Pay later?

its going to be a W as the amount of QE has temporarily halted the decline, its like find some platic to put the expenditure on.

unfortunatly the platic will run out and the debts will have to be paid back.

so the rescue of RBS BOS and NR will be paid for by the rest of the country for a very long time.

So the real effects will be really fealt when the debts are sorted out.

Mr Brown failed to read his own book on courage for that.

Ps how come he had time to right the book ?

surly in all the expenses row this is the most problematic issue of the lot

"thanks for all you did but now it's time to go".

Ha, he should be so lucky.

Surely the argument is about no detail from the Government?

No strategy, except drift, and no leadership

As has been proved with the 10p tax and tax credits, it is the poorer members of the economy who will bear the greatest burden, and there is no policy to reduce that burden

When a government is willing to sacrifice a member of the armed forces (no details of any other walking wounded) to save a foreign reporter who was told that he running a risk, and has already been kidnapped before, then I have to question the judgement. Especially when negotiators say that they had almost secured his release.

Everyone is paying for Brown's mistakes, some more than others. It is time to redress the balance, and that will be achieved with an election

"spend now... pay less later"

(weeps in uncontrollable despair)

Please please no. I beg you all, don't subject us to this stupidity for another term. Can people not see what landed us in the recession in the first place?

It beggars belief, how did anyone with such a complete lack of mental capacity come to be the most powerful man in the country?

Oh yes, I rememer, it was because Blair lied to us (tm).

I'm not convinced of the recovery just yet and any talk of green shoots is still a little premature, I think. The prospect of the "W" shaped recession certainly a viable one as a result of all the chaos still to come as a result of Gordon's spending habits.

That said, I believe we will eventually come out of this recession OK, but that will be in spite of Gordon's actions rather than because of them. I only hope the Tories are up to the task of rebuilding the country without destroying it in the process.

And to think yesterday when I said that this might be the short upswing, mid-W shaped recession, a certain slightly left of centre leaning posted decried me for it.

And here were are not 24 hours later and The Prince Of Dorkness has said virtually the same thing.

Nicholas, I'm not quite sure about the "thanks for all you did" - sold our gold reserves, wrecked our financial regulatory framework, bled us all dry with stealth taxes, starved our troops of funding - not many of those warrant the thanks of a grateful nation - I think the population is more likely to confine itself to "just go".

If they can drag themselves away from their celebrity magazines, X-boxes, Facebook and The X-Factor that is.

I cant understand this repeated comparison between Churchill and Brown, apart from the fact they both had serious flaws. Churchill was an inspirational wartime leader, despite all the other things, some highly questionable, during his political life.

Brown is nothing more than a History lecturer with a Napoleon complex.

so those reponsible have got large bonuses whilst those that have been prudent will pay.

BOE BR is 0.5% whilst new mortages are around 5.0% range. but the bank are using this profit to cover the debts of others. fair I think not and paying large bonuses at the same time.

if the level of debt of HMG treasury was much much lower to could argue that some spending would be good, but it is so high that it is more likly to reck this country for 25 years or more.

We have such an unbalance ecomoncy where most of the tax comes from "banking activities" that will never return to anything like the previous level. That very drastic action is required.

this is simplicied but an example

cut the no job that are in the public sector. then use that money to repair the road by private companies.

but this goes aganist the grain of the sovietisation and dependancy of certain area of the country on the generosity of "governemen".

this is another of the very sinister facits of the last 12 years. huge amount of the voting public directly beholden to the control of HMG.
A means to effectivelty buy votes and lock them in ?

I can't believe that you've not called this as it is - another labour u-turn - before the summer recess Mr Browns strategy was well publicised as'investment vs spending cuts'.

Plus there's bee a little u-turn today as the prime minister has sort to distance himself from the hostage rescue, where as yesterday C4 news implied that he made the decision to go ahead in person, and he was certainly trying to link himself with the rescue when he though it had gone well.

Though i suppose he must be absolutely desperate to be associated with a positive story from afghanistan...

So it's like 1944?

So we should not get risk changing the leader as the crisis is still occurring.Yet the best comparison is Gordon Brown is Neville Chamberlain who was not a war leader and help caused the whole crisis in the first place. Incidentally, I am not saying that DC is a Churchill either.

Churchill was an Edwardian relic to be in the right place at the right time. Labour would not support Halifax and Churchill (for once)kept his mouth shut. Churchill came in saying he would not liquidate the British Empire in WW2, but he did exactly that, to the USA. Poland had to wait over 40 years to be liberated from the Soviet Empire.

There is too much waste in Government and it can be cut e.g. Bercow's spin doctor - approx. £100k.

the Tories haven't been right very often so far, says all about their economic competence.
Let's not forget Nigel Lawson is advising Osbourne, a man with his own 'boom' (and subsequent bust) named after him.
It's a shame everyone is now going on about cuts and cuts without any other real ideas for the proper reform of our financial position needed to bring a brighter future

Do Labours spin doctors really expect us to say "thanks for all you did?". If anything it will be "Dont let the door hit you on the way out"

Is this a serious article?

