Cutting local govt spending by contracting out local services that we still need is always going to make the numbers look better. So we’re paying more tax, then we’re paying again for services the taxes used to pay for.

Borrowing down - Yes, How could it not? It’s running £60Bn over plan due to Cameron and Osborne’s **** ups and had to fall from its peak of over £120Bn last year. And for all this pain and suffering at £1.37Tn National debt is still 90% of GDP, more than twice what it was under Labour.

Can you imagine the carnage you must be suffering if you’re on average or below earnings, living on a fixed income, 18-24 in the regions or just an average family now that Cameron and Osborne are in charge?”

Not even I could spin so dire a set of accounts so well.

The truth is, most people are even worse off than they were a year ago.

The Tories can’t run an economy for sh*te.

 

No we definitely weren't, or anybody with half a brain wasn't anyway. We were already seeing a subtle but well defined recovery during the latter part of Major's tenure. Look up the figures, it's there in black and white.

The Tories were imploding as a party, but you can't accuse them of leaving the economy in tatters, which is what Labour left in 2010.

 

I'm sure they did some good things, but to me the overall/net effect was negative. Again, imho, the things I'll remember them most for is

1) Taking us into Iraq

2) Taking us into Afghanistan

This in itself to me means TBlair and his cronies have the blood of tens of thousands of men, women and children on their hands.

3) Unchecked immigration. I'm not anti immigration btw, but they wanted to 'rub our noses in multiculturalism' as they put it.

4) Massive 'off the books' spending such as PFI which is now crippling hospitals (such as my own)

 

No we definitely were, not you obviously but those of us who hadn't nailed their colours to a party mast!

My comment was in response to this:

Exactly the same was said about the Tories in 1997 by a great many people! The 1997 election was the single biggest swing from one party to another since 1945 (which is an unfair comparison as at that time there had been no election for 10 years due to the war).

My comment and the comment I was quoting aginst made no mention of the economy, but thanks for the bit about it anyway and no matter it was irrelevant to the point being made

 

isn't the state of the economy a reasonable (and recognised), measure of the success of a government...in part at least, but at least it's measurable?

 

Yes of course, but it's certainly not the only one by a long chalk and anyway we can hardly point to the 18 years of the Thatcher/Major government as being an unqualified economic success when viewed as a whole.

It actually shows you just how badly they were viewed that despite the econoy being in relatively good shape in 1997 they were still sent packing by such a huge swing towards New Labour!

 

Completely agree with this

 

Sounds like chlorophyll envy to me. Some things are better at some times in some places than others. I could earn more there in a much more commercial general practice, but their property prices, road policing, wild fires, insane heat and working conditions for some are certainly not an upgrade. I do like marsupials though.

 

No worries, I wasn't inviting you

 

Don't forget the effects of Scottish devolution - mind you, I ain't too bothered about that.

 

Such as?

 

And just remind me which chancellor robbed our pension schemes back in 1997.

 

Yes. So, instead of parroting the cr*p you’ve been fed by the right wing media and pedalled by our Con-Lib govt, show me the measure, any one you like, that shows Labour made a mess of the economy between 1997-2010.

However you measure it; year-on-year growth, GDP, govt debt, debt to GDP, unemployment or, above all, inflation-adjusted per capita GDP, the 13-year Labour administration outperformed previous and current governments on the economy.

So much so that even the Coalition don’t actually say, “Labour made a mess of the economy”. Instead they use carefully worded phrases like “the economic mess that Labour left us”. But they don't mention that the mess was due to the international financial crisis. Damage done!

In politics, if you repeat a lie (or a near lie) often enough, eventually it becomes the truth.



No. It’s the economy, stupid! Everything else is just froth [and immigration].

 

I think he meant left in Humberside

 

My experience is

Labour are never as wasteful as people make out them to be
The Tories are never as frugal as people make them out to be

Evidence.
Before the crash the defecit was lower than when Major left office
Read the IFS report on the Autumn statement. Osbourne is being wreckless with public finances. Irresponsible tax cuts.

