Through the Looking Glass Economics
The news agenda yesterday oscillated between Phil Hammond saying that the Tories had only identified £1.5 billion of cuts and Labour seizing on Cameron’s shift of emphasis saying that there would be no swingeing spending cuts, just a start on cuts in 2010. Mandelson claimed that the Tories would pull the rug out from under the recovery by cutting £11 billion this year when he himself said only last month that we need to cut £80 billion-a-year within 4 years. The government is even legislating to that effect. It is like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party:
`Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone. Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. `I don’t see any wine,’ she remarked. `There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare. `Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.
Meanwhile, back in fiscal reality, Britain is the most indebted nation in the industrialised world. McKinsey released research yesterday which puts the “billion here, a billion there” political squabbling in perspective.
Have the politicians grasped the magnitude of the deep hole Britain is in? The Tories have publicly identified spending cuts equivalent to less than ¼ of a percent of GDP. The government is overspending by some hundred times that amount. This is “through the looking glass” economics.
Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
We can’t go on like this…
Gordon Brown believes at least “six impossible things before breakfast” every day; the trouble is that he has convinced enough people that if he believes them then they are not impossible.
Can we Brown on a charge of treason – or knowingly running a country in to the ground?
I don’t mind paying for the scaffolding.
COMICAL MANDY! – surely even he cant believe what his own mouth says anymore.
“shift of emphasis”
Very funny indeed PS you made several of us laugh here at central office with that gem
Keep pumping out the Consertvative spin and earning your keep Mr Fawkes
Remember! there’s an election to win and losers don’t give doggy treats
ACM, took the bunker rebuttal boys till 12.29 to come up with this crap?
Poor show.
get back to crossroads Benny you fucking muppet
top hole jolly poor show frightful polling what what
toodlepip old bean
Fuck off.
I see the aggressive but thin skinned Labour mouthpiece, ‘TTC’ is drooling again.
I see lots of pent up agression and failure with this fellow.
O/T
Harriet in the nude
http://bastardoldholborn.blogspot.com/2010/02/nothing-to-hide.html
WAAAAAAHHH! WAAAAAHHH! WAAAH!!
nobody loves Dave!
Boo fucking Hooo Hoo
you pathetic drippy little whining twat
‘Al Benny’ how about slithering back to your spunk encrusted bedsit? You are a Labour troll with no fixed name, and not a very successful troll at that.
Every time you are unmasked you get nasty and foaming at the mouth.
Seek help Mr Failure.
no how about YOU fuck off until you learn that this isn’t your fucking website you arselicking little whiny partisan dribble of piss
ALL MP’s are fair game here you retarded little toryboy drip
Brown is a cun’t and I’ve never voted for Labour so hows about you take your pathetic smears and stick them in your arselicking little hypocritical piehole you tiny-brained spineless robot
Isn’t it.
I have a cunning plan Master.
How about we tax all the Rich people 100% plus NI contributions.
That will help pay back the money we owe much quicker.
50% is just playing at it.
NI isn’t a tax, Isn’t it?
Baldrick I could your proletarian bonce. I think you’ve hit upon an essential truth. In the same way as certain religons baptise all their dead ancestors into their faith, We will look up all the family tree websites of these top earners and tax their earnings at 100% Death is no excuse!! theres a deficit to plug!!
the first to go tax credits for people earning over £50,000.
Child trust funds for better-off families also face cuts.
- George Osborne
Shadow chancellor Osborne backs Obama bank plan
UK banks may have to face curbs similar to those for US banks
Shadow chancellor George Osborne has backed US President Barack Obama’s plan to break up the big banks.
Matthew Parriss put forward his views on the telly the other night. He said someone well off like him should not receive winter fuel payments or pension benefits as well as the free TV licence as he was able to afford them. He said it would save money.
Then they interviewed, the decidedly strange Angela Eagles, who said he was rich and the benefits were his to “give away to a charity” if he felt uncomfortable with them.
Then they interviewed some ordinary pensioners. Instead of saying, “Should pension benefits be paid to rich people?”, they said “Should pension benefits be means tested?”, with a predictable reaction of the Nasty Tories means testing the poor, etc.
Oooh, a little twist here and a little twist there…………
Here’s what Wavy Davy apparently said in December 2008 :
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/financialcrisis/3775077/Prosecute-those-who-caused-economic-crisis-says-David-Cameron.html
The Incredible Sulk is clearly one of those responsible. Will Dave prosecute him ? He should, but I won’t be holding my breath.
Yes indeed, the Cons are going weak about the knees on all fronts as the polls narrow.
Get some backbone fer goodness sakes.
Announce a Nuremberg Tribunal for Economic Crimes to start the day after the elections, with McRuin at the top of charge sheet (and hundreds of banskters in the lineup), then watch the polls improve…..
Fucking Hell!!! I would vote for that!!!
I would vote for that too! Now that I think of it, the party that actually would do that has a candidate in my constituency.
470% of GDP in debt?
Wtf is the audit commission doing?
Local government councillors can be “defrocked” and forced to repay their profligacy why can’t we do the same to these champagne socialist MPs?
They are above all `Laws of this Land`
Tories lead in the opinion polls down to 7%.
either this is due to people being pissed off with labour and then even more pissed off with the tories wet lettuce, gutless approach to this, thus giving people a choice between 200billion debt with labour or 198.5 Billion debt with the tories,
Or,
Tories are telling pollsters that they will vote labour in order to trap Brown into calling an earlier election and prevent anyone in the labour party challenging him.
I know which theory I believe.
Dewey v Truman
= Brown v Cameron
There is simply no way that Brown will be elected – it is now a matter of the final score;
Tories to get 60+ seat majority.
And expect many,many Portillo/Twigg moments.
Not so sure. Cameron is proving to be the mother of all wets – he’s now appointed Lord Stern as an advisor. Both of them have bought into the global warming rubbish big time – green taxes on the way.
if Cameron had appointed Lord Monckton as the tory spokesperson on climate change, then I would be more likely to support the tories. However UKIP have already done that so I shall vote UKIP.
Mr Ned will vote UKIP *SHOCK*.
Take the heart pills dear.
10.43am, if, unlike Mr Ned, you have nothing to add to the debate or no proposals to offer you might as well fuck off.
Isn’t it.
UKIP without Farrage are a busted flush.
Gave the game away a bit there by saying ‘Isn’t it’.
You may remember me as MB, I still lurk at the fringes posting for Gordon here and there. When mummy lets me and when my strict wanking regime allows me the time.
That is all (for now).
Is it?
Or maybe you are just mentally ill and suffering from paranoia.
It is the policies that UKIP are proposing that I am going to vote for, not the personalities. The reason I am delighted that Lord Monckton has been appointed is nothing to do with his personality, in fact I find the personality of Lord Monckton and Lord Lord Pearson to be cringe inducing, but I fully support most of their policies.
I could not give a rat’s arse who is leading the party so long as they are capable and proposing policies I agree with.
They could have the most photogenic, charismatic leader in the world, but with shite policies, I am NOT voting for them. If you want photogenic, charismatic bullshitters, just look at Blair and Obama. Both disasterous fuckwittery of the highest order in a servile fealty to the new world order directly at the expense of the people who voted for them.
You’re the fucking wet.
Just ridiculous.
The Tories are really trying to throw this forthcoming election.
Next they will be agreeing to any Electoral Reform BEFORE June.
This country has become a basket case, and still we have the deluge of advertisements on TV, Radio, Press, and the Internet extolling the virtues of everything Government. No holding back on the Non-Jobs front.
Wavy Dave is looking very wobbly.
Mr Ned, policies without anyone to enact them are like tilting at windmills. Unfortunately a vote for UKIP, like a vote for LibDumbs is a wasted vote. You may as well just spoil your ballot paper.
However bring in AV and I would put UKIP at No. 1.
It looks like Peter Oborne was entirely correct the other week, diagnosing an ideological rift between Cameron and Osborne. With this announcement of Osborne’s it appears Cameron is stuck for the moment between the Scylla and Charybdis of the ideological heirs of the old Stern gang on one side and the nu green Stern gang on the other. In this situation, trumpeting to the electorate what he will do is tantamount to hanging out the white flag with your battle plan written on it.
Look at me Tony I’m spinning spinning spinnning like you my hero Blair
there was no U-Turn
spin spin spin
no massive cuts this year
spin spin spin
economy safe in ickle Georgie boy’s hands
spin spin spin
even though he was caught red handed fiddling his own expenses
sp.. oh right, that’s a fact
Six months after the GE Stern will end up buried at a crossroads at midnight with a tally stick (made of wood from a sustainably forested tree) through his heart. Just a bit of showmanship from the Cameroonians
The Lord Stansted is spot-on. The average family gives not one fuck about global warming; they’re prepared to recycle and switch the lights off when not needed but that’s as far as they’ll go. Especially when they see the most beautiful parts of the country blighted by those fucking wind machines! Doesn’t that fuckhead Cameron or any of his people at CCHQ read?
This post says it all.
Labour under Brown (and those that are now propping him up) are showing themselves capable of decending to the deepest depths to try to cling onto power.
What about what is good for the country? I address this to the Labour Party in general.
And what IS good for the country? labour clearly is NOT, but then, why is a slightly paler version of labour lead by Cameron any better?
I think we all accept how utterly disastrous labour is, but I have yet to see evidence that the tories will be much better.
I want to vote FOR a party that will bee good for THIS COUNTRY. Cameron has completely failed to set out how he can even achieve the powers he will need to be allowed to govern for the good of this country, let alone if he has any intention of doing so.
The EU is going to increasingly dictate every aspect of our governance. Cameron is pointless.
This coming election looks to me like finding I have liver cancer and deciding that I can either keep the liver cancer, or have a miracle cure that will replace the liver cancer with lung cancer.
I want to vote for a complete cure, not replace one cancer with another cancer.
I am NOT in favour of propping up this wretched and fucked up fuckmuppetry of a malignant labour maladministration. But I DO want it replaced by something that will make a positive difference, instead of more of roughly the same that Cameron is offering.
The Tory election campaign so far has been a diabolical, defeatist, confused, scared, timid demonstration of conservative fuckmuppetry.
It is time for a change, and I am not seeing any significant change from the tories.
Surely Ned, you would rather have to deal with ‘drippy Dave’ than Brown the uberc*nt.
In the future i can see the 2 major parties being the Tories and UKIP.
But for that ever to happen, we HAVE to remove Labour.
That is a forgone conclusion.
The vote UKIP get Brown line of argument is a busted flush.
UKIP are only targeting the 25 most winable seats where they came first in the EUros and at best, are going to get a handfull of MP`s. However, that will be enough to start the return to sanity by the political class.
Sopping wet Dave will have a 30 to 60 majority but will be shitting bricks, when the Speaker calls Farage at PMQ`s, because he knows the overwhelming majority of his own party members, support pretty much, most of what Farage says.
Oooooh matron… don’t you ever stop whining..stick to ukip you suit them.
This is a foregone conclusion
a vote for the heir to Blair is a vote for Tony
Thought Farrage was yesterday’s news? (Stood down a couple of months ago to be replaced by somebody who obviously hasn’t had quite the same impact?)
Disney Politics, if it can be imagined it can be done. Surely the closing in the polls is all about expectation management, when Bruin scrapes in through postal votes there will not be revolution, because it was what we wanted
Excellent Blog Mr Fawkes, one of your finest.
The public are mostly not stupid, so why do the politicians treat them as if they are?
Agreed, reality check for all, time to pull heads out of sand, politians, public and media alike, lay the facts on the table and tell it how it is. The thought of another four or five years of this lot makes me look at calling it a day, will someone get a grip please and provide the country with a clear alternative!
Even BBC resident bank destroyer, the pisspoor Peston, gets it: “It shows that – of the world’s biggest and richest countries – the UK and Japan are far-and-away the world’s most indebted countries…in 2008, the UK’s debt to GDP ratio was 469%, the highest in the world, compared with 459% for Japan. The ratio of heavily indebted America was “just” 300%.”
There are two major differences between Japan and the UK which are not being mentioned. Firstly , most of Japan’s debt is held by its own people in that their domestic banks buy the government’s debt. This means that Japan doesn’t have to beg on the world market for foreign investors and the rates are consequently lower. But secondly and most importantly, Japan has and owns the industry which can earn the way out of the debt if and when they reach their own limits. Japan has huge holdings of foreign currency whilst the UK has enormous net external debts as a result of our cumulative trade deficits.
Best the Conservatives lose the next election as LieBore has deliberately engineered the indebtedness knowing peoples’ memories are short and that the party forced to take the necessary painful measures to return the Country to reality will be quickly blamed and only serve a short parliament. A worrying factor is that only the intervention of the IMF, if LieBor are returned, will save us.
LieBore have no allegience or care for anybody apart from themselves.
I tend to agree with this – might be better for the Torys to pass on this one but gawd help the country if they do
I beg to differ.
A large chunk of the general public are dribbling morons.
How else do we get such Hoons in Parliament?
You have this spot on Guido.
Mandelson is in March Hare territory. He is propping up the Mad Hatter after all.