PAY NOW OR LATER? You do mean the ten billion hang on my brain just can fathom that sort of money Is that all the tax rises facing the population, chicken feed in the united states but surely you are joking on this level? And hang on a minute isn't that facing them that are staying with the nulabour party?or are they immune or vaccinated against it ?wow they can't be that thick can they?

Labout are now running out ot time and backing themselves into a corner.

No matter what conjuring tricks Brown attempts to pull he will have gambled his way into the last chance saloon.

Another major crisis leading up to the election and that's the bitter end of him and his party.

He now has to ask himself seeing as he asks no-one else 'Do I really feel lucky?'

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You miss the obvious alternative. Cut taxes now, cut spending later.

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And now we learn, from the column on the right of this blog that a number of the union leaders are going to show up at Chequers as well to lobby GB.


Heavens above... its like being back in the 1970's, except with worse music and slightly better fashions.

I can see why the beeb employs a different economics editor.

Nick were you informed that the August poll most always reflects the election result.

The Labour party message matters not a jot any more, its already too late to change the public's opinion of them.

The analogies with the Titanic that we trotted out on here 18 months back hold even more true today. It is too late to port around the ice berg that is the election. and by trying to do so rather than steaming into it head on and calling the election now, Labour will suffer the same fate as the Liner and its ill fated company the white star line. sunk without a trace, with few of the crew surviving.

"The Tories' answer to this is that if taking the money out of the economy now is so dangerous, why is the government embarking on around £10 billion worth of tax rises in the next year...?"

I'm sure the government will insist that money grabbed back by the increased at least in part provide support for people who have lost jobs or income. People have to live, so the money will flow back into the economy.

What concerns me more is that the increased tax-take will be frittered away in barmy schemes or underdiscplined projects.

It's still strange to me that the government has poured billions into banks (who sit on extremely smelly sub-prime property derivatives), but haven't offered major deals to house-builders.

They claim that eventually, bank shares will rise so the tax-payer will recover the "investments". On the other hand, we (tax-payers) could end up with a massive bill if the insurance arrangement means that we own masses of totally or virtually worthless bits of paper...

Meantime, builders won't build, because they can't sell enough. Why on earth doesn't the government devise a scheme to "insure" builders? After all, they will produce genuine bricks and mortar assets.

The raw demand for improved/new housing hasen't gone away. And Brown and Darling insist they will force banks to make massive lending offers. So tax-payer exposure is unlikely to be for a long tme (and would be backed by rock-solid assets). And builders need people, so social security costs drop...

The squabble about when cuts should start is totally academic. The only people who can actually DO anything with tax-payers' money is the government.

Even Brown now accepts that belt-tightening is required.

Nick:

So far, the Conservatives have won the battle for public opinion on debt by echoing the old slogan "spend now... pay later".

That sounds like a "great" idea, that is how we are in the situation now; Because of the spend now and pay later theme was allowed to ballooned out of control....

=Dennis Junior=

Will all this great Labour plan come to fruition before or after Gordon is kicked out of office by his own people , by the electorate or by a visit from men in white coats with a restraining order? If this country is faced with another term of incompetent Labour government we may have to ask the financial experts in Zimbabwe for help and advice. To even mention Churchill in the same paragraph as these nincompoops is beyond the pale.

The issue here, and what is of most concern to the population, is that both parties will start to believe their own spin. Labour have done a good job with a global recession. As I have said before, I much rather Brown deal with the global recession than the incompetent Osborne. Having said that, Labour have done a good job of supporting the doom and gloom atmosphere about the economy in this counrty. The worse it appears to be; the better they will appear to be when the economy improves.

The problem now for the Tories is that their incompetent shadow chancellor has done a good job of also supporting the spin about the poor state of the economy, in an attempt to make Labour look bad, and now they can't find a way out without contradicting some of their previous statements.

as always with anything coming out of number 10, regardless of which party is in charge i look at how things are affecting my family and will vote accordingly in any election. at the moment things are like this:

* Energy prices too high - down to bad policies (less capacity in the area) and lack of regulation
* we are owed more than £800 in bank charges - poor financial policies and complete lack of regulation, even the court system is being manipulated to delay this money (and the interest upon it) being paid back to my family unit
* unable to get a NHS dentist - it appears that the "pocket" of people in this position is close to 2 million people

* spent the summer hearing about neighbours who havent worked for 7 years and their 3 holidays abroad, whilst my family who have all been in and out of work and cant claim any benefits cannot afford a UK break
* watching these same neighbours hitting tescos twice a week with a boot full of shopping whilst we are only able to pick up a few tins once a fortnight
* my old van has had its road tax pushed up another £5
* our life insurance bought five years ago is now subject to "a review" and price increases
* petrol prices are too high and so are public transport charges
* water bills are too high, after water company has been allowed to sell off reservoirs supposedly saving us money in the long run
* family unit has lost jobs 3 times in last 8 months
* government paid almost double the council house repair money if they sold it off to a "public/private" partnership - they now complain that we need new housing!

tip of the iceberg stuff.... with tax increases on the way, its not looking good for my family unit or the labour party at the next election

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Dear Nick

You assert "Brown has lost the political argument". To whom? And about what? Labour's Liam Byrne was quoted as saying yesterday that Cameron's speech on spending cuts was "economically illiterate".