 

UK growth hides disappointing news

 

And how do you think the growth was funded? Much of the growth came from the financial services sector with Brown making the Bank of England independent and with it outsourcing much of the macro economic decisions to them and deregulating the banking industry and setting up an ineffective Financial Services Authority. They also presided over a period where the Sterling was very strong and set a path that allowed much of companies and business in the UK to be bought up by foreign competitors and offshoring much of the manufacturing in the process. Oh, and not to mention the selling off of 60% of our gold reserves at rock bottom prices and the £100bn raid on pensions. All of which left the country more exposed to the ravages of the financial crash. I think the previous Treasury's parting note to their successor of there being no money left says it all.

 

I see our illustrious leaders have gifted themselves an 11% pay rise, quite unfitting really given the rest of us haven't come anywhere close to this even if we add up every pay rise we have had (if any) for the last five or six years.

 

Yes indeed. On the BBC website the highest number of comments a news story usually gets is around a thousand and it's typically way less than that. Last night the '11% payrise for pigs at the trough' (paraphrased) story had 2500 and counting... and not many were saying 'good on them'

 

Not even the death of Mandela can bury this one!!

 

Funny that, the timing of the story I mean How anyone can defend them is beyond me, no doubt Martin will be on to do just that any minute

 

@Jonc, thanks for rising to the challenge but you’re supposed to argue against me, not support my case.

Growth: Yes, we had a successful financial services sector. It contributed 12.5% of GDP. At the turn of the millennium the City of London alone was putting £90Bn a year into Treasury coffers. Would be great if it were doing that today.

Independent BoE: You have to be the only person in Britain that would prefer a Lawson-style manipulated pre-election cheap money boom followed by years of bust and hangover.

FSA: You’re right the FSA was cr*p. But a damn sight better than the old boys’ drinking clubs of SIB, FIMBRA and self-regulation that preceded it. Barings? Barlow-Clowes? BCCI, anyone? The pre-FSA ‘regulators’ would have made OFGEM and the Press Complaints Commission look effective.

Strong £: Yes, we had a strong pound, the basis of a strong economy. We went on an international shopping spree, retired to Spain and France and lorded it up.

Offshoring: A not-so-free market Tory, eh? If the Far East can low-skill manufacture it cheaper, let ‘em. Germany shows you can have an expensive labour-force and prosper if you make tools and tech.

Gold? Now you’re clutching at straws. Gold is just about the most useless ‘investment’ known to mankind. Why would a right thinking Treasury want it as a reserve? South Africa produces tons of the stuff every year and they’re not exactly rich. It took gold 30 years (1980 to 2011) to double in price. My first house; £15k in 1980, now worth £360k, up x24 in the same period. FTSE up x4 same period, Classic E-Type Jaguar; x10. He should have sold the gold sooner.

Pensions raid? Stop bloody whinging! Investing in a pension fund has to be the easiest way to a free State handout on the planet. You put in £80 and the rest of us taxpayers (some of whom can’t even afford a pension ourselves) empty our pockets and stump up another c£21.60p for you for free. Brown took away the equivalent of £0.60p to spend on Blair’s NHS largesse. And your right wing media has been whinged even since. Remind me again, who are the real benefit scroungers?

History will show Brown as one of the greatest post war Chancellors for his stewardship of the economy (closely followed by Kenneth Clarke) and his leadership during the international banking crisis. Of course, he did make two big mistakes: giving into Blair’s NHS spending excesses and becoming Prime Minister.

 

My point, which might have escaped you, is that the growth Labour presided over was a massive debt fuelled illusion. The strong pound was killing this country's export industry. Dependency on imports rose as a result and, like you said, people did lorded it up and mortgaged properties overseas which just left them even more exposed to the eventual crash as the sterling devalued also. Gold useless? This just highlights your lack of understanding of how countries use gold. You can't use houses or E type jags as currency internationally between countries!! Brown's tax grab on pensions meant that people can expect to retire on a lot less and compounded the problem where we have now have massive pension black hole running into tens of billions of pounds.

Brown famously said there would be no more boom-bust, how wrong was he!! You can bang on the ratio or percentage of debt to GDP, but common sense will tell you to pay down some of the debt in boom years, but instead the actual borrowing itself rose 82% under Labour. Brown let rip with the country's credit card and created the boom with massive overspending and now we're reaping the biggest bust this country has ever seen.

 

Almost as good as one of Pete's posts! A for effort