All Labour under Brown care about is trying to cling onto power and to hell with the country. Mandleson spins lies while Gordon (the pretend PM) hides behind this mendacity with his bunch of dribbling diehards.
Propping up the Mad Hatter ? I’m popping up the Brown Hatter.
Can I join you?
Me too!!!
It drove me mad yesterday – every fucking news bulletin across all BBC output we had Comical mandy given airtime to trash the Tories.
It is the BBC, but where was the Tory response.
Gloves are off – get stuck into these fucking wankers
Let’s see how much airtime tonight goes to either Osbone’s speech or Clare Short’s appearance at Chilcot – she’s not been too complimentary about how government worked in 2003 so far…
Everybody knows that the BBC is the propaganda arm of the Labour party.
If the Labour party had any money for a campaign then the BBC would be more subtle in their support for the war party but as the party has no cash the BBC are forced to be more blatant.
And so here is an opportunity for the Conservatives to forward a popular and correct policy: the BBC is a biased and self-serving organisation and so it must be cut down to size for the sake of our democracy.
To achieve that David Cameron would be well advised to make a manifesto commitment to reduce the licence fee to £125 per annum, to be reviewed when the country is fully out of recession.
3.5 billion pounds a year is an obscene amount of money for the BBC to bully people into paying when you consider what low quality programmes in all formats that the politically biased organisation broadcasts and that people, thanks to other digital broadcasters, watch less BBC programmes than ever before.
I suggest the BBC could get by on less than 2 billion pounds a year and still provide a public service.
It would definitely be a vote winner and show the Conservative party is on the peoples’ side during these tough times.
Sadly, Cameron is on the BBC’s side, or at least he is too scared of the BBC to upset it, so it can keep pissing on him with impunity.
If Cameron would privatise the BBC then I’d vote for the wet.
I’d sign up for that in a heartbeat.
The damage Aljabeeba has inflicted on this country is great indeed
“Gloves are off- get stuck into these fucking wankers”
Correct no more fluffy bunny Tories please lay some punches innit.FFS theres enough friggin ammo.Take your pick at almost any issue in this country and its all FUCKED FUCKED FUCKED and then SOME MORE.And whos fault is it.Its not the friggin Tories its the government in power for the last 13 years.Although the electorate would never know that thanks to the Tories and the BBC giving them an easy ride.FFS Brown is even laughing at Cameron at PMQ’s he must be thinking “How fucking lucky am I to have such a wet opposition.Without any teeth.Hold the government to account for all past and present actions.Its yer fucking job isn’t it?
I despair, I really do, at the Tories lack of political nous.Mandelsone must be rubbing his hands in glee of how easy an opponent the Tories are.I suspect the Tory front bench have had everything they ever wanted handed to them on a plate thats why I suspect fighting is alien to them.It would be better we had a Tory government run by more ordinary people who know the score not these spoon fed Toffs.
Labour don’t really want power either, they are just shit scared about someone else having a very good Forensic look at the books.
EY have completed a huge review, and we would have been in Administration by now but for the IMF having no money to bail us out.
First stop is cancel all index linked pensions that are non-contributory. If they don’t like it they can carry on working or go back to work.
We now have wonderful ageist legislation now. Bravo the Communists.
You couldn’t make it up
Jock Stirrup tells the Chilcot enquiry that Brown refused to release the full amount of cash required to equip our troops at the same time as MPs were filling their boots with fraudulent expenses. Not only that but now that the Lisbon treaty has been signed Euro MPs want another £1300 a month as they claim the treaty has increased their workload.
WE MUST BE MAD TO PUT UP WITH IT !!
Cuts, what cuts? Andrew Neil makes an easy ambush of a New Labour MP who can’t state one cut the Conservatives would make in New Labour’s claimed £11Bn of cuts they claim the Tories would make.
That great economics genius Peter Mandelson…. so clever he says that cutting the public sector would damage the economy. He states the public sector generates money for the economy. No Peter, the public sector TAKES money out of the economy, it generates no wealth for the country.
Dave is panicking over the swing to B+P and UKIP, so too are Brown + Clegg.
They saw question time when a member of the audience made the point that none of them were worth voting for they are all the same. Another person said that he didnt feel British anymore as we were swamped with immigrants to which the audience cheered.
They have ignored the publics view over the Lisbon Treaty, Immigration, Political Correctness the stupid Human Rights and took the **** with expences, now voters are about to get their own back. All three main parties have treated us the public with utter contempt so now its pay back time
About time too
Nick Robinson claims that £1.5Bn of cuts is nothing…. well it is to a highly overpaid BBC presenter who reads New Labour press releases as fact…..
Nice one George.
is that the clip where he apologises for thieving and fiddling his expenses and muddling all the figures up because all that math is a bit of a bore ?
NICE ONE!
Well, accountancy was never my strongest suit and I think I can speak on behalf of the whole Labour Cabinet when I say that.
Flip flip flip flip.
Mummy I’m scared. Stop I want to get off.
Time for the I.M.F
indeed and that is regardless of which party wins the election. The tories are far too timid.
The earlier, the better.
The IMF is a busted flush (insert Marko Ten joke here)
They will not be bailing us out in any meaningful way
Time for the IMF?
The IMF is insolvent.
How can one insolvent organisation help another?
But thanks for offering your impossible thing to the debate.
Our local Scout Group have got £1,315 in their account – would this help?
Mark Oaten will double that for a little favour
did you mean ‘flavour’?
Ooh you little shit.
Expect a Scout Group Windfall Profits tax to be in Labour’s Manifesto.
oh dear, there will ba a new scout tax coming out soon
After school activity tax
Hanging out laundry on a Sunday tax
Jaywalking tax
Penpal writing tax
Pet food tax
Text message tax
Driving after dark tax
Leaving the light on in the hall tax
Dripping tap tax
Draught tax
Draught excluder tax
Cat flap tax
Dog house tax
Photography in a public place tax
Toolbelt tax
Electric tools tax
Tacks tax
Wet weather gear tax
Suntan lotion tax
Throw a sickie tax
Being ill tax
Lying down with a headache tax
Ageing prematurely
Death tax (oops, they’ve already got that one)
Where the fuck did you get those confidential proposals from?
Duck house tax perhaps?
Tax everyone who doubts global warming!
Bell Tower tax ?
Reading to your children tax
Talking to other peoples’ children fine
Burning candles at a romantic dinner tax
Using low light levels in a domestic environment H&S fine
Fireworks noise tax
Chinese lantern tax
Picnic in the park tax
Picnic on the beach tax
Picnic hamper tax
Foreign language dictionary tax
Sudoku puzzle tax
Use of thesaurus tax
Bonfire tax
Growing vegetables tax
Growing fruit tax
Fruitcage tax
Vegetable plot set aside tax rebate
Hanging basket tax
Wearing bright colours at the weekend tax
Cheery person and smiling tax
Not being a public sector worker tax
Wearing sandals tax
Being a vegan tax
Bollocks this is boring tax
Fuck, we are leaking like a fucking sieve.
Arrest everybody with access to confidential papers.
SEX Tax.
That is the BIG one!
Official.
PAYBonk
Wet and dry farts taxes
Blogging tax
Tax everyone who believes in climate change
Tax anyone who ever thought that NewLabour and TonyBlair was a good idea.Hands up now.
(Personally, I had the foresight for a bit of tax avoidance.)
Tax tax.
Oh, that’s easy! They don’t print money, they print IOUs! Simples!
Simples tax. £10 fine for anyone who says/types it
Please don’t say simples
It makes you sound like a cnut
Fuck! Now I’ve said it!
Tenner in post…
Fear not Gordon will print a few quid to help them out.
The crux of the matter;
Will the electorate,especially Liebours key voters,believe Brown?
Win the marginals – the rest is irrelaevant
It needs repeating
“Win the marginals – the rest is irrelevant”
“Win the marginals – the rest is irrelevant”
“Win the marginals – the rest is irrelevant”
“Win the marginals – the rest is irrelevant”
Ashcrofts mantra
Labour wont lie down because these labour troll keep reminding the UK what a great job they are doing.
Polly Tobenee
Mary Riddle
Micheal White.
Andrew Marr
Adam Boulton
Nick Robinson
Andrew Grice
BBC
Sky News
Daily Mirror
Daily Star.
cant we do something about these traitors.FFS
missed one Jackie Ashley
You mean, like not buy their product?
Go for comfort votes. Tell the electors what they want to hear, not what they ought to hear. “Yes, other people will go on paying for all your nice public services, for a mass unemployable underclass, for a mass unproductive admin-class, foreign wars and our latest expensive follies. Those nice foreigners will pay for it all, or failing that our children and grandchildren will just have to work harder for longer. Failing that, our magic economist Mr Rumpelstiltskin can make gold out of straw. Don’t worry; glue yourself to the telly (BBC preferably), smile and vote for us.”
Too right – my own constituency will never go non-Tory while the earth still goes round the sun. The swing seats are the only ones that matter.
And conversely, who believes Cameron?
This labour-lite approach does not appear to be working as disillusioned labour voters are afraid that it is all just an act, whereas tory voters are afraid that it is not. So Cameron is losing trust with both sets of voters.
disillusioned labour voters are afraid that it is all just an act, whereas tory voters are afraid that it is not.
BINGO!
Full fucking house! Spot On!
CCHQ please TAKE NOTE!!!
Mr Ned, you have made your point some while back. We get your point of view. You are now becoming boring.
Now sod off to whatever dung heap you inhabit.
It’s working Ned. Keep it up son.
Thanks, my troll skills really wind ‘em up.
Christ! It’s uncanny, that graph, can you see?
It’s shaped like… a hockey stick!!
WOW, I have finally had my ID copied. I feel accepted at last. Oh I am so happy.
Now could the twat who posted @10:31 kindly fuck off.
I shall not cease in expressing my right to express my opinion as a free man in a free country under common law.
I know some tories on here are getting tired of having to face up to the fact that not only are labour a faecal stain on the necrotic underbelly of democracy, but the tories, who SHOULD be offering an alternative, are actually letting down millions of potential voters by utterly failing to offer a valid alternative.
I need a positive reason to vote for the Conservatives, and if the best you can offer is, “he is not Brown” then give up. If you cannot offer an alternative to the worst labour party and worst government in modern history, then what is the fucking point?
You have arrived Mr Ned.
You now have been officially accepted into the bloggers hall of fame.
Very well done.
Thank you Thank you Thank you. [ takes a bow ]
I support the collection of Dad’s Army rejects that is UKRAP.
It is my right to get purple in the face and shout at everything due to my bottomless frustration.
I wish I was Mr Ned
Spot on.
The tories have been toxic for years based on mild slushing and an avalanche of negative labour propaganda aided and abetted by the BBC and the msm in general.The last thing Cameron wants is to give Brown an open goal by announcing draconian pulbic expenditure cuts which anyone of whatever hue, with the exception of gormless, who is not completely insane knows is the medicine needed.
Gordon Brown has totally wrecked our economy over the last decade or so and having yet another 5 years with this fxxxing lunatic in charge is tantamount to committing economic suicide.
Labour are clearly running The George Bush Strategy “You can fool some of the people all the time, and those are the ones you want to concentrate on”
George Bush’s fiscal policy is worthy of examination.
He increased spending because of war and reduced taxes for the rich.
By doing so he single handedly destroyed the American economy.
Bollocks.
Clinton set up Fanny Mae, and Freddie Mac to fail. Following the social house ownership legislation was the start of the decay. The Bankers then fucking well sold the Debt in packages as it was rated AAA. Up to 500% Leverage and every Bank clipping the ticket on the way around.
Bush wasn’t clever enough to harm anything in his own Country. He just wanted to finish off Daddies Mission.
The 500 Billion dollars spent fighting pointless wars is what finished off the American economy and who was the self-declared ‘War President’?
That would be George Bush.
So that means you are talking bollocks, not me.
Next.
The Bill for the American wars of aggression is now just over one trillion dollars, and rising.
Much of that is down to the cost plus contracts that encourage rampant price gauging and ripping off of the tax-payer.
For those that do not know, a cost plus contract is a contract for a set of work, where the Government will guarantee to pay whatever it costs the provider company to do the work, plus a percentage as profit.
This lead to situations whereby if a company was using trucks to move things about and a truck blew a tyre, it was more profitable for the company to push the truck into a fire-pit and claim for a new truck, than to fix the tyre. Rebuilt schools were said to have been taken over by insurgents just so they could be destroyed and re-built again thus doubling the profit. These contracts had no oversight and ripped off tax payers to the tune of billions of dollars.
Two points:
1) There is a significant differentce between cuting this year and cuts in 4 years time, you reported it as if it was a contradiction in terms – it is not
2) The disparity in your graph is driven by the level of PRIVATE debt, Public debt stands between 60 and 70% much lower than the US, Italy or Japan
Yes we can read. You are repeating what is here for some reason? The unfunded public sector pensions of £1 trillion should be included.
As should PFIs.
Brown fraudulently miscategorised that debt so it would not be included in the total public debt column.