Latest polling data about which I have been blogging suggests that Brown is far from losing the argument.

https://petergkenyon.typepad.com/peterkenyon/2009/09/a-useful-poll-for-labour-strategists.html

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Nick you say "party strategists have believed that Gordon Brown's best chance of holding on to power is if the election is held in an atmosphere which feels more like 1944 than 1945 - in other words, that the country must feel that it cannot risk changing its economic wartime leader"

If Labour party strategists really believe this, it only confirms they are living in cloud cuckoo land.

If they had any understanding of the public mood, they would have got Gordon to walk the plank ages ago. As it is, there is no hope of Gordon holding onto power.

Gordon is no wartime leader. Unlike Churchill (pictured above) Gordon has shown himself to be a clueless first class ditherer. His party cannot be trusted to tell the truth and he has surrounded himself with incompetent ministers who contradict each other and change their stories on a daily basis.

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I think my comment to Brown when he leaves Downing Street is more likely to be "What took you so long?" It's a shame that Prudence, his girlfriend from his days as Chancellor, turned out to be all show and no substance.

What's all this about GB losing the argument, I think he lost it a while back but he probably didn't notice. We've heard all of this before.

If GB and Labour are what the poor people need, why did they lead us to this point in time and saddle the country with huge debt leaving very limited options open to how to deal with problems. There have been far too many tax rises under Labour, these have hurt the poorest, so GB created a new tax system that's overly bureaucratic and complex, which poorer people don't understand while the rich can afford to pay for advice to play the system to their advantages. When things go wrong, it's the poor who suffer, I can't remember exactly which tax credit system which wrongly paid out a couple of billion pounds and then merely took it back from account holders after they had already spent it. That was the fault of the government, the system and it's creator, our own PM.

GB has destroyed this country and now he claims he's the only one who can save it. Labour's plans will do little to solve anything. Increased taxes will hit the poorest the worst as richer people can more easily handle the extra financial burdens placed on them. The rich are the minority, an extra 10% on the top tier will hardly have much of an impact on our public finances and all this will end up doing is forcing the decision to make them leave the country and take their wealth elsewhere if need be or in the end, they'll pay for tax advice and be able to hide their money in creative ways and as that happens the gap that's created due to decrease revenues from high earners will end up becoming an extra financial burden on poorer people.

I think GB's line should be more like this "Waste now........Don't think about later" based on experience shown so far.

He claims he's the Champion of the poor but the poor have been the hardest hit under this government because the real poor aren't always those on benefits or those that get all this funded support but it's more about the people who are borderline who just fail to meet the standards needed to receive support.

There is more child poverty under this government, the poorer are getting poorer, the rich are getting richer and all they've chosen to do is create or increase tax after tax to steal money out of the hands of the most vulnerable in our country.

All GB has done under his "Pay less now...suffer less later" scheme is spent money the country doesn't have and given us a huge public financial deficit that we'll be paying off for years where the next generation of poor will suffer even worse as the heavier of the burdens would undoubtedly be put on them. That is the future GB wants and he has absolutely no clue about anything.

GB, if you really want to do your utmost, go and put yourself in prison, I'd rather my tax payer money be spent on looking after you there than as being PM of this country. It's time for GB and Labour to go, too many years of power has severely impacted upon the minds of our government so I think it's time to put them out of their misery.

Calling what we are in atm boom and bust ,is like calling ww2 a skirmish,the british people have had enough of the spin,deceit,buck passing and corruption , no matter what Gordon Brown does the labour dream is over.

Surely Labour's argument is "protect public services and pay the debt back through increased taxation", as opposed to "get in slash public spending and blame the previous Labour Government when it inevitably goes pear shaped" effectively proposed by the Conservatives?

Ultimately the country is doomed to suffer under either party since neither has an original idea beyond their 1980's positions, Cameron is building himself up to take on the public sector unions in much the same way as Thatcher took on the miners, all his waffling about "gold plated" public sector pensions (average civil service pension £6500 is gold plated? what's your pension worth Dave?) is to get their backs up before he starts, he knows Murdoch's papers will back him to the hilt on it. And then hey presto Great Britain will have achieved it's current aspiration to ensure that everyone is treated as badly as everyone else, and people wonder why the youth of Today are so dixillusioned with politics?

"So far, Brown has lost the political argument with the Tories about the need to cut spending".

