Westminster Politics
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I would mind going back to pre-decimalisation currency. Crowns, Guineas, Groats and Sovereigns are way cooler than what we have now.
National debt is more important than deficit. Deficit is only a measure of how well the economy is doing ie what the tax receipts are versus government spending. To give you an example the deficit was only 0.6% of the GDP in 2007 but only a year later when the global financial crash decimated our economy it caused a world of pain for the country. The deficit is around 2.1% now while the national debt is about 87% of the GDP compared to the 36% that it was then.
If there were to be another crash we would be in a much much worse position with a debt of £1.8 trillion. We pay nearly £50bn annually now to service this debt compared to the £527bn that it was in 2007 with service payments of around £15bn. We were in a much better financial position when Labour was running the country and none of our services were at breaking point.
The Cons haven’t done anything magic to lower the deficit and the proof that they have failed is in the fact that they’ve cut public services to the bone and increased our national debt 3 fold in the process.
Makes sense, now that we have Blackadder in charge.
Harsh on Blackadder.
So Boris splashing countless billions in spending promises. Funny how any Labour proposal is met with accusations of financial irresponsibility, but when the Tories promise much more they don’t get met with the same.
I always suspected I lived in a parallel universe to some of the posters on the caf the above confirms it. Since when did we have a general election in 2007 that Labour lost and the Conservatives won? I thought that happened in 2010 and by then the national debt stood at over 1 billion by the time the coalition took over. Who knows though creative accountancy has never been my forte.
Thought the double space rule was abandoned ages ago? Kind of like how we were told never to start a sentence with 'And' or 'But'.
Seems very Old English. But then that fits with a guy who wears double breasted suits, two sizes too large.
Labour before the crash yes, but the enormously greater deficit following the crash was already starting to increase the debt whilst Labour were still there, and they planned similar spending cuts to the Tories in order to deal with that, according to their losing 2010 manifesto.
Whether it was magical or not the Tories have considerably lowered the deficit in their time, and the debt you say is so important would have been considerably higher if they hadn't. Again you're confusing deficit and debt, for example halving the deficit would just mean the debt growing at a slower rate, not that it wouldn't grow at all.
You could argue Corbyn-style 'investment' would have had better results by all means, or that borrowing more would have been morally justified to maintain public services, and indeed you could question why Johnson has decided to spunk a lot of their gains on tax cuts for his mates, all those and more, but to argue the Tories haven't cut the deficit is just incorrect.
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I always suspected I lived in a parallel universe to some of the posters on the caf the above confirms it. Since when did we have a general election in 2007 that Labour lost and the Conservatives won? I thought that happened in 2010 and by then the national debt stood at over 1 billion by the time the coalition took over. Who knows though creative accountancy has never been my forte.
The debt stood at £900bn in 2010 after the economic crash. I was comparing pre-crash to now after 10 years of Tory government since we’re faced with a no-deal style crash of sorts. We would be in a much much much worse position now. The debt still doubled from 2010!
Of course it did and it would have continued to rise and then start fall once the economy recovered. The problem is that the Cons used their surpluses for tax cuts and public services were made to bear the brunt. Hence why I think we would have been better financially under Labour and we wouldn’t have healthcare social care public safety and other services all crumbling.
They already spunked all their gains for tax cuts. After aggresive austerity they would have been in huge surpluses and could have reduced the debt instead. We’re at 87% of the GDP how can you say that doesn’t matter? This is my point about the national debt being an indicator that the reduction in deficit and the destruction of our services meant feck all.
Greek debt was at €300bn at the time of the financial crisis. A decade later after aggressive austerity imposed from 2010 and huge unemployment theirs went up to only €320bn which is less than 10%. How did ours triple in the 2+9 years of Labour and Tories? Labour is to blame still just like they were for the financial crash? I think you need to stop reading the papers.
Where have I said that?
And where have I said that?
What I have said is that you don't appear to understand the difference between deficit and debt, which you seem determined to prove over and over.
Who say that coming
I don't know why but Rees-Mogg just seems like one of those lights off, no kissing, penis slipped through the pyjamas, five pumps and a royal flush kind of people.
Not that I am a lover of either the Conservatives or Labour.....in fact I think most politicians are only interested in themselves and could not give a toss for the electorate other than for the 5 minutes when they need our votes. Having said that I do dispair when folks selectively quote facts. So its OK to look at Labours performance up to but not past the financial crash. After that its total fair to hold the effects of the crash against any party which for the majority of that time was actually a Con\Lib Dem Coa. And if you are going to insist that national debt has doubled in monetary terms since 2010 which I cannot argue against because it is correct (even though it ignores inflation) then you equally have to concede that in the preceeding 13 years of continuous Labour government national debt increased by more than 125%. . That makes both as bad as each other. And that's not allowing for the fact that during most of those 13 Labour years the economy was growing strongly. But then selective amnesia is a prerequisite virtually all devotees of one or other political view. IMHO a plague on all political evangelicals.
So blame the people not in government for the actions the government are taking?
Seems like deflection to me.
Our debt is currently 87% of GDP. Want to guess what it was 10 years ago?