If an employee of a private company did such a thing they would be serving jail time.
but the Tories LOVE PFI and PPP’s
shurely shome mishtake ?
like a laughably easy to spot misleading graph
PFIs were termed ‘public sector ENRONs’ by somebody recently, possibly on this site. That sums up Brown/Blair’s decade in charge of our nation’s finances.
Yes, public sector pensions are public debt: the public pays it (of course, there is a way to get round that… make the public sector employees responsible for their pensions like the rest of us).
But personal mortgages, credit card debt, bank loans etc should not be included.
public debt stands between 60 and 70% .
This is a lie. I know it is a lie because Gordon Brown assured me that public debt would never go above 40%.
And we all know how honest Brown is.
don’t make me laugh
70% or 80% ????
pull the other one mate
that’s lies that is
big fat lies
it’s 138%
coz I say so
innit?
That is precisely the point – private debt must be included. Debt (from whatever source) is a drain on the economy – it either results in default or a drag on spending or indeed, typically both. We are monumentally fucked!
But thanks to the shit standard of journalism and reportage in the UK the great British voter doesn’t give a shit as long as his house increased in value last month. Thus making him ‘richer’.
Look you fucking morons. If houses were free then you could spend all your wages on beer, pies and skiing holidays. Instead yopu have created an economy where you not only have to pay 8 (eight) times the average wage (pre-tax) for your shit Barrat-box house thus meaning you are already all an average of 100K or whatever in debt you then go and remortgage the fucking house to buy a foreign car, foreign plasma TV and a fucking foreign holiday.
If the house only cost 10K – which is all the materials are worth then you could buy the rest of the shit with cash instead of mortgaging yourself to the hilt and tying yourself to a shit job.
Arseholes.
No wonder Labour treats the voters with contempt. With a mentality like that contempt is the natural emotion.
hmmm. beer and pies.
You really do not understand the housing market do you jgm? The taxpayers of this country spent £147,000 last year just providing housing for me and my seven children; of course the taxpayers also paid the Council tax, and then gave me child benefit and other allowances, so I cost about £180,000 a year for you lot to support. How many “hard-working” taxpayers is that? Gordon and his mates are geniuses; you know it makes sense.
With a bit of luck your kids will become doctors and dentists unlike the native white underclass that we seem to be similarly subsidising in Hull.
Somalians are not known for their Medical Prowess. It was an Italian Colony.
I still can’t understand why the Gurkhas were banned from coming into the Country until they were embarrassed by a cute old blonde.
I still can’t understand why the Gurkhas were banned from coming into the Country
Because they deserve better treatment than to have to live in modern Britain.
Because the EU immigration policy is racist?
private debt: individuals got themselves into the stupid situation where they borrowed too much. I don’t really know what the political answer to that is.
Perhaps there wasn’t enough pessimism in the economy and individuals had forgotten about house price bubbles and recessions (and saving money, living within their means).
But like turkeys at christmas, the debt-junkie public wouldn’t really have wanted the government to interfere with their habit.
PS: bloody credit card. They’ve cut my limit to a third of what it was. Because I’m a bad customer who isn’t in debt.
Get an Amex charge card. Your frequent spender points more than cover the annual cost of the card. Well mine do.
annual charge= 0
I only got the thing so I could hire a car in america.
There’s the charge card. And there’s the credit card. The charge card (as far as I can see – and I’ve stress tested it pretty spectacularly) – has no upper limit.
Dear JGM2,
We are currently strapped for cash at the moment and in danger of going bust so we demand full repayment of your debt by close of business today.
Regards,
American Express
Hi AMEX. I could do that easily because I am not an economic fuckwit so I don’t spend moeny before I earn it. But I think I’ll just wait for you to go bust and see if the creditors can find me.
Regards,
jgm2
Dear JGM2,
We do not make any money from economically literate bastards like you. You fucker.
But as you are being so truculant in your correspondence with us I decided to investigate your account. I have retrieved your contract with us from our records and I note that although you have signed the document we have not which means that the contract does not stand and therefore if you were to owe us money you would not, according to contract law, be obliged to pay us back a penny.
Oh shit!
Regards,
American Express
I note that although you have signed the document we have not which means that the contract does not stand and therefore if you were to owe us money you would not, according to contract law, be obliged to pay us back a penny.
Hahahahahaha.
Now that would be funny.
Nice one jgm2, no contract exists as a contract is only valid between two persons and expressed and signed as such. If they cannot provide the proof of your and their voluntary acceptance of the contract through a signed document, then the contract does not exist.
Additionally, credit cards do not lend you money. You think that they do, but in reality they are lending part of your future repayments back to you.
Since that fuckwit Brown was in charge of the economy was it not his responsibility to ensure the country – both public and private – was not over indebted. Instead the twat ran up deficit after deficit at the height of an economic boom because he thought it would never end. He introduced GOLDEN RULES which were never to be broken but which were broken immediately things got rocky. Everyone – including Labour MPs and the media – know that Brown, along with his Scottish Banker mates, has completely fucked everything up but they refuse to hold him to account.
For 5 years the media never let Major forget Black Wednesday – which turned out to be a blessing – yet they act as if this catastrophe has nothing to do with Brown. At the same time they know, no matter what happens at the election, Brown cannot possibly be allowed to run the country for another 5 years as he is clearly unstable, yet when a book is released stating this the BBC gives it no coverage. Can you imagine what would have happened if a book had come out in January 1997 saying Major manhandled women. The media would be searching out the woman demanding Major address the issue etc. What do we have now, even the Murdoch press hound John Terry instead of Brown. WTF is going on.
Yes indeedy. WTF is going on. As you say. Where is this woman assaulted by Brown?
Where are the witnesses? Surely we could at least make liars of several number 10 insiders. Just ask them were they present when this alleged incident occurred. Sooner or later the truth will out and they’ll be revealed as complicit in covering up employee harassment. If the story is true.
“He introduced GOLDEN RULES which were never to be broken but which were broken immediately things got rocky.”
Now just imagine if the tories had introduced those golden rules and then broke them. We would still have the BBC chanting “golden rules” 15 years later.
And you are correct. Who gives a fuck about who John Terry fucks? That is a private matter between the people concerned. Did John Terry have a national election campaign to become England football captain, and in this campaign , did he promise to uphold family values and not cheat in his wife? If he did I missed it. No, he is England captain solely because of his actions and experience on the pitch END OF.
Whereas we have a certifiable mental case, with diagnosed mental disability (according to many accredited and qualified psychotherapists), in charge of the country and no fucker is giving that news the time of day.
you sound like you did max out on your credit card.
The ‘money’ for credit is made available to people before they have earned it and this is a deliberate policy. If the government didn’t want people to get up to their eyeballs in debt, they would easily ensure that the ‘money’ was not available. My daughter is at Uni and will leave next year with debts of £15,000 and that is without a job or any income at all. This is deliberate.
Bit conspiratorial, I think. Isn’t the simple explanation this: Lefties want to give away University places because a) it flatters many people who are not at all academic and b) massages the unemployment figures. However, they can’t actually afford such largesse, so they charge the poor suckers for it.
Genuinely talented people now emerge with degrees which are worthless, because they do not distinguish the bearer as being especially able. Thank you, Lefties.
Don’t forget Golden Days, it is a good way of increasing the number of impressionable young people funnelled through institutions where lefty academics can influence young minds with the failed philosophy of Marx.
Private debt is your personal problem, public sector debt is EVERYONE’S problem…. that’s a massive difference in scale of the problem of debt.
New Labour are hiding what they have done with respect to government debt with quantitative easing, and other productive money stealing schemes from savers and pension savings.
Next thing you know you’ll tell us that the National Insurance tax is not really a legalised ponzi pyramid scheme.
I don’t agree. Repaying the public sector debt will have to be funded by individuals in part. If they are paying a proportion of their income to service personal debt,this limits the scope a government has to take more of that income to pay off public debt.
As a nation we are more screwed than most. Sadly the intellectual colossus’ who govern have not grasped this at all.
“private debt must be included”
So what are you suggesting, that the government should restrict how much an individual can borrow? That the limit on your credit card is not set by the credit card company based on your credit rating, but by some civil servant in Whitehall, or worse, some politician in Westminster?
Ministry of Credit official: “Sorry, Mr Spank Sinatra, you cannot buy that car because it is way too swanky for you, so we are not going to allow you to have the credit.”
Personal debt is personal.
The gummunt did indeed use to control the amount of credit in the banking system in the 1970s and I believe that we experienced the ‘Barber Boom’ when controls were relaxed. That all ended in tears, sterling devaluation, the IMF feeling Denis Healy’s collar and ultimately a Tory government.
We are now in the ‘tears’ phase of the ‘Brown Boom’
“Personal debt is personal.”
Total w*nk.
Supply and demand. McDoom got the interest rates set too low to create a sense of false prosperity through a credit bubble. People’s demand for credit was artificially increased through making it artificially cheap.
I think the Tories need to admit that, until they actually get into the Treasury and see the books and have a chance to get to the truth and figure out exactly what the mess is that Gordon has left us in, they simply can not make any promises (other than “we will sort it out and pay back our debts”).
No point in talking about any specific cuts when we can’t trust the people currently in government to tell us the full truth of the matter.
EXACTLY.
Do not be tempted,just cos some wanker called Mandelson asks you,to tell them what you don’t know.
Take the position that the economy is so busted by Labour,that until we get in to the house and see the scale of the rot,we don’t know what action we have to take,but it will be painful.
From my negotiating experience in business,these tossers really don’t know when to shut up and let the others dig their own grave.
I agree Mouse, ‘sheeple’ do not realise the mess we are in, only Liebore know the details. If Camp David do not explain the reality well enough then…
I agree entirely.Brown’s been so bloody evasive and secretive that the amount we’re in hock for is anyone’s guess.
O/T Clair Short’s really going for Blair today before Chilcot.
If Cameron becomes our next PM (and it seems to be becoming a bigger IF for some unfathomable reason), he and Osborne need to look at the books and then go public, very public, about just what an awful mess has been left behind by McRuin.
Nothing hidden – just lay the bare facts before the people.
Correct. There are lots of things that the tories need to do as soon as they get through the door at Number10.
The sad part is, they are far too scared to admit to them.
The scary thought is that they are genuinely not prepared to do them at all.
Man on the street has no concept of the magnitude of our economic problems.
Man on the street hates Brown but 30% will still vote for him.
30% will definitely vote Tory whatever.
Tories seem to be scared of frightening the 20-25% that are still up for grabs.
Labour are a spent force but are still making the running and the Tories are changing their ‘tone’ in reaction to Labour. Take the iniative!
Get some balls, stick your neck out, shout out : The economy is srewed, Labour screwed it, Labour can’t unsrew it. They are a tired divided partyclinging on to power.
Quite so. Get tossed out of PMQ. Simply accuse the government oputright of lying about the parlous state of the nations finaces. Bercow tosses you out for calling a fellow MP a liar.
Repeat, with different MP, the following week.
Fill the BBC with the fact that the Tories are outright accusing the government of lying about the economic clusterfuck they have created. And the only response the government has is to invoke parliamentary procedure. Because the fact is that Labour are lying about the utterly fucked economy they have created.
Agreed – call Brown a liar in PMQ’s – that will make the electorate sit up and watch PMQ’s and see the nose picker in all his ugly glory.
GET BLOODY ANGRY,TORIES AND DO IT NOW!
Also, remember that whenever the Tories start to refer to the parlous state of the Nation’s finances, Brown and his apparatchiks automatically accuse them of ‘talking the Country down’.
Telling the truth = talking the country down in Liebour’s world.
Quite right, somebody needs to get honest about the situation.
Great Britney is clinging on by one cracked fingernail now.
There are just sooooo many time-wasting protocols and procedures (e.g. “Mr.Speaker”, “The Honourable Member”, etc.) in the House. They should be junked, along with the inability to call a bare-faced liar a bare-faced liar.
Entirely factual outbursts, like “Oi! Brown! NO!.. You lying POS!”, shouted across the despatch box should pass entirely without incident..
Also, the Tories should shout “PLANT!” or perhaps the name of a plant, at PMQs, whenever one of the Labour lickspittles asks Brown some contrived non-question which is just a piece of sucking-up. Who the hell writes them- is it Brown himself?
30% of the less-than-60% who will vote say they will vote Labour: that’s 18% maximum. This 18% consists of benefits recipients, the administrators of benefits and other waste, the public sector non-jobbers, and immigrants. Not included are the muslim-bloc postal vote and the postal votes of the recently deceased. This could get Brown the draw he wants.
Even in 1997 we were bad on that measure compared to every country except Japan. Brown could have given it the old ‘prudence’ excuse and kept all those middle-England swing voters onside by acting to keep our finances on a sustainable footing.
But instead he just lied his head off for the last 13 years and look where we are now.
Where were the investigative journalists? Where was the BBCwhile this economy wrecking lunacy was at work? Why, churning out number 10 press briefings as if they were fact as opposed to outright lies and misinformation.
C*NTS.
Agreed again.