Are you joking ,do you know what £175 billion ANNUAL budget deficit looks like in Jobs. Try 400,000 to 500,000. Why the media and the experts are not taking this government task, I don't know. Seems to be a discussion we can only have once we have a quarter of positive GDP growth ie Out of recession.

This issue is only partly to do with the recession, the truth is we have been spending far to much over the last 2-3 years setting public expectations at a higher level than we can truly afford. No allowance within the government plans were ever made for a recession, only growth @ 3% year for ever and ever...

This does not mean cutting jobs is the way forward, but public sector terms and conditions will need to be changed and some elements of the public sector will need to reign in their scope of activities, including the NHS and education (Ring fencing this will prove impoosible). The climb down to an affordable level is going to be painful and will have an impact on Labour's popularity for at least a decade.

I think it is clear that in the next 6 months, everyone will know that the biggest con was not Bernard Madoff but the unrealistic expectations raised and ultimately not delivered by our own government and the man in charge GB.

GB wanted his seat in history , now he has it along side Dennis Healey, the only other man to bankrupt the nation.

Nick, you write the electorate may treat him as they treated Churchill, saying, in effect, "thanks for all you did but now it's time to go"

Are you really suggesting there is any similarity between Churchill's wartime leadership and Brown's mismanagement of the UK? Really?......

Quite apart from Brown's woeful grasp of economics, Churchill was prepared to 'fight on the beaches' to preserve our freedom and independence. Brown sold us down the river by signing the Lisbon constitutional treaty without the referendum he promised us.

If there is any comparison, Neville Chamberlain would be more apt. The only thing Brown will be thanked for is calling a general election.

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The "boom" was caused by Gordon Brown allowing Joe Public to take on larger and larger debts which artifically caused house prices to rise and rise with comparatively low interest rates.

He "forgot" this was not sustainable and now he believes increasing the national debt is the answer to the problem.

Any green shoots are due to the 0.5 interest rate. This cannot last forever and Brown's policy of printing money Weimar Republic style will ultimately lead to high levels of inflation.

Once interest rates start rising again any housing recovery will be over and prices will come down again.

The greatest problem any future government will have is paying off Brown's debt.

His only chance of winning the next election is by changing the name of the Labour Party to "Factor". The plebs will then automatically place an "x" next to it.

If you accept the economy is a cycle then saying 'things are just starting to get better' is very close to 'we are currently right at the bottom.'

So just for once Labour might be telling the truth with both statements.

Of course, if they are accepting it is a cycle then they are accepting they were NOT telling the truth when they said 'no more boom and bust'

The Labour Govt is trying to spin its way out of the mess GB created by saying that they will not cut spending. Now they are using all language possible apart from the word "cut". For everyone to know I will tell you all again that the NHS is already being asked to make 20% "savings" next year. Those requests are being made under the current administration.

Being realistic savings, cuts must be made to pay for the huge spending on multiple Labour Government credit cards over 12 years. Nobody else has done that they are Labour credit cards. When one maxes out the credit cards then you must repay that credit with interest. All the schools and hospitals that have been built under PFI are not accounted for in the Government balance sheet but the repayments still must be made. Like with anything brought on credit the cost of the item is substantially higher because of the interest on the payments.

Labour has maxed out the credit cards and in real life if you do that you must CUT back on your expenditure and / or get more income.

So thanks to Labour two things will happen, a reduction in expenditure on public services, a CUT; also a rise in taxes to generate income.

So all the Labour party apologists who comment on here it does not matter who is in power next the CUT in public expenditure and increase in taxes will happen. The only issue is if you trust the bunch who put the country in this position?

Also I will ask again why do people keep saying "New Labour". They have been around for over 12 years so nothing "New" about them. Also on the ballot paper you only find "Labour Party"

GB call an election.

How about this for a solution to raise money and pay off the national debt.

Labour produces a chuff chart that allows us to mark off the days until Mandelson and his side-kick Brown are thrown out of Downing Street.

I reckon they would sell about 55 million (there will be some poor benighted souls who believe that Labour are doing a good job). At £10 a time there is £0.5 Billion paid off straight away!

18/19#

No smoke without fire. John Ward has published more information and claims that the counter-smear has started already.

Nicholas, I'm beginning to see the Churchill connection now. As a previous poster alludes, maybe you know about it too, but are not making it obvious. I have a feeling that this one is going to build up a head of steam, particularly if Ward keeps pushing it.

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"Dennis_Junior wrote:
Nick:

So far, the Conservatives have won the battle for public opinion on debt by echoing the old slogan "spend now... pay later".

That sounds like a "great" idea, that is how we are in the situation now; Because of the spend now and pay later theme was allowed to ballooned out of control....

=Dennis Junior="

My reading of the post is that the Tories are trying to remind people that "Spend now pay later" is not a good thing and that the country can not afford to go on a spending spree at the moment.

When i saw the photo of good old Winston i assumed he had risen from the dead and have somehow crept back into number ten mopping a fevered brow
and started to administer a bit of commonsense into a lame brained administrator.

29

Is that Liam Byrne, Labour MP?

How good is your memory?

Last autumn, which was not so long ago, David Cameron and George Osborne were pretty critical of the tax cuts and other stimulus measures that the Labour Government introduced.

Cameron and Osborne were badly wrong because these measures have, so far, proved to be the correct medicine.

Handling the economy at the present time is a very tricky balancing act, any large tax increases and public spending cuts that are too premature, run the risk of snuffing out the recovery.

I'm concerned about Cameron and Osborne.

Are they going to turn out to be like the economically asinine John Major and Norman Lament of the bad old "if its not hurting, its not working" days or is Ken Clarke (recently voted best post-WWII Chancellor by ST readers) going to have a big influence on these youngsters.

It has been reported that Cameron and Osborne have been taking advice from the Canadians on how to reduce public spending in a coherent way.

As, by default, the Tories are probably going to constitute the Government next year, let us hope that they really have learnt what to do because if they screw up, it'll be us, the English people (the Scots will have probably gone by then), who will suffer, not them.

It seems the only ones going on about "green shoots" are either wide-eyed journalists or City spivs trying to talk up a false dawn to justify their next set of undeserved bonuses. Tell it to the growing army of unemployed, particularly young people with no chance of work and the millions struggling to get through this City-made recession. Caledonian Comment

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Can you be taken seriously in attempting to compare Gordon brown with Sir Winston Churchill?

This article is illustrative of the desperation of newlabour; it is now Gordon brown who is wallowing in the bad economic news and hoping that it will get him re-elected.

What a ridiculous suggestion. You reversed sixty years of paying down the national debt after world war II in the space of eighteen months and you expect to be re-elected because the policies aren't working yet?

This is the reality behind this outrageous analogy; Churchill defeated Hitler with that money. Gordon Brown saved a load of useless bankers.

If ever an act will be judged as utter folly it will be this vain act of face saving by Gordon Brown. The banks should have been allowed to go to the wall having slavishly followed his leveraged policies.

Haste ye back.

Call an election

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PeterGKenyon 29

The real argument - the nature of the government's action on the recession, the tragic consequences in terms of long term debt and the implications of that debt on future finance policy - have been through these blogs, in the papers, on the TV, and yes indeed, they have been lost by the government, pretty handsomely. Take the much reported dispute in cabinet about how Brown's Tory cuts/Labour investement theme should be handled, or rather dropped in favour of an admission that real and deep cuts will have to be made. And now the new dispute over just how many jobs have been saved by government policy "up to half a million", "more than half a million", or "about 30,000, but with 400,000 to be lost very shortly". All areas where the government have had to bow to pressure to tell the real truth. That, my friend, is the sound of an argument being lost.

The fact that Liam Byrne has still got the nerve to get a dodgy sound-bite in does NOT mark an argument, seemingly lost, now won. Liam Byrne, of all people!

And what of this Comres poll that you are on about? It shows Labour's vote now down to 24%, out of whom 51% are considering changing their minds and voting for someone else by the time the election comes. How is this good news for Labour?

Some respect to you though. At least you openly admit that you are a Labour troll!

Amongst other things, Churchill was famous for his V for victory salute.

One cannot imagine Brown being saluted in this way. Indeed, quite the reverse.

For what it's worth - completely agree that we're in a mess in this country and most of the things that have happened (banks given money to reward them for failure; money thrown away in scrapping working cars to buy new ones and artificially prop up the auto industry; rates reduced to 0 (OK, 0.5%...) to punish the prudent savers and bail out the reckless borrowers) have been outrageous.

But... It's worth remembering that national debts aren't designed to be paid back. I can't think of any (normal) situation where a country has significantly repaid national debt. Now I don't agree with blowing up our national debt in order to justify a policy of spending money for the sake of it, but it's not a massive disaster by itself. Japan's debt is 200% of its GDP, it has a population heavily weighted to the elderly with a low birth rate and low female participation in the job market... and yet no fears have been raised about Japan. I wouldn't personally own yen... but it shows that high national debt isn't necessarily a problem.

The real problem is the current Labour government's inability to solve a problem by any means other than increasing spending.

I know someone has drawn attention to this already, but I was amazed by the "thanks for all you did but now it's time to go" comment with reference to Churchill losing a general election. The public might have thanked Churchill for mastering a plan to defeat our enemies in the Second World War.

If the British electorate consign Brown to defeat next year, what exactly might they be thanking him for?

39. At 2:36pm on 10 Sep 2009, DistantTraveller wrote:
Nick, you write the electorate may treat him as they treated Churchill, saying, in effect, "thanks for all you did but now it's time to go"

Are you really suggesting there is any similarity between Churchill's wartime leadership and Brown's mismanagement of the UK? Really?......

Quite apart from Brown's woeful grasp of economics, Churchill was prepared to 'fight on the beaches' to preserve our freedom and independence. Brown sold us down the river by signing the Lisbon constitutional treaty without the referendum he promised us.