Shame on the so called journalists – not a decent one amongst them with the guts to take Brown out at his press conference – I would be shouting at him,throwing my shoes,the whole bloody cupboard at him.
To lie about something, you’ve got to understand what you’re doing. Brown wasn’t lying, he was fantasising.
It is a sad reality that the collective intelligence of the population is unable to see through the rhetoric to grasp the facts. I fear this is no 1979 moment, the public wasn’t prepared to act by throwing out incompetence and weakness until it had its face rubbed in civil unrest and international humiliation before it would take its medicine. And even then our socialist friends are in denial about how bad things were then, just as they hope now by handing out sweets our teeth will stop rotting and the obese will lose weight. We haven’t even started to face the true consequences of the wasted opportunity the past decade presented us with.
Look at it from the Electorate’s viewpoint. In 1979 there was a choice. In 2010 it’s one gang of windmill-hugging warmist Euro-asts against another group of windmill-hugging warmist Euro-asts. Why not stick with the devil you know?
The reality is slowly dawning on the public that Parliament is rotten to the core and beyond redemption.
Neither Labour, nor the Conservatives are fit to govern, neither labour nor the Conservatives have announced any suitable and potentially effective policies to address the problems we face.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives have kept the promises they made to the electorate.
Neither Labour nor the Conservatives represent a coherent coalition of public opinion.
We can’t go on like this.
Why cannot the Conservatives repeat your graph highliting the change since Gordon Brown(Mr Blobby) became Chancellor?
And the false unemployment stats
Good post Guido. Please keep reminding people of this.
It amazes me that the Tory lead is so low.
Could it be because they seem to lack any conviction or hold dear certain principles?
Focus groups are all very well but there is a well known saying “if you try to please everyone you end up pleasing no-one”
the president of YGUV polls is married to baroness “what’s her name”who is labour and just became EU foreign minister,and he’s always been a labour activist.Fills you full of confidence doesn’t it
And this silly bitch does not even have a second language.
3 euro presidents and a unilingual FM.
Why exactly are you all so worried about a an EU dictatorship.
France, Germany and Benelux is the future here in euroland, the rest will get relagated to the second division.
Who was it who repeatedly told you that Tone would never be Pres?
I do not trust YouGuv. Besides the fact that they claim to pay people for answering their questions they have been known to not bother to pass the paymentsa on to their people. Nice organisation. Very New Labour business model.
Revealing to see the public and private debt aggregated, because in truth they are the same, ultimately the responsibility of the inhabitants.
Incidentally on a more meaningful per-capita basis Spain looks to be totally cattle trucked.
p.s. those of you on Facebook should seek out Edward Hugh and join his merry band: plenty of stats like this, and exceedingly well explained.
WOW! That graph is seriously toxic for Labour – it shows not only how fucked we are, but how much more fucked than everyone else we are.
The only countries close to us are Japan, who have been semi-fucked for 20 years, and Spain, who started from a lower base and have 20% unemployment thanks to the Euro.
To anyone in the Tory strategy team, get hold of this graph and put it 20 feet high on a fucking poster!!
Probably be a more constructive use of party funds than an air-brushed photo of Cameron !
Cameron is suffering from what the Media World call CEO Vanity.
My name is “hyvkuyf”, and I liked the “grcjytfyl” so much that I bought the company!
And how would the Tory Strategy Team then deal with what is the message of the poster other than talk about yesterday… or would it help to not being able to see the different countries and their debt levels from 20 feet down?
Just look at how that graph shows the UK flying upwards, that ain’t going to change in the next few years.
It wouldn’t be rocket science to go through projctions for these figures into the future based on official statistics from each of the countries mentioned.
It’s reasonably common knowledge that Japan has been screwed for decades,
WE NOW HAVE MORE DEBT THAT JAPAN,
that’s how fucked we are.
When Brown talks about “Best placed to recover” or “ended boom and bust” he’s talking absolute fucking bollocks!
We could try that but Labour have dumbed down maths so far that 30% of the population have never seen a graph before.
And 90% of the rest have only seen one on WeightWatchers
They would see a graph with a line going up and think, “That’s good. Up is good isn’t it?, yeah, must be!”
Yup, just overtaken those clever chaps from Japan – we must be doing something right, eh Mirror readers?
I don’t think politicians would really be able to sell the bit about private debt.
Its either the fault of the great british public for being a set of dim greedy turds, or the fault of the great british public for believing the politicians.
Anyone like to spin that into something palatable?
The trouble with the graph would be how hard it would be to sell the idea that the private debt is the electorate’s own dim fault.
Its a bit like the “ratner effect”, for all the main parties.
Whether its Brown, blue, red, yellow or black, IMF or whether you asked China for a take-over; UK’s GDP of the next 30 years and thereafter won’t be in any possition to repay that kind of borrowing and same for the other countries; same globalised planet equals same boat.
China? Their more interested in taking over the USA (they own the US debt)… and they’ve already got parts of S.America and much of Africa.
No, we’ve been bought by Saudi Arabia… Gordo did the deal a couple of years ago. Why do you think we are cannon fodder in Afghanistan, why are Treasury personnel still in place when they support Bin Laden, why are there new mosques being built in every city while our cathedrals are left to crumble, why are Saudi placemen on every University board, why are we being softened up for Sharia?
Absurd conspiracy nonsense. The lucky Saudis happen to have their brown and unpleasant land over a lot of oil, which brings them undeserved wealth and the power and influence that wealth brings. The idea that Brown (who, by the way, I’ve no time for) has “done a deal” to sell us all into islamic captivity is risible.
they’ve cut 6000 university places in UK,will those places be filled by paying foreign students.In other words we will educate rich foreign students at the expense of our own and then when we need skilled employees we will only have overseas people to choose from.”British jobs for British people”. before you say i’m not a racist i’m married to an immigrant
When I went to University, Everything possible was done for the foreign students while the British students were ignored, Foreign students were given priority admission into the halls of residence, There were numerous social functions laid on for the foreigners so they could creep up to the lecturers, Bugger all for the British students, All done in the name of chasing foreign income as opposed to State subsidy, Left a very nasty taste in the mouth, Singings never been the same since!!
To put it into context, as I understand it, students in England ( but not Scotland )pay £ 3,250 p.a. ‘top-up fees’ ( Labour’s education tax ). Overseas students pay
£ 32,000 p.a. – TEN times as much !…. …Small wonder that cash-strapped Unis want to recruit from overseas. I suspect none of those come here to be taught media studies so English students have to compete if they want to study ‘real’ subjects.
The irony is, these foreign students are complaining that they are getting a sub-standard education. Well they are right. they pay 27,000 a year and a guaranteed a pass for that and are taught fuck all. These people actually want to learn to a high enough standard to return to India and compete in a far more competitive jobs market than what we have here.
What they fail to realise is in encouraging 40% of the country’s school leavers into University education, they have had to dumb-down the standards to accommodate the thicker end of the increased numbers.
After all, there has not been some genetic evolution that suddenly created brighter humans from this country. There will always be a bell-curve of capability and intellect. Increasing the intake to 40% of all school-leavers means accepting more people who are not as bright, that means either increased numbers of failures, OR the degrees have to become simpler.
Quite true, and obvious from the word go. But for a long time, those of a Leftist frame of mind have quivered with pleasure at the thought that everyone should have a degree. They cannot accept that some people are brighter than others. That’s why they knocked grammar schools on the head.
eh?
You don’t like the idea of universities relying less on the taxpayer, and actually bringing money into the uk?
No, I don’t have a problem with overseas students, per se. Rather, my point is that with public finances in such a total state, our own school-leavers will get crowded out of Oxbridge and the Russell Group Unis because they wont be able to afford annual ‘top-up fees’ of approximately £7k.
‘Home-grown’ talent, if you like, will struggle to get into Higher Education.
That bastard one-eyed son of the manse is going to turn the UK into an even nuttier place now, especially if the Tories can’t take him out in May and we end up with the disaster of PR elections.
Quite seriously we need to be getting on to MI5 and some patriotic businessmen and organising a coup. Read ‘SpyCatcher’, it was almost done in the 1970s, it’s just that Brown is mad, rather than a Soviet agent. I think General Sir Mike Jackson should be our new head of state following the coup.
Any ideas?
Talk to Mark Thatcher – he’s got previous.
MT failed to take over an African banana republic.
I reckon he has a better chance with the UK, as we really are Friar Tucked
The Army is otherwise engaged, it has been since ZaNuLabia came to power. If Cameron is as useless as he appears to be, they will be otherwise engaged for many years to come, regrettably.
“Brown is mad, rather than a Soviet agent.”
There is credible evidence that he might be both.
Found it, nicked it, spent it.
The UK is out of recession
The UK is out of recession
The UK is out of recession
The UK is out of recession
BOLLOCKS
Gordon, I’m just popping down to Kent where I will be getting what I cannot get at home.
Tweet tweet
Ooops.
Actually – it is notable that is the one thing he is not claiming. He’s been hiding in Ireland since the news of the 0.1% came out.
He’s letting others claim victory. 300bn quid to buy 300 million quid of ‘growth’. That is what is called a phyrric ‘recovery’.
As the great man Phyrrus himself said (almost) ‘Another ‘recovery’ like that and we’ll be completely ruined’.
Quite so Phyrrus Brown.
I think you’ll find he was called Pyrrhus.
they announced 6000 student places will be cut in UK. does this mean those places will be filled by paying foreign students.and when we need to employ skilled people the overseas students will be the ones with the skills.”British jobs for British people” and before you say it I’m not a racist,I’m actually married to an immigrant,and very nice she is too!
Is she legal?
Guido you should put a £178 billion price tag on the mad hatters hat.
That’s just this year – make it the £860bn total, by their own official figures.
Will be £1tn (£1,000,000,000,000.00) next year, and 100% of GDP in 3 years’ time – all by their own figures…
WE’RE FUCKED – call an election now so we can kick these lying fuckers out for a generation
We could invade Iceland and see how much we could increase it by.
Don`t give the warmongering bastards any ideas. They have dragged us into too many pointless wars for nothing already.
The Government is in danger of being slapped in the face with a wet fish at the election. Therefore, secret plans have been drawn up to invade Iceland. The Navy has also been instructed to catch and destroy every fish within 200 nautical miles of the UK coast.
great britney is finished
i watched elizabeth, the golden age, last night, the birth of an empire
gordumb has finished that age
thatcher and bliar tried to revive the old glory days, but it is finished now
i believe that greece has a nice climate and a stronger economy
it is time to forget what was and save your asses
trade in the 4 by 4 and buy a greek donkey
it is all very sad, but it is time to get real
leave great britney and let the fkukers eat each other when it falls to bits
(baby on one arm when i do not use capitals, etc)
Yes – Greece does have a nicer climate and a stronger economy, but it’s not perfect.
Nevertheless, we’re still going to live there.
I hear Zimbabwe is a land of opportunities
I think we should all club together and buy the south of France!
Communes could make a comeback, eh Sting’s Beard.
We would leave this area for a better climate, but the high Luxembourg wages and low taxes are very addictive.
Foot and a half of snow here
Tuscany is quite a nice bolt hole as well. Wherever it is I think we are all agreed that we need somewhere to tarry a while. We can drink our Bellinis on the terrace and cry a tear over the the country that once was.
Communes could make
Switzerland. Outside of the EU, retains a very strong democratic system of governance and the ownership of guns is compulsory. Petty street crime is low and they don’t get the Chav problem we have here. They LIKE big 4×4′s there too.
I must learn to speak Swiss.
Difficult, Mr Ned. There’s no such language. Are you a comprehensive chappy?
Very cruel, but funny!
Canaries – no winter (unlike Greece, where it can get very stormy) and a 5% tax rate. A litre of rum costs EUR4.99.
Any countries where you can get employed with just english language skills that are not in the Gary Glitter?
Also, sunshine?
As above.
I need to get the hell out of Dodge!
There sure are, mate!
Strong economy? Greece??? You having a laugh?
http://www.focus-fen.net/index.php?id=n207100
http://www.workers.org/2010/world/greece_0114/
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204575038781822930608.html?mod=WSJ_Investing_MoreHeadlines
Do Britain and Japan have assets to the same multiple of GDP?
Or only debts and no assets?
Britain is the second larger holder of US Treasuries in the world, for example. Why?
Property prices in Japan are insane due to only about 17% of the land being non mountainous.
The interior is mostly Volcanic mountains.
And a population of 120 million.
Britain is about 2/3rds smaller, but is much, much flatter.
With just over half the population.
UK planning regs. are designed to keep property prices high.
We could build a few big cities without degrading our rural areas that much.
property prices in Japan have halved in the last decade or so.
That graph should be on posters all over the country, with the year 1997 highlighted.
See comments above on the inability of the average bloke, especially Labour bloke, to understand graphs or even numbers.
Or, indeed, odd numbers.
LABOUR IS WORKING
Gordon Brown is expected today to offer MPs a vote on a referendum to ditch the traditional first-past-the-post voting system for Westminster elections.
Reports last night suggested Mr Brown had secured agreement from senior ministers for a vote as early as next week and would seek the approval of his Cabinet this morning.