If there is any comparison, Neville Chamberlain would be more apt. The only thing Brown will be thanked for is calling a general election.

===

Indeed. Churchill had "We will fight them on the beaches...."

Brown, on the other hand had "Here we are today at Obama Beach..."

The fact that any one in the current government can conceive of an election win for their party means they are not sound of mind and should be removed from positions of responsibility. I believe Mugabe is recruiting "Blue Sky Thinkers" I'm sure Cardinal Mandelson & Private Broon will be eligible to sit on one of his committees for stealth and dilusionment.

"Green shoots" is a phrase that no minister dare utter, even as the FTSE crosses the 5,000 barrier and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research predicts that the recession is already over.

===

Except that is EXACTLY what Baroness Vadera uttered back in January. And Margaret Beckett chipped in her two penn'orth worth about the housing market recovering back in January. So here we are still waiting nine months later, very slow growing green shots these, maybe some hydroponics would help?

What is this about? Brown thinks he is on the same level as Churchill?

Brown and his party has taken this country to the brink of destruction in everyway. We will have to pay, and the W is just around the corner. Look at the record of this government

Ruined our pensions
Created laws to inhibit our freedom
spent us into oblivion
sold our gold..having told everyone he was going to do it!
Destroyed our cuture
Talked, announced initiatives with NO DELIVERY
.......Look above for the rest

The media have given Labour an easy ride, have not done their job, even now when the whole word knows how incompetent Labour have been, you still can not ask the tough questions of Labour. You have done us all a great dis-service by not challenging them, even now.

#26 and 35 are living in the real world, that is what it is about, surviving on what is left. Labour have presided over the most corrupt parliment and MPs, think tanks, qangos are all out of touch with the real population. They have elected a new speaker that has an ego so big he has forgotten that the role is what it is about not him, (refusing to wear the gown 'because it's not him', it is not about him) and this is the man who was going to bring openess and clean it up?

I hope who ever gets in can try and see what we need, honesty, openess, reality, and good housekeeping. They are after all there by our gift, we need to remind them of that.

I say flip a coin. All those great minds created the mess and now the same bunch, motivated soley by self interest, are developing the solutions. The first thing to go in this process was the truth and the second was accountability. Invest in the printing industry as graphs and charts seem to be on the rise.

20 Fubar

Yes indeed, a return to the "beer & sandwiches" of the 1970's, with the Unions yet again telling a weak Labour PM what his policies should be.

Interestingly though, the BBC article states "..The source suggested that the unions wanted public spending cuts to focus more on "big ticket" items such as the Trident nuclear weapons system and ID cards, alongside higher taxes for bailed-out banks."

Of which I am in complete agreement.

(Left of centre libertarian enough for you, saga?)

Nick,

That's a great picture of Churchill.

Can you think of any other reason why might be saying to Brown, as they said to Churchill in the 1950's, 'it's time to go'?

"How good is your memory?

Last autumn, which was not so long ago, David Cameron and George Osborne were pretty critical of the tax cuts and other stimulus measures that the Labour Government introduced."

What tax cuts?

The 2.5% VAT fiasco??? Or the sweeping away of the 10p band?

Either way it cost the exchequer billions they didnt have.

You're obviously comfortable about your kids being in hock to China and the Middle East for the next 30 years John. Fair enough, your choice.

"thanks for all you did but now it's time to go".

Really Nick, that is VERY funny.

52. At 3:20pm on 10 Sep 2009, sagamix wrote:
still think the distinction is marginal - labour will cut a little less savagely (amount and timescale) than the tories - who knows what's best, I certainly don't - what I know rather more about is music and I've been checking out a couple of new bands.....

===

You must be joking after your Hot Chocolate humiliation last Christmas!

Re: 6

And didn't he get sacked as a History Lecturer?

I think some people are playing down the importance of Banks a little here... may are complaining that the government gave too much money to the banks. So would you have just let the Banks collapse?

Britain and, indeed, the world has too much of a reliance on Banks and the Banking system to let them collapse. Too many people have saved money in them, too many companies and too many employees.

I don't endorse all of the reckless spending and so forth that the banks have previously done, but we can't just let a financial institution collapse; Like it or not, Money is pretty much the base of the developed world, and thus to allow a bank to collapse would be to shake the foundations of society.

Perhaps they should have been more tightly regulated...

55. jrperry

Labour's share has actually stayed the same at 24%- it's the Conservative's share that is down 2%. Yes, I know, they've still got a 16-point lead at 40%.

But, I suppose there's still a lot of time til the election. Hopefully enough time for Scotland to get out before the Tories ruin us ;)

Nick,

I have to say that this is a strange blog to say the least.

Trying to draw an analogy between WWII and the past 12 years of New labour government, and the past 2 years with Gordon Brown as PM, is somewhat bizarre. Winston Churchill and Gordon Brown ??? The only real analogy I would make is that for Brown the war is all but lost and he shall spend his final days in a bunker - more like Hitler than Churchill.