He is expected to announce in a speech in London at lunchtime that MPs will vote next week on whether a referendum should be held after the general election on a switch to the Alternative Vote system.
Downing Street declined to confirm the move last night, with a spokesman saying only that they would not talk about Cabinet discussions before today’s regular weekly meeting at Number 10.
Mr Brown has already committed Labour to holding a referendum on AV early in the next Parliament.
The AV system allows voters to number the names on the ballot paper in order of preference, rather than simply placing an X next to their favoured candidate. Less popular candidates are eliminated and their votes redistributed until a winner emerges with an overall majority.
That sounds a bit complicated to me. So what do I fill in after Labour?
Don’t worry, some nice men in black leather jackets will knock on your door when it’s dark (Cos we’re working men, innit) and show you how to fill out a postal vote. They’ll even post it for you so it’s nice and safe.
Labour again [they will appear twice on the new AV voting forms]
What the advocates of this system never tell you is that we could all collectively defeat by only expressing one preference for our favoured party and not by placing 2nd and 3rd preferences etc!
More to the point, How can that Bastard Brown justify a referendum on what amounts to a technicality of our system, while denying us one on the very basis of our constitution i.e Lisbon. The man is a bastard!!
Whatever and however this works, you can bet it’s going to be better for Labour if it were introduced.
They look after their own first. It’s the right thing to do.
This is just another attempt to get Liberals in marginal constituencies to vote Labour. If Brown succeeds in getting a hung parliament and forming a minority government he will renege on this idea by return of post. Just as Labour reneged on their 1997 manifesto commitment to a PR referendum.
It’s another bare-faced lie by Brown.
The punchline is that if we did adopt PR then Labour would end up as the third party. Because the voting inertia at the moment, under FPTP is to vote for Labour as the party of the left. If you introduce a system that allows the Liberals a ‘fair’ share of the seats for a ‘fair’ share of the votes then it will be Labour who will hemorrhage votes. The liberal left who are at present lending their votes to the communist left will come back home to mamma.
Just as Labour thought they’d guaranteed a thousand year reich in Scotland by giving them their own toytown parliament where they could practise being jackasses during the wilderness years and got tossed out by the SNP then Av or PR will see them relegated to third in the wider UK. Just like the Euro elections.
So they won’t do that. It’s just a tactical move to try and get some liberal votes in the marginals. To be reneged on in the event of victory. Just like last time.
Agreed. Let’s hope the LibDems remember Oscar Wilde, “Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me”
Fool me once, shame on me, er, you, er, fool me twice…..er, um… won’t get fooled again!
PR would be a much better system.
At least votes cast would equal representation in Parliament.
Voting patterns would change in an unpredictable way.
The two main parties would lose huge numbers of votes to the (presently) minority parties, giving them numerous seats in Parliament and a platform for rapid growth.
The only reason why people do not vote far more for minority parties is that they feel that their vote would be wasted.
Labour have already betrayed their core vote and given it to the B*P.
Their proposed changes will pave the way to a fascist government with absolute certainty.
If the people want Fascism, who are we to disagree?
At least they are honest about it.
Labour tick all the fascist boxes anyhow.
How it works is like this. Your first choice is Tory. You then fill your second choice as Tory. And the third choice is Tory.
Your vote is then voided because you stated you wanted a Tory to be your choice for MP (or whatever), when in fact New Labour propose like in London’s mayor elections, which is the least objectionable crook as a second or third choice.
You of course can’t stand any other other candidates, and so the whole voting reform is a scam.
To really know the country is in trouble you should look at some more down-to-earth figures, not all those billions this and billions that:
-annual deficit is equal to 9,000 pounds per full-time job in private sector
-fiscal responsibility act only requires the annual deficit to be reduced to 4,500 pounds per full-time job in private sector
-government’s share of GDP amounts to 12,500 pounds per person living in UK
-government’s share of GDP amounts to 34,000 pounds per full-time job in private sector!!!
The folly will be continued with the help of postal votes, of which the importance is becoming bigger everyday as polls point to a hung parliament.
PS Mandy’s 11-billion-will-hurt-the-recovery claim is bullshit since it’s an amount equal to 3 weeks of labour deficits or 1.5% of annual government spend or 0.75% of GDP
ManDuLLsome. Why doesn’t he just clear off?
Have the politicians grasped the magnitude of the deep hole Britain is in?
I don’t think anyone has, to be fair.
I look at charts every day and I shitting myself wondering about how bad things might get over the next few years. So much so, I am literally considering taking to the hills – looking at jobs in Switzerland!
Funny thing is though, look at EURGBP – as I know you do – Sterling is falling now as the Euro rises against the buck and equities look like they are bouncing.
I take this to mean that when the down-trend continues in a week or three, the Euro will carry on declining against both the Pound and the Dollar.
So the market is saying that they would rather hold Sterling than the Euro – seeing as how catastrophically fucked we are here in Blighty, that is quite an insult and does not bode well for EMU.
Don’t bring us into this
Can’t find the cuts, eh?
Happy to help.
Not a single quango, agency, ngo or leftie money pit set up since 1997 was necessary then or has become so since, without exception.
Didn’t a well known politician once use the term “frit”? It would be reasonable to expect serious disorder.
I agree. I’d also scrap every single one of the 700,000 civil service posts that Brown created since 1997. Did we need them? Have they been a success? Is the country better off today than it was in ’97?
And could someone please explain why we give a quarter of a billion pounds every year in aid to India? A country with a nuclear arsenal and a space programme that has aspirations of putting men on the moon. Clearly, India doesn’t need the money, but we do.
Too many cooks spoil the broth and too many public servants bankrupt a country.
This is a tall task, any new government is coming into power off a high base of public sector jobs created in the past 13 years, plus allownaces and additonal spend that will be hard to remove without pain to those have become addictted to getting money for nothing, how did it come to this, right under our nose, we must be fools?
No, just greedy, self-interested wankers.
This is what happens when you mess around with society.
I do not feel this is my country any more.
Very true, but it does have to be done. Those 700,000 ‘workers’ (for want of a better word) are housed in office space that has to be rented, furnished, insured, lit and heated, each ‘worker’ gets an annual bonus for simply doing their job (or even for not doing their job, if the Met Office is anything to go by), then there’s the pensions.
I’m really not fussed about their pain, the nation’s bust.
You can never put enough men on the moon, Indian or otherwise. I commend this policy to the house!
Probably because of the Indian Lobby led by the Ultra Hoon Keith Vaz…… Oh, and mustn’t forget the lovely Labour donations by the Hinduja’s, did you really think that was for a passport. Is Mittal a Labour Donor?
Did anyone one see the programme last night where the MP’s shack up with Chavs? Why are we watching programmes about people that we work hard not be be like. There was a chav bird sitting smoking saying how there was nuffink to do and she was bored. Well a fucking job usually takes care of that. Of course its boring when you main activity is chashing your benefit cheque.
Anotgher big fat black chavette asked IDS when he lost his virginity and he shuffled about and refused to answer hahaha. Mark Oaten showed them his gaper tho
Surely the MPs have better things they could be doing, given that you and I are paying their salaries??
it really does illustrate how fucked this country is. The chvas are fast becoming the majority. It frightening . They never read a newspapaer, a book, never seen art or a play.. Sin a fiwm tho innit. They are gorotesque brutes with no hope and this lineage has now been cast for the future generations of benefits chav that will never enter the job market or society as we would like to remeber it notaglically. These are the new mainstream and those fuckwith MP’s are trying to “Fit in” with them. What a fucking discgrace!!!
…but they all know how to fill in their Liebour postal vote.
Liebour have been applying the Tall Poppy Syndrome since 1997. Surely you noticed ??????
Some idiot tried to embarrass me with the: “When did you loser your virginity?” question.
I turned the tables on them by saying: “Oh, I didn’t lose my virginity. I know exactly where I left it and with whom.”
The tory backwoodsman came across as a right anal dickhead, Austin Mitchell as a complete tosser and only Mark oaten seemed vaguely normal.
Fuck me, did I just say that!
Being honest and telling the people of this country that our finances are worse than a crackhead’s is not an option for the politicians because it would be an admission of their own economic ineptitude and failed domestic and foreign policies.
And one of the main reasons we are in such a hole, apart from lax credit regulation and greed is because we have wasted so much money on pointless, self-defeating wars.
The only ways to save money is to stop fighting these pointless wars and by
concentrating on reducing the high levels of corruption and embezzlement and waste and fraudulent abuse of public funds. The problem there is as the expenses scandal has shown the politicians are some of the worst offenders.
So the only way forward for us to get out of this invidious position is by withdrawing our troops from Afghanistan as well as by beginning a major clamp-down on the high levels of corruption that is country suffers.
I suggest nothing less than a moral renaissance in this country.
Unfortunately such a renaissance will not be possible under the current shower of shit that run all of the political parties.
Perhaps we will have to hang some of the politicians to make such a renaissance possible. They do not listen to common sense or logic and they persist with their lies to cover up their own corrupt natures so perhaps it is the only way.
They won’t come out of Afghanistan – they are probably learning from the Afghans how to be even more corrupt that they are at present and especially how to rig an election.
The problem is that these people passed the laws which have enabled them to do these things. We can’t dish out proper sentences, in case it affects their Human Rights.
We’ve all been stitched up like kippers, and they know it.
So they either repeal such laws or they are hanged.
It is their choice.
I am quite happy to go for the latter option.
I’m available for hire
I’ll do it during my onshore leave, for free, I’ll even pay my own travel and overnight expense, such would be the honour.
Great blog post Guido, spot on.
Claire Short evidence on now – this should be interesting.
They will f*ck this country with a scorched earth policy before they lose the election, then spend 5 years sitting on the opposition benches rubbishing the Tories as they clear up the mess !
Sadly true. Scorched earth policy in full effect.
How can the Tories talk about anything positive about their plans, when they are met with nothing but lies and smears about their policies and the economy.
To paraphrase a commenter on another site this morning, it is like the Tories are playing by the Queensbury rules, while Liebour are playing to no-holds-barred cage fighting rules…
That’s what usually happens.
Wait until that wimp,David Cameron turns up tomorrow for Prime Ministers Question Time.
Another useless performance to look forward to,Gordon Brown will humiliate him once more
It’s looking like another Harman ‘v’ Hague bloodbath. Gordon’s left his book of Courage in NI and is off to fetch it.
Oh No !
Looking forward to that one – Hague ripped Harperson a new arsehole last week, and now she’s even managed to make an enemy of the Pope!
1 member only
Don’t forget me !!!
labour are shit.but what about the tories?
dave started well but now seems to have lost the plot……..
on qt last week a lot of people said that there is no-one to vote for………
i hear it all the time…….many labour voters say they will not vote labour again….but cannot bring themselves to vote tory………..
the tories have NOTHING new to offer………..
in the real world away from westminster where people have to work and live on a budget any fool can see that the country cannot go on pissing money away…………..remember they HAD to print £200 billion!!!!!!!!!!!
IN THE REAL WORLD debt causes great personal misery and eventually the loss of posssessions and bankruptcy…..
for many years now we have had an odd mix of capitalism and marxism………
govt. stealing YOUR money to create ludicrous jobs and exams………
how much money is squandered all to keep the employment propaganda going?
currently in southend they are putting in cycle lanes……..£millions down the drain…when just a white line would suffice…the council threw a xmas party costing £100,000!………to improve morale!
my friend teaches guitar to school kids……he has been doing it for 10 years…….he now has to do an exam and week long training course ……….cost to council £2500 each!!!!!!! there are 50 people going on the course!!!!!! …………….a nice little earner and the people running the course aren’t even musicians ffs!!!!!!!!!!!
there must be thousands of instances where money is just being flushed away…………………
and the tories could make a start on changing things by getting us out of the eu…….stopping foriegn aid and wars…………that would save £60 bilion p.a for a start……………………but they are selfish twats too and are also only interested in ‘power’……………all seeking to be ’someone’ and a big cheese in as eu president………..
BBC News: Brown has just announced Labour’s new election slogan
“No return to Tory Boom and Bust!”
Stick with my Boom and Bust and watch how Labour fuck this country for generations.
did you see mctwot trip that poor soldier yesterday. couldnt resist it could he as the bloke was wearing an england shirt
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1247702/Help-hero-Another-PR-disaster-Gordon-Brown-injured-serviceman-Derek-Derenalagi-falls-Downing-Street-steps.html
Yeah he tripped him up so he could be seen rushing to his aid
Osborne intends to allow the charlatan trader in carbon offsets, Stern, to continuing interfering in government. Hague hasn’t yet made a statement ridiculing the anti-Iran warmongering and promising not to embark on an other ridiculous unnecessary military engagement. I already hate Labour and I’m rapidly going off the Tories.
How much is a billion? Is it more than a million? Nanny, where are my eggy soldiers?
I sent them to Helmand Province – without their shells.
Lets put it this way, if you can only count your debt in a measley few Billions you obviously have not been bribing the electorate or paying protection money to the Bansters!
Gordon has just spent for everybody working in the economy £200bn which is referred to as QE, I imagine this means Questionable Election expenses or some £3500, for each person believed residing in the UK and c. £10,000 per person in the Private Economy.
That should be paid back asap as an Election expense and March Hare Mandy’s £11bn is small change.
If the trillions of total debt were to be serviced at a more sensible interest rate, say 5% to providers, the debt mountain would just climb …….. so HMG deficit c. £900bn, Public Sector pension liabilities c £1 tr and Private sector debt c £1.6 tr or c. £60,000 per head or c. £180,000 per person regularly employed in the Private Sector.
Can’t blame people placing assets overseas can you?
O/T Meanwhile at the Chilcott Inquiry an increasingly emotive Clare Short is busily knocking away at the foundations of Bliar’s House of Cards although as quick as she knocks out a brick the panel seem to be trying to restore it to the wall
What do you expect – the panel was hand picked by Gordon Brown so as not to ask awkward questions. I am very suprised they even had the nerve to ask Claire Short to give evidence, since it would be clear that she would be the one and only former Cabinet Minister to tell the truth about it.
Clare Short was right to resign about the war but what the fuck was she doing in the previous couple of years as International Development Secretary?
Doesnt she hold some responsibility for the absolute lack of planning for the aftermath? I guess thats what you get for having a cabinet full of no-marks who arent up to the job.
Fucking cathlolic whore! I fucking hate goys.
I wish the ratings agencies would find some balls and reduce the UK’s Sovereign Debt Rating from “AAA”. It is laughable that we still have a “AAA” rating when we are pursuing Zimbabwean economics.
This country needs a shock to its system for the populace to understand where their bread is buttered so as to speak – a ratings downgrade would provide that necessary shock.
nah, only a sterling crisis will do that.
My wife has just admitted that she also had an affair with John Terry. I don’t know how I’ll cope now. I’ve only just got over her affair with Tiger Woods.
1 out of 10.
Bit too generous.
Guido when are you going to row back on your cocky prediction of an easy win for the Tory boys?
At this rate it wont even be an ‘ung Parliament, Brown legions will clear a 30 majority, no trouble at all.
What? 7% less votes equals a majority of 30 for Labour? They should have no trouble pushing through their proposed PR referendum with that kind of a majority then.
Oh they wouldn’t do that?
Who’d have thunk it?
Whoever wins will struggle to implement any meaningful policy without a clear mandate. Go back to your constituancies and prepare for deadlock.
Unlike Labour 1997 and Labour 2005 who had a clear mandate for a referendum on PR and a clear mandate for a referendum on Lisbon, a massive parliamentary majority to force both and….
…reneged.
The lying liars.
The clear mandate allowed them to renege because there was no real opposition to kick up a stink.
That’s like blaming Labour for the poll tax.
The point is that they fundamentally changed the nations constitutional status without a vote and without any real debate.
That’s what a clear mandate allows.
Er…..when it’s true?
Why not abolish tax credits and raise and make transferable the personal allowance. We could even give an extra personal allowance for families.
That would be a net gain when you consider the billions of pounds of fraud and miscalculations that are inherent in the tax credits system.
Problem solved!
Too obvious for Brown. Haven’t you heard? Brown has a terrific intellect and so simple, obvious solutions aren’t for him.
He prefers complex, costly, labarynthine solutions. Quite often to non-existent problems.
It could be worse you know.
Clair Short on the Iraq Inquiry…….very entertaining.
Reminds me of someone in front of their teachers, least refined presntation, but the contents might be better than average
No more country walks for Claire
Small quibble, Guido! Britain is, no doubt, heavily indebted but I do not think we can say that we are part of the industrialised world. Manufacturing is far too small a part of our economy.
The cataclysmic stupidity that got us here is the responsibility of government for the last 3 decades. They have all thought that we could get richer by selling each other risks, gambles and promises. Financial services add costs. Manufacturing adds value.
We should be training engineers and scientists and we should be helping the most able to develop skills of benefit to the country. There are very few engineering apprenticeships, worth doing, in the country and my son could not get a CAD training course anywhere within 100 miles.
Instead, we spend most money on the stupid and the idle. My wife gives extra tutorial teaching to primary kids. The only ones who get help are the less able and the feckless. Bright kids languish in an educational backwater.
And for those pseudo Marxist halfwits in government think on about the USSR. They nurtured their brightest and gave them special facilities. They trained and still have some of the best scientists, engineers and mathematicians in the world. They failed because, like Brown et al, they treated people like shit. If you treat people like shit they will not believe in you or work for you.
The Marxist halfwits in government know that the private sector provide the attention to detail. And through their own scholarships/endevours/position of privelege they will use the proceeds of their property portfolios to ensure these opportunities are open to another generation of Marxist halfwits
Training engineers and scientists? I’m married to one… there haven’t been any jobs for the last 10 years — he’s run his own companies and they’re afraid he might show them up if they employed him.
“If you treat people like shit they will not believe in you or work for you.”
Unfortunately there are still a good 25% to 30% of the electorate with “VOTE LABOUR” stamped on their birth certificates. They read The Star, if they can read, and have the most tenuous possible grasp on reality, except when it comes to their benefit payments. It is this bunch of ill-educated, resource-sapping morons that McTwat & Co are relying on to keep them in some form of power. Not much to be proud of is it?
I conclude that treating people like shit works for Zanulab quite well. Soon we shall see how well. I can’t see many of them not going to bingo so that they can stop in and watch the upcoming party leader debates on telly.
so 25% to 30% read the Star by your stereotyping idiocy
you’re a bigger fuckwit than any of them if you seriously believe that
Failed your 11+ comprehension did you? It clearly says ‘if they can read’. A material consideration amongst Labour voters where many seem content to have somebody stick an ‘X’ on their voting form on their behalf and bang it in the post.
did you know all Tory voters went to public school, work in investment banks, go you hunting every weekend, like to urinate on tramps and poor people in their spare time and only vote for anyone who sounds vaguely posh has the right family name or comes from a nice respectable area ?
It’s twoo Bcoz I say so
Another Labour voter reveals himself. Dole on McDuff.
“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day.”
Tat’s back!
http://joana-morais.blogspot.com/2010/02/leicestershire-police-on-twitter.html
policemen and their hair
Policemen? Isn’t that a bit sexist?
Anyone know the directions to the British Museum please ?
I ‘m late for a speaking engagement
Osborne has the chance to at least begin to clear up the mess when he makes a speech today at the British Museum of all places. He’d better get it right if he doesn’t want the Cameron-Osborne Tory leadership to end up in a glass case, gathering dust in the early 21st century room
Let us hope that his speech will not be from a podium directly underneath that huge
dinosaur.
Speaking of dinosaurs, isn’t it about time the BBC became extinct.
****WITH NO APOLOGY FOR RE-POSTING****
Gordon, oh Gordon you’ve taken us for fools.
You lied about Prudence and your ‘Golden Rules’.
You plundered our pensions and decimated our savings,
We’re fed up of listening to your ‘global’ ravings.
Blair claimed you’re a genius; he lied to us too.
The ‘British’ economy is in deep doggy-doo.
‘NO BOOMS, NO BUSTS !’ you used to shout out.
That was all hubris, of that there’s no doubt.
You bang on and on about your Presbyterian daddy,
Born a son of the manse and raised in Kircaldy.
Now how would he regard you, with disgust or with pride ?
Having watched you for years as you stood there and lied ?
You’ve ruined this country, we’ve become a basket case.
Moody’s and the others plan to remove our triple A’s
Yet you’re still in denial, saying we’re ‘uniquely placed’
Have a good look in the mirror, your reflection is two-faced !
I watched you the other day on the Andrew Marr prog,
The look on your face was unusually hang-dog
You said you’d prepared a ‘Decade of Shared Prosperity’.
I think you’re deluded-it would be more Marxist Austerity !
You bored me to tears with your grandiloquent prolixity,
A dull raft of statistics in a broadcast of mendacity.
Then you told us that yours is the Party of aspiration!
You’re clutching at straws, man; that’s total desperation !
In the early days of 2010 a few chumps tried to shaft you
I’ve got the strangest feeling that this wont be the last coup.
But, once again the Dark Lord came riding to your rescue.
The public all think you should be end up like Ceacescu.
You’re ‘getting on with the job’ of rebuilding the economy,
Stop trotting out these phrases with predictable monotony.
You’re sending us to sleep trying to explain your ideology.
The only thing we’re interested in is the action of psephology!
“Britain cannot afford 5 more years of Gordon Brown” good line from osborne.
toenails trying to rubbish it already useless brown loving twat.
Correct, now back it up with how we are going to get out of this mess.
That is a shit-your-pants graph, right there.
If anyone ran a company the way this shower run the country, they’d be fined heavily, barred from being a director, and probably have to go through the courts. Labour were always fond of talking about “UK plc” – why can’t we get them arrested for negligence?
Because if they run a public service in this way they get knighted and made the CEO of a quango. Successive governments have failed to get a ‘ private sector ‘ standard of management into the public sector. Just paying high salaries does not do it. Now is the best time for a wholesale cultural change. Has Cameron got the balls?
“Has Cameron got the balls?”
In a word, no.
When looking for cuts down the road then I think my creator Mr Carroll summed it up best as follows
“I see nobody on the road,” said Alice.
“I only wish I had such eyes,” the King remarked in a fretful tone. “To be able to see Nobody! And at that distance, too! Why, it’s as much as I can do to see real people, by this light!”
Look it’s paper and notional.
When nirvana occurs, with the neap tides and full moons, full socialism will kick in and under the communist manifesto made famous by the authors and such leaders as Stalin, all assets will become owned by the state, all debts will be repudiated, and all will live an idyllic life, with the state, under its benign leaders, providing work and setting adequate pay, prices will be controlled, workers will enjoy a day orff each week, will have state run enjoyment houses where they may relax and enjot enlightening lectures about production and their obligations to the state, there will be no crime, there will be traffic jams as the state will ban cars and provide enough public transport. There will be no need to travel abroad as the state will provide holiday camps and with global warming the North Sea will provide welcome resorts. No-one will need passports as all will be chipped with ID-Smart chips embedded in the cranium.
Of course those that govern and work very hard will be eligible for foreign currency disbursements to buy the odd luxury, BMW cars, foreign clothes and foodstuffs, but they are meritous due to their hard work.
So you see the chart is off course a misleading capitalist/conservative/ conspiracy document designed to hurt the people’s candidate and the messiah who will save the world and lead this country into economic bliss. Don’t read it and ensure that you listen only to me, Gordo the Greatest, and that you vote for me otherwise if Cameron gets in their will be Tsunami’s, floods, quagmires will appear, avalanches will happen, earthquakes will destroy cities, locusts will eat crops, a plague will descend and aliens will enslave the people.
Edyucashun, edukatian, heducachan.
What’s a garph?
Pretty lines init?
My teechr said not to take no bloody notice and vote for laber cus thy are the best for me to get job seakers ulowance.
I am uneasy about analysts and politicians pointing at personal debt (the McKinsey graph conveniently lumps personal debt in with public sector debt). It is none of the government’s damned business (nor Guido’s, nor McKinsey’s) how much debt I have. That is my business, and my business solely: I am responsible for it. The implication (and that pointless oik, Osborne seems to be suggesting that he is in favour of it) is government mandated credit controls on individuals. Let me make this clear: no government should be able to control how much I can borrow, that is nanny statism.
The important thing is public debt, because public debt is held in my name (and yours) without my (or your) permission. Please can you post the graph with personal debt removed?
This is Google Earth, and we’re taking a photo of your house at this very minute to post all over the internet. How do you like them apples?
Do you like the swimming pool, or should I fill it in and make a tennis court?
Hmmmm. I see your point and I tend to agree. Unfortunately it is the combined fuckwittery of the UK voters with their massive personal and mortgage debts underwritten by their insanely over-valued bits of ticky-tacky that precipitated the ‘global economic crisis that started in America and has fuck all to do with me, Gordon Brown’.
If you let a critical mass of arseholes over indebt themselves then they have the power to bring down the entire economy when ‘oh – fuck me’ it turns outthat actually they cannot service their debts. The banks will go tits up.
The government should (as it used to) have a mechanism to prevent the hard-of-thinking from not so much harming themselves as harming the rest of us. The government chiose to abrigate that role because it suited them to surf the ‘feel-good’ factor of 30 million Brits all pissing away money they don’t have because their prize asset, their over-valued heap of 10K of bricks, chipboard and plastic pipes, went up by another 20K last year.
I don’t disagree with you in general.
“The government should (as it used to) have a mechanism to prevent the hard-of-thinking from not so much harming themselves as harming the rest of us.”
No, this is not what should happen. The government should NOT “prevent the hard-of-thinking”, the government should keep the fuck out of anyone else’s business and they should allow the hard-of-thinking to crash and burn.
The problem with the sub-prime loans in the US was that was not the case: the toxic debt was mixed up with “good” debt and sold on. Personal debt should be just that: personal. If you fail to pay up, then as an individual you should suffer: the risk should be on that individual. The problem is that people like me (low risk: I always pay my bills) were shouldering the risk of the feckless and indigent. Now Osborne is blaming me for the financial situation, and if he brings in credit controls then I will suffer.