I'm intrigued by your mentions of Labours strategy. Just carry on spending borrowed money regardless, in the hope we can pay it back eventually. Not much of a strategy to me. We simply cannot go on with the current level of government and public spending, and the situation is unsustainable. That's not politics but simple mathematics. What is need as a start is a wholesale review of what the taxpayers of this country should be expected to fund by paying our taxes. But we are past the point were even this will make significant impact, even in the medium term.

I don't think there will be a big "thanks" to Gordon Brown, he should simply sulk off into ignominity where he will be remembered as the worst prime minister this country has ever had. Tony Blair was desperate for his "legacy" - quite laughable now looking back, he's all but forgotten except for the odd mention related to Iraq. Both Brown and Blair should just disappear, and be very grateful that they will never be held to account legally for failing to protect and look after the interests of this country when in office.

"Labour will now try to win the argument over economic recovery by turning that slogan on its head saying, in effect, "spend now... pay less later" or "cut now... and you will certainly pay later".

====================

The words I would use to sum up apporach throughout the 12 years of the New Labour governemnt are :

"Pay more, waste now and in the future, pay again"

The recession is over and profligate borrowers have not defaulted as expected - only because there has been an unprecedented transfer of wealth for the prudent savers and borrower to the most profligate and of course to the banks.

The country is being run only for the banks.

This must stop if we are ever to get a genuine recovery - interest rates must go back to 5 to 6 percent and only then, when we have valuable money, can we hope to recover - at present interest rates asset price speculation and other irrational 'socially useless' activities and the only ones to engage in.

Nick Robinson wrote:
Otherwise, they've warned the prime minister, the electorate may treat him as they treated Churchill, saying, in effect, "thanks for all you did but now it's time to go".

Nick, you truly are having a laugh.
But you are not the bloke down the pub, you are the Political Editor of the BBC and have a responsibility to be impartial. You have a position which allows you to broadcast your particular slant on events to millions of people and hence influence thinking. In the run up to the election you surely are one of the most important people in politics.

Comparing Brown to Churchill and implying that the electorate should thank Brown for all he has done, is a step too far.

I fear that you may further abuse yours and the BBC's position in the following months.

I have a nightmare:- if labour get re-elected (God help us) your blog would headline: 'It was the BBC that won it'

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""thanks for all you did but now it's time to go"

As we're on the topic of cuts, let's see what a little editing can do to improve this.

"now it's time to go"

Better, but maybe we can do with a tad more refinement.

"go"

Perfick.

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IR35_Survivor

You're not in the construction industry are you? If so, there's something a lot worse than IR35 on the way from our beloved leader.

Beause so little has been done to rebalance the economy during the recession, having spent so much on the banks, it is now for certain that both parties will have to make major cuts and increase taxes. Not just cosmetic tinkering but real money and it's going to hurt. It is dfficult for Labour trying to hang onto power, but it is hardly easier for the conservatives trying to get to power. Neither party trusts the electorate sufficiently to come clean and the electorate does not trust them in return.

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Fubar_Saunders @ 66

Macro-economics has an Alice-in-Wonderland feel about it.

No money?

No problem.

Just print the stuff and give it a clever name ... like Quantitative Easing ... and all will be well.

In the world of macro-economics, unlike poor Mr. Micawber, something always turns up.

Relax, just when you think the pound is about to sink beneath the waves, the yo-yo (as my Irish friends call the Euro) paddles to the rescue i.e. in we go.

PS. Americans and goats have kids, English people have children.

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81.getridofgordonnow

Sorry to break it to you, but... no Prime minister has ever been elected, mainly because Voters in a general election vote for an MP, not a head of a party's cabinet. This position is chosen by the party as a whole.

Perhaps we should change the system so that Parties, before an election, do not have a leader, but then the public are allowed to vote for an MP to reprisent that party as Prime minister. A bit like the American system, but reversed in terms of the Primaries and Main vote.

Poltitics it far too much about Personalities now - how else did Blair get in, and how else will Cameron get in?

Nick you say "party strategists have believed that Gordon Brown's best chance of holding on to power is if the election is held in an atmosphere which feels more like 1944 than 1945 - in other words, that the country must feel that it cannot risk changing its economic wartime leader"

"Strategists" can say whatever they want.

However, I believe Churchill spent a long time shouting against the impending doom, before becoming leader. (He was a rather flawed character but had spent time on the military front-line and wrote some prose that was far more readable than Brown's turgid stuff.)

Brown spent years building a credit-bubble economy before becoming leader and then shouting against anyone who "let the side down" because their regulatory system didn't work. So "Boom and Bust" became a New Labour reality.

Hello. Just what did Gordon do when banks were lending money at rediculous multiples of income or loan-to-asset value? Nothing. Because financial services were easy to tax (whether at the corporate or personal bonus levels). With his parallel emphasis on taxing house sales, tax was easy to garner.