If one person borrows £100k that’s their problem, if everyone in the country borrows£100k because McDoom did nothing to reign in the boom and told everyone that they could borrow away because the boom would never end and now half of them can’t pay the money back and the banks are fucked as a result then it is everyones problem.
If the british public really believed all that then it definately is their own stupid fault.
It might be their own stupid fault but it is everyones problem because fuckwit McDoom encouraged them to borrow by keeping interest rates too low.
higher interest rates would probably have done a good job destroying the last bits of british manufacturing, by reducing their ability to invest and increasing the value of the pound.
Your private debt is my problem if you borrow from me and fail to repay on time and in full. It matters not a jot whether I am a private creditor/business/financial institution or Government.
Huh? If I fail to repay you then you should send the bailiffs round and take back the plasma telly that I bought with the money you lent me. What you are suggesting is that my debt is your debt, ie collectivism, ie socialism. I want nothing to do with that.
It is pathetic that people are blaming the recession on personal debt. The reason for the recession is public sector spending, it is the excessive amount of money wasted on public services. The Labour government did not follow Macawber’s maxim:
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Get that right, and you get the economy right.
Dont mention the hundreds of Billions of Taxpayers cash given to incompetent Bankers whatever you do
you don’t have to go collectivist:
If I’ve got something to sell, I can’t sell it if everyone has run out of money (and other people’s money).
Personal debt does contribute to the depth of the recession and how easy it is to get out of it, thats why its in Guido’s graph.
I think the saying is that if you owe the bank £1,000 and can’t pay you’re in trouble, whereas if you owe the bank £1,000,000 and can’t pay they’re in trouble!
The Tories have to go ditch this ‘hug a polar bear and don’t overfill your kettle’ nonsense. They simply must go negative – that is precisely what Mandelson, Brown and Balls are doing and it is working,
Every Tory, in every interview, must simply state, repeat, repeat again and again how Labour is beggaring the nation. Talk about the weakness of the pound and how it has doubled the price of everything when we travel to Europe. Tell them how much Labour is costing us and warn people that it will get much, much worse if Gordon Brown remains in power.
Tell people that he has destroyed their pensions. Tell people he will destroy what is left of their savings. Tell people he will take more and more of their disposable income and waste it. Tell people that, thanks to New Labour, the country is on its knees.
The Tories must know that the likes of Flanders, Peston, Robinson and Crick will pick over the minutiae of their spending plans and their policy initiatives, so they should not give them the chance to do so. The Tories should pointedly avoid provide any details and simply bang on and on and on and on about the abject failures of Gordon Brown and his government.
And yes, mention Gordon Brown. Five more years of Gordon Brown, the most hated and embarrassing PM in history; the most devious, dishonest and incompetent Chancellor we have ever had. The bully. The sulker. The man with the uncontrollable rages. The plotter. The power-crazed egomaniac.
Five more years of this? Five more years of chaos and dysfunctional government? Five more years of Gordon Brown?
Who wants five more years of Gordon Brown? The Cabinet and the Parliamentary Labour Party don’t; England and Wales don’t; the middle classes don’t; even the working classes don’t – he abolished the 10p rate, didn’t he?
It is quite simple: the Tories’ message should be all about Gordon Brown. It’s nasty and it’s very, very negative, but the evident truth is that millions of people dislike Brown more than they like the Tories.
The Tories should exploit this to the full.
That should work.
Agreed..more of the same.
Cameron needs to grow a beard and do some weightlifting.
Rather than marry a beard, and do some shirtlifting.
spot on
exactly
As i said earlier, the gloves are off – ignore the figures, just go for Brown, the most hated and worst PM ever
Who has just been given so much ari time by the beeb, this must be stopped. This is not democratic before the starting gun of the election has been fired, yesterday the dark lord, today the crap leader….how can this be allowed to carry on?
I refer the honourable member to my statement number 299 below.
If they don’t start playing really dirty soon, they might not be in power come this May. Dave had this in the bag not long ago. A straight win seemed to be a given. Now a change of tack is needed. It ain’t that long to polling day and we need to know what we’re voting for. We also need to know why voting Labour is akin to paedophilia.
Personally I like hurling insults at the delusional McTwat & Co. I want to be able to say that I miss doing that.
My hands are still shaking…
how come innocuous posts are moderated? it makes no sense to me?
brown-failed tech college lecturer
mandy-liar,cheat.
darling- small town solicitor……….all marxists.
cmd-useless
osbourne-useless
result? uk totaaly destroyed and eu troops here within 5 years!!!!!!
mission accomplished.
[...] splendidly describes the arguments around Cameron’s nuancing on public spending cuts. Even Guido finds the arguments on how much to cut a rich source for caustic [...]
The reason why we are in this mess is that Parliament has totally lost control of spending.
If you follow this link;
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/si-2008-index
It shows that in 2008, 3399 Stautory Instruments (Laws) came into force, none of which went through Parliament and all of which cost money to enforce and also have compliance costs.
The Legislation machine is based on pen and ink, but with the arrival of the computer and word processing it has become too easy to write new legislation.
The legislators still have the habit of piecemeal modification, and piecemeal repeals, which mean that it has become quite impossible for anyone to understand and know the law on any subject; this is why the Child Support Agency is in a mess; Child Support Law is a mess of countless statutory instruments, some in force, some repealed, and some only partially repealed.
The way forward is to bring back Parliamentary control of expenditure and stop piecemeal amendments to legislation.
Consolidate all the existing legislation in one area into one Statutory Instrument, and replace it in its entirety whenever it is modified. Current technology makes this simple.
The Staute book would be substabtially slimmer and both Government and Industry would waste far less time and money on establishing what the law says and means.
Yep.
Tory manifesto pledge:
The Great Repeal Act of 2010.
Every single Act, statutory instrument, treaty, whatever, passed/signed since June 1997 to be repealed.
It’s a winner.
http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Great_Repeal_Bill for more details
If this is in the manifesto they’re guaranteed a landslide!
they had total control over fiddling their expenses
jail all the fraudulent scum MPs
The BBC news seems to be one long Labour party political broadcast. All you hear is Tory cuts, Tory cuts……..
Now you know why Dave keeps his head down most of the fucking time.
Ho hum. Same old same old: Choose Tweedle Dum, not Tweedle Dee but we’re all doomed anyway.
Here’s a novel idea: why not vote for the party that exists on only what its supporters can raise, not on credit card and corruption financing.
But you”ll have to take a wild guess on which party that is ‘cos Fawkes and the In-Crowd don’t approve.
FFS : Denham on Pravda being given a free ride on introducing PR because it’s…..
“the right thing to do”.
Whichever consultant came up with that line should be strung up higher than most of the troughers.
The approach : Assertion = fact; now go back to sleep plebs.
How much longer can they get away with it ?
All the while opposition is restricted to the blogosphere…………………
Take your blood pressure pills, we’ve got another 3 months of this bullshit. They’re pushing to narrow the ‘poll gap’ even further this week.
brown is talking asthough labour have only just taken power ! he really is a wanker of the first order but the bbc will give him all the air time “isnt our great leader wondeful” fucking bollocks is he
First stages of dementia obviously… forgotten he was Chancellor for 10 years. Would explain how he keeps re-announcing spending plans which he announced in the previous budget as though it’s new money.
Bonkers and broke.
Interesting tittle tattle on the Politics show about the piece of nastiness between Bercow and his “underlings” failing to pay him his due respect.
Does he merit any respect as a tights denier?
His underlings, or perhaps overlings when it comes to spotting him, can be forgiven because it is not human nature to be looking down all the time. Moat people are taught to look where they are going. Bercow could always get a box to stand on.
Will Dave sack him next May?
The Looking Glass War…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8491817.stm
We have more CCTV cameras per head of population than anywhere else in the world always on surveillance in case we drop litter.
But we can’t spare a few for our boys in Afghanistan. Fuck you Brown.
The money will be there to equip our local councils with pilotless drones so that they can monitor wheelie bin compliance and make sure that people obey the countless speed limits.
If the military industrial complex can get its surveillance equipment into the civil zone it will increase its sales enormously; provided that is that the compliant politicians provide the necessary wars and money to develop the technology.
It is time surveillance became an issue in local elections.
New poll shows Tory lead slipping further
The Tory lead has slipped to seven per cent, according to a new poll released today.
The ComRes poll for the Independent puts the Conservatives on 38%, unchanged since last month, while Labour go up two points to 31%. The Liberal Democrats stand unchanged on 19%.
If replicated at a general election, the results would leave David Cameron 24 seats short of an overall majority in a hung parliament.
The poll results suggest a lack of faith in Mr Cameron’s economic plans.
The Tory leader and his shadow chancellor were sharply criticised by business secretary Peter Mandelson yesterday for fluctuating on their plans for public spending cuts.
The Tory leader denied he would make “swingeing cuts” in the financial year 2010/11 over the weekend, leading Lord Mandelson to say they were “bobbing around like a cork in water”.
The ComRes poll found 82% of respondents wanted clearer answers from Mr Cameron about what he intended to do with the economy. Worryingly for the Conservative high command, that figure was exactly replicated when it came to Tory supporters.
I posted this last night if anybody is interested.
A ComRes poll tonight shows a 7% lead for the Tories. Let’s hope it encourages Calamity Brown to go early. What a fucking shock he’s gonna get.
“Of course none of these five polls have focussed on the real battle-ground, Tory targets number 40 – 140, where the election will be won or lost. The nature of sampling for the national polls is such that barely one sixth of those taking part would have been in the key seats.”
Mike Smithson.
spin little minion spin
spin spin spin
nothing to worry about
spin spin spin
perfectly good lead against the most unpopular PM in years
spin spin spin
7% margin in the biggest recession in decades is no cause for alarm
spin spin spin
Naylorism
Fuckwitism
Why are you on this blog?
Why do you support the Labour Party?
Why?
isn’t it?
eh?
I don’t
and you are still a stupid fuckwit
is it not ?
For saying Naylorism?
No Mike, you’re a twat because you are full of shit.
“Of course none of these five polls have focussed on the real battle-ground, Tory targets number 40 – 140″
That’s a fact, not spin you fucking retard. You’ve already lost tat. Just pack your bags and fuck off.
fuck off yourself you desperate little bag of twatty toryboy diarreah
they are opinion polls not polls of marginals
can’t you read?
they also don’t take into account the demographic and boundry changes which disadvantage the Conservatives hugely
if you seriously think Dave is cheering at these polls you are even more of a delusional lickspittle spinning minion than you sound
that was his point
it’s the marginals ain’t it
thicko.
what’s the marginals you simpleton ?
they are opinion polls not marginal polls
so it ain’t the marginals is it?
just how fucking stupid are you?
Tory Fuckwit = Loser = tat.
Julian, if you think that poster is tat you are an even bigger twat than he is.
Jesus Christ Almighty where the fuck do they get these idiots?
And why don’t 82% want clearer answers from Labour on what they intend to do with the economy? Or does everyone expect them to carry on as before until it looks like a Jackson Pollock? I’m not Cockney by the way.
More economic mismanagement (or great management if you are of the mind that they are purposefully facilitating economic collapse) can be found here:
The State’s War Against the People: the Cost of locking up foreign prisoners hits £292m: http://eotp.wordpress.com/2009/12/07/the-states-war-against-the-people-the-cost-of-locking-up-foreign-prisoners-hits-292m/
Still no sign of the British Army ousting their enemies from SW1? Shame.
Only 24% of people believed the recession would have been less severe if the Conservatives had been in power, while 69% did not.
That can’t be right. They forgot to ask me.
Ok someone answer me a question.
If all the major counties are sitting on gigantic debt (private and public) – where has all the money gone to match it? As I understand it when you buy stuff (accrue debt) or NuLab’s case spend recklessly you must pay somebody else who runs off with the stash. They must have to park it somewhere surely.
My guess would be gazillions in China, MEast, dodgy tax havens, Vatican, Switzerland and in of course in very, very few hands. If I am wrong someone please enlighten me.
Japan invest(ed) in foreign govt debt, Japanese investment trusts and securities companies did (do ? ) Pension Funds, banks, retail investors……
The Bank of England apparently owns loads of Gordon’s gilts.
Does that mean then that the taxpayer has to service debt to the BoE on money that was created out of thin air (i.e. printed) and used for buying government bonds? That’s a bit rough.
The BoE will pay back its “debts” when,(if) it unloads the gilts it has bought back onto the market.
The taxpayer services the debt by paying the interest on the gilts.
The Mad Hatter’s tea party is in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, not Through the Looking Glass.
Isn’t it time anyone who doesn’t support Dave with all their heart just fucked off?
UKIP Independent or anyone else you simply aren’t welcome
One Party One Election One Central Office One voice
the rest of you are big shits
big shitty shit shits
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, in your case I will make an exception on account of your being purulent, spotty, Ging GayLord from Scotchland.
Care in the community also extends to Blogs.
Jeremy Vine must be a tory – just given Byrne a right good mauling
‘you can’t put off the pain just by printing money’
Guido you are wrong in the statement
“Britain is the most indebted nation in the industrialised world”
Britain is no longer an industrialised nation, it is post industrial, a huge ponzi pass the parcel.
There are people still making things, but you will never hear of them from the official media. The Establishment hates them and does not understand them.
The Tories are losing ground in the polls because they are a bunch of tossers, think private school nonces circa 1914-18
Noises on the radio, megaphones on cars
Sermons from the street of shame, know-it-alls in bars
Posters in suburbia, experts on TV
Don’t let them disturb-i-ya
They’re just the powers that be
Hey-Ho!
Don’t worry! Nobody can win! (Hey-Ho! Hey-Ho!)
No matter who you vote for, the government always gets in
The Viv Stanshall? How’s your donut?
Ypres is full of Private school nonces from 1914-1918. The Germans targetted the officers…
Look at these stats:
http://www.roguery.com/cities/naples/history/matania/
On the following day, 9th May 1915, 22 officers and 520 soldiers went into battle. Only 3 officers and 200 soldiers survived.
Ignorance is Labour’s strongest weapon.
Firstly, Lord Mandelson says that Tory cuts would ‘strangle the recovery at birth’, on a day when the universities budget suffers a ‘swingeing cut’ which will deny many 18 year olds the chance to delay unemployment for 3 years this Autumn. So New Labour cuts are somehow more palatable to the electorate than Tory cuts?Secondly, David Cameron said he would prioritise reducing the budget deficit. It is the government and our New Labour-biased media who have coined the phrase ‘swingeing cuts’ and assigned it to the Tories.Perhaps it is Lord Mandelson who is ‘economically illiterate’. Thirdly, whatever happened to Gordon’s mantra of ‘Labour investment versus Tory cuts’? Why doesn’t Andrew Neil or Nick Robinson ask the next member of the government they interview this in relation to the Universities budget? Meanwhile, with our economy still on life-support Gordon gets on with the important job of announcing a referendum on electoral reform. Apparently he is planning to introduce ballot papers which only have his name on them, so that there is no discrimination against people who have difficulty making a decision. This was Harriet’s idea of course, but Gordon was able to empathise with the ditherers amongst the electorate.
Funny how mandelson never explains how we come off life support .
So what DO you want ??? Tory cuts or Labour investment ?
(Thinks: or did Mandy tell me to drop that lie ? )
This country seems to be under threat from Labour and Lib Dem Gerrymandering through the introduction of PR. I am puzzled by the press going hell for leather against the Tories. It is not the Tories who have screwed up the economy and it is not the Tories who are in government and refusing to use the government machine to outline future public spending/taxation.
So, Labour say the Tories dont have fixed plans for the amount of cuts – What is Labours plan? Gordon talks about increasing public spending even if it is 0% increases – lol. Seriously it is no good having a go at the tories as Labour are hiding the truth on government finances. I really dont think folk get how close to the precipice the UK is now – part of me says fuck it: Let Labour get away with it and win – The subsequent armed inserection will make sure Labour get the true kicking they deserve and i actually think i will enjoy being in an armed group exacting retribution on Labour/LD scum. I could not watch Vince Cable the other day talking about tory plans with a straight face, Vince changes his policy on a daily basis with Clegg calling for savage cuts one day and then the next critising the Tories for planning cuts.
I am coming to the conclusion that folk dont know what they are doing or how bad the economic and social divisions are becoming – I have given up on Britain, it is full of immigrants, shit companies, useless politicans on the left who personalise and cause division in society and a stupid leftwing media. Fuck them all – I am sick of it – lets just have a civil war and cleanse our country of the filth.
Would not worry too much about PR.
Labour and LibDems hope that seats in a GE will spill out as per current FTP percentages, but they will not. Look at the Euro results: 2 x BNP seats put the willies up the big 3. All the other small parties will get a bite too!
However Tories + UKIP + BNP = more than the lentil eating lefties.
Number one problem for Dave is that UKIP and BNP will say “Referendum on Europe NOW” and we will look the other way or nothing gets passed thru parliament.
It can only make things more interesting.
treasury questions at 14:30
Quite a way to go on deficet reduction , vince has resorted to armchair comments darling has still not said what he will cut , bit of a poor show all round in such a big crisis . Basically you cannot rely on his growth figures even if you can keep interest rates and infaltion low .Devaluation will be a nightmare lowering investment .
Basically Darling/ruin should have cut spending 2 years ago and not built up this bed of nitro glycerine .
[...] You can’t cut too much. We are crippled by debt – look at this graph of public and private debt as a percentage of GDP (from order-order.com) [...]
And still people are prepared to vote for him.
I am speechless.
And still people are prepared to vote for him.
I am speechless.
Why are you twats back here?
Scared of something?
Have just heard from an MEP’s aunt that her niece, retired after 10 years as an MEP, has a pension of £86k. Can that be right?
Yes. That probably is right. And it will likely be a tax-free pension too. The EU looks after its own.
and Dave looks after the EU
Cast Iron Guarantee on Lisbon anyone?
fucking eurostooge
Come now, jgm2, its not a complete free for all. They did turn down Mandelson’s demand for a Maserati you know.
Mind you, he did still seem to do remarkably well financially from his stint in Brussels…
Should have specified that is £86k pension income per year and the “retired” MEP is apparently in her thirties.
If true, Nick Griffin apparently (and depressingly) has a lot to look forward to if he can hang on in there… makes our lot look like amateurs.
Try for MEP, anyone?
Clair Short doing a good job in removing headline from ruins election fiddle
Take a look at PB.Com about the latest ComRes poll. Smithson just falls short of calling it a fucking disgrace.
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2010/02/02/is-the-indys-splash-based-on-a-question-that-does-not-exist/
Love this from ‘Patrick’ at #6
The Indy is a vanity publishing house.
It pumps out left wing tat that gives its owner a big throbbing hard-on – and never mind the financial losses. Any publishing outfit that regularly commissions opinion pieces from the likes of Johann Hari, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown or Robert Fisk is clearly not there to make any meaningful contribution to our understanding of important issues or to make a profit. It’s just masturbation by another means for someone with a big ego and more money than sense.
So…I think you’ve missed the point Mike. They’re not trying to be ‘independent’ or anything like that. This piece delivers perfectly on the objective for which it was written – it serves to stroke some rich idiot’s willy by bashing Dave.
The Indy is the most expensive ‘box of tissues’ in history.
Quality.
Smithsons a former Beeboid Lib Dem arguing about semantics
Bollocks.
If he’s ex BBC, he should know how these black ops work then shouldn’t he tosser?
Money thrown at bankers who scorn the hand that feeds them and treat the public with contempt.
Cuts in education, an arena that generated far more money for the country than banking ever does. Education is also something that is useful to us all.
The man making the cuts in education calls himself by some medieval title dependend on the iniquities of social hierarchy divorced from anything other than sycophantic patronage.
Neither was he elected.
That’s demoracy, eh?
I showed my missus and her mate the graph. They just shrugged and said whats that meant to represent. Not a fucking clue they had and I don’t blame them as most people don’t and care even less at the moment.
The problem is outside these few political blogs no one has the slightest idea of just how bad it us and what lies and decptions Labour are telling well not until the sky falls in later this year.
Its a Labour con trick to cover it up but for how long now? These guys are just fucking criminals.
Seconded. Utter *astards aided in their crime by a largely compliant dead-tree press.
The message needs to be spread in simple terms showing just what a demolition job Labour has done on the UK economy.
For example: currently in a school of 20 teachers, the government is borrowing to pay the wages for 5 of them. With the current deficit, next year it will be 6.
Put it in terms that will show even the most financially clueless that the oncoming shitstorm is going to affect them very soon.
And get this sort of thing on billboards all over the country.
Quantitive Easing sucks !!!
The public already think Brown is shit but it’s becoming crystal clear the Conservative Election Strategy of ‘all Dave all the time’ is backfiring badly.
Time for a rethink at Central Office.
Hell hath no fury like a ricebowler threatened with reduced funding…like the scores of scum of every colour and age in the J.O.B. centre today.
We are fucked get out before we turn into Zimbabwe or Uganda.
then fuck off
After you.
Nick Robinson seems to be under the mistaken impression that the tories are agreeing with everything that Brown’s ever said/done and that they don’t want to do anything about the debt.
He also seems to be under the mistaken impression that nobody thinks the debt is important.
Maybe I’m wrong, but from what I can gather the tories are intending to cut the structural debt and annual overspend, it’s just that they won’t give the specifics of all of it until they get into power because they know that if they told the truth then the BBC would spin against it and tell people that the tories are intending to murder old grannies and sack all teachers.
I’d take the tories’ specifics about debt reduction with a pinch of salt; they’re not going to tell people the whole story because it’d frighten the voters and the BBC will spin it against them.
I’d just take the general approach on board (labour just want to spend as much money as they can and ignore the debt; tories want to try and do something about the debt) and vote that way, because both sides are lying but for different reasons.
It was the same when thatcher got into power; she got into power first, and *then* did the unpopular (but necessary) things to fix the economy.
Sometimes when you’re a politician you just have to keep quiet about the full scale of what needs to be done, for the simple reason that most of the electorate are short sighted and stupid.
Fair comment given the bias of the BBC but as the previous poster said the cons have not seen inside the books yet..and frankly given the pile up of debt we can guarantee it will be a very messy picture when they do and thus the best tactic remains to hammer away at the government’s performance.
Cameron has a very different style to what the public has been used to for many years. Blair was a very slick performer but performing is what it was.. not substance .. Blair called himself a socialist.. pseudo ’socialite’ yes socialist no and the great unwashed bought it. ‘New Labour’ was a clever tagline but what was or has since shown itself to be ‘new’ about their governance.. zilch..same class politics same deluded economics and totally discredited ethos.
This government has betrayed the very people they have always professed to represent.. Cameron has made the conservatives electable and regardless of what we all might say on this site the days of this shower are numbered and ukip, the lib dems et al are shadow boxers to the main event.
Cameron will not have all the answers nor will he get everything right but at least we have a rational alternative to what we have now and nothing could be worse in prospect than 5 more years of Brown’s dross and very probably Mandelson as the next ‘unelected’ Prime Mincer.
True enough; the “haven’t seen the books yet” is also another reason for why I’d take current tory debt reduction plans with a pinch of salt.
I’d wager a very large sum of money that there are 100′s of projects like the failed 12billion I.T. nhs project which the government hasn’t told anyone about yet too.
There’ll probably be something like 200billion in dead projects that nobody ever needed in the first place that they’ll be able to simply put in the bin. My guess is that the first week will shave off more from the public budget than the whole of the rest of the year. ID Cards is just the first one; there’ll be 100′s more like it which labour haven’t told anyone about.
They’ll go through the insane labour projects one by one once they get to see the raw accounts, and they’ll just put them in the bin one by one.
5billion…10billion….ooh, look, 30billion saved from the free-tea-for-scouser-labour-voting-scallies-project…it all adds up….every little helps
Quite agree anonymous….It is only in comparatively recent years that successive governments have pledged to carry on with spending plans laid by the previous incumbents pending their own finance bills.
When labour came to power in ’97 they were not faced with ‘a terrible reveal’ as uk economics were very positive indeed and they knew that from day one. Blair and Brown then set about altering the economic base to suit their declared objectives which meant vast increases in public sector budgets to assuage their core vote but they never did and still haven’t dealt with the unions in the public sectors where linked pensions and overmanning are still the norm. This nettle will be one of the most devisive issue for the conservatives.
Hopefully Osborne given the chance to ditch a lot of what you rightly say is likely to be ‘bin worthy’ they will then have a clearer base from which to sensibly deal with the reduction in borrowing over the medium term.
The Prime Mincer has no answer to these type of issues and Brown, now and for a long time a walking joke devoid of real original thought excepting personal survival, is not and has never been equipped to do the job.
Roll on change and hopefully soon.
I agree with you. This country needs a shock big enough to enforce government to take action on so many fronts. The thousands of Iraqi children slaughtered because of that grinning obscenity Blair and the mass debt we are now in, fostered by you know whom, and mis-managed by the mong Brown is reason enough to hate this cesspit of a place. Law and order is a joke, foul, drunken sodden louts rule the night streets and cheating, lying MPs suck as much as they can from the taxpayer to line their own pockets. Britain is well and truly fooked.
The next five years will indeed be a great laugh.
Why is Belgium (an industrialized nation) not on that graph, sncie it has a much higher
percentage of public debt per gross domestic product that then United Kingdom?
[...] McKinseyQuarterly has published a scary article (free registration required) that shows how the UK’s debt (private and public sector) has now reached Japanese levels, far higher than other Western countries, including to the US. (Hattip: Guy Fawkes’ blog.) [...]
[...] critical analysis of the political paralysis surrounding the fiscal situation? The report back from the Shadow Chancellor’s benchmark launch? The highlighting of the [...]
[...] Picture via Guido Fawkes [...]
Such a rapid increase in debt is going to take a very long time to pay off, that’s if it doesn’t keep increasing which it most likely will.