The UK banks went completely off the rails. Who should have controlled them? The FSA - Brown's creation. Did they? Naah.

Banks pretended that bits of paper were of genuine value - even though most boards didn't understand what they were. Who should have checked? Guess.

If you set aside the bankers stupidity, the fact remains that personnel debt in he UK was allowed to balloon by Brown. He STILL hasn't stopped credit card companies sending out unwanted and unrequested cheques...

Guess who suffers most when credit gets tight? Poorer people who believe they are "valuable customers" and take on enormous debt.

So, if a detailed survey of debt-carriers were taken, which group in society would be worst hit? Probably the same people who found it hardest when the 10p tax-band was withdrawn.

Shame, that.

Guess they wont worry too much because Brown has the "poorer sector of society" at heart. That's a relief. Bet they love it.

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84 General_Fondue

It's true that no PM has directly been elected as the leader by the electorate. However, as far as I know all PMs have been elected by their own party, and, in the case of Major, also indirectly by the electorate in the subsequent general election as well.

Brown wasn't even elected by his own party, let alone the electorate.

Brown's argument of "I was elected unopposed" is along similar lines to his statement of "I take full responsibility which is why I sacked the person responsible".
Being "elected unopposed" when it comes to leading the party which leads the country is a contradiction in terms. By bullying his colleagues into not standing against him, that meant he had absolutely no democratic mandate whatsoever.

I'm all for an american-style system; I'd like to choose the leader *and* the party. It's not so much about personality, it's more about ability of the candidate leader. I think we should be allowed to vote for someone we think is capable of leading the country, and we should be able to vote against someone who we think will carry out a scorched earth policy or who is generally completely ignorant of how economics works.

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YB @ 64

left of centre libertarian enough for you, saga?

well I'll go as far as sensible ...

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Perhaps the phrase "Pay - or else" would better describe the governments approach to the electorate and Browns Britain in general.

A quote from Peaton's blog today.

"It would imply that if households and government also chose simultaneously to cut spending to reduce their excessive debts - and on most analysis, the UK's indebtedness problem is concentrated on the household and public sectors rather than the corporate sector - then the incipient economic recovery could be snuffed out pretty fast."

======================

Summarises the issue for me.

All parties are basically saying the same thing about cutting public spending.

The difference is timing/pace/depth.

I think its fair to say the Tories would start sooner, be quicker and deeper.

All I say in the hope of not receiving the usual mugging is that most people should be big enough to acknowledge. This COULD be the wrong decision.

IMO Later slower and not so deep would be by far the safer and leasr painful response, if we nurse the economy back to growth, float the Gov't owned bank shares in about 3 years then perhaps irrepairable damage to public services and unempoyment won't be quite as they were in the 80's

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#92 for the last 12 years we have had a series of none productive job types created to meet policies from No 10 that have reduce unemployemt BUT have created a mill stone around the economy that will drown this country first if quick action is not taken.

Some of this expenditure has been darn right distructive over this period like the family courts as an example.

it would have been far better to have spent this money on other means or not at all and allowed the taxpayers to spend this instead rather than locking in a dependancy culture , but then is is the reason for being and extending there time in office , to get people dependant on them.
therefore not allowing free thinking of the population.

This is not just about economics its about much much more than that maybe thats where WSC might come in. In lord Moran's book about WSC in the war years, right at the being he talks about the land WSC held inviolate about when he was laid to rest. Something Blair and Brown do not understand.

92. Eatonrifle

I agree that the best option would be to cut less later , but it'll be nigh on impossible for anyone to get that message across when faced with an experienced PR man (such as, to take a random example, Cameron)?

can any government that drove this country into depression honestly be trusted to reverse the trend, i think not in my humble opinion.
can any of the parties be trusted to solve the issues that matter whilst defending themselves from attacks from their opposition, no again i think not.
this country is in crisis and draconian measures are required.
suspend party politics forming a single unified house to combat all the problems today.
if it worked during the second world war it should work today.

92#

Then why didnt you say so, so clearly, minus the baggage until now, Eaton?

Fair enough, thats the starting point for debate. You've put your point across and said why you believe that to be the case. I can accept that.

Multiple choice:

A. "thanks for all you did but now it's time to go" (Nick's Option)

or

B. "He needs to go with the crowd wanting more. He should be the star who won't even play that last encore." (Blair's option)

or

C. "We hate you for dragging the country to it's knees. A chocolate teapot would have done a better job. Go now." (Cook's Option)

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survivor @ 94

locking in a dependancy culture

hi 35 - your comment interests me, especially in the light of a theory being advanced by a couple of the more hard core tory bloggers - would like to check (pls) if you are saying the same as them

so, of the statements below:

(1) Labour have hired a ton of public sector workers principally in order to buy votes

(2) Labour are deliberately keeping people poor (and on benefits) in order to buy votes

are you saying? ...

just 1
just 2
neither
both

(thanks in advance!)