It's one of the many metrics available and in the context of the previous poster saying the Tories are a "safe pair of the hands with economy", I think it's a valid criticism.
As for "we were doing ok until Brexit". Brexit was started by the Conservatives too. To settle their infighting (which failed miserably). And put the economy of the country in jeopardy too.
It’s not fecking rocket science. It’s in the definition of the word itself. It’s just not that significant because they chose to use the surplus of the deficit reduction to cut taxes with the funds gained from cutting services so ended up massively adding to the debt anyway. This is why it ended up not mattering and the debt rise being significant. We would have been in the same position if they would have continued spending and not cut taxes. We’re in an immensely worse position now because we have to fund public services as they’re at breaking point and this will end up increasing the deficit which in turn will add to the debt even more.
So what did we benefit? To put it into perspective the deficit in 2010 after a financial crash rose to £100bn largely due to bailouts of the banks. Last year it was £50bn all the while services have been absolutely battered after 8 years of harsh austerity and the rich and big business mainly will have enjoyed almost £250bn worth of tax cuts by 2020. What’s worse it’s still at 2.1% of GDP compared to 0.6% pre crash. So we’re in a worse position if no deal Brexit causes a crash and a recession.
If you cannot tell the difference between Labours 13 years in power and the Cons 9 then you must have not been living in this country.
Thanks, that does make more sense, and I know that's patronising but it does. I agree with you about tax cuts, but have a problem with the rest, in that you seem to be saying on the one hand the Tories haven't reduced the debt enough, whilst at the same time they have gone too far in trying to reduce the deficit. Ah well, if I'm reading the current situation right Boris is going to be borrowing shedloads again soon anyway, so you could actually turn out to be right in the long run.
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Again, you can't just immediately reduce debt. You must reduce the deficit until it becomes a surplus. Labour inherited exactly that surplus in 1997 and quickly turned it into a deficit, the largest in history. The spending behind that rise needed to be paid for somehow, and it was, with the deregulation of the financial markets. We've been paying for that ever since. The last 9 years have not been perfect but they have at least been going in the right direction.
whatever floats your boat.
The last 9 years have been hell for the public. They have been punished for the financial crash caused by the banks while they’ve enjoyed tax breaks and huge bonuses. You have public sector workers like nurses subsidising their income with food banks, how is that the right direction?
You can reduce or maintain the level of debt by increasing taxes not lowering them. By sticking a levy on the banking sector that caused the crash until everything that was borrowed to save them was paid back and more.
The banks were deregulated in the mid 80s by the Thatcher government. You should maybe familiarise yourself with the “Big Bang” before talking absolute bollocks. If Labour can be blamed for something during their tenure it’s that is that they bowed to pressure from the City to stop further regulation but arguably not one country managed to do it because the sector had grown to be too big and too powerful by that time.
In 1996-1997 the deficit was £40bn and just as now, although not as severely, public services were suffering from chronic underfunding. The deficit became a surplus of over £50bn by Blairs next election in 2001 all this while services were being funded so you can hardly say it was inherited it was actually 4 years of Labour fiscal policies that made that happen. Guess what that was? Tax fecking rises to fund those services.
In terms of percentage of GDP up until the financial crash Labour deficit was much lower than both the Thatcher and Major governments. In terms of actual money government net borrowing was way way lower than both governments so I have no idea what you’re on about. Your sound bites don’t stand up to the facts.
You've already shown that you don't understand how deficits and debt works to another poster so no point going through that again. Blair inherited an economy moving towards a strong surplus, by the time of the 1997 election the deficit was down to just 6b. Just as you can't immediately reduce a deficit, you can't immediately reverse a surplus either. Immediately the trend began to slow, but it took a couple of years before the surplus became a deficit again.
As for the banks, I worked in finance during those times. Blair came in and almost immediately took regulation out of the government's hands. People knew there were problems but the government was desperate for more money to come from the industry so they turned a blind eye. Banks were allowed to trade pretty much anything. Gordon Brown has even admitted that. When Blair took over, finance contributed to roughly 5% of the UK GDP, by the time of the crash that had risen to nearly 10%. They put all their eggs in one basket to pay for the massive borrowing they undertook and it backfired massively when the crash came.
Blah blah blah standard bollocks zero substance.
Blair inherited a country with underfunded public services. He increased funding for everything and raised taxes. He won a landslide again. For the first 4 years the deficit went from £40bn to £5bn to £5bn surplus to £50bn surplus - if you’re saying Blair government had nothing to do with this that’s just plain stupid and not based on reality.
More soundbites zero facts. Show us what deregulations Blair governments implemented in the financial sector. If anything they recognised the issue of deregulation and actually created the FSA, a regulatory body.
You work in finance but I’m guessing by your paper rhetoric you’re in your 30s so probably still schoolboy when the Blair government came in so it’s not like you speak from experience.
He's got 6 kids so its an effective measure in one regard at least.
He doesn’t believe in contraception so not hard to dissect why he’s ended up with 6 kids in 12 years
I genuinely have no idea where you are getting those figures from. According to any reliable source I can find (ONS, Bloomberg, FT) the deficit was 9bn at the beginning of the 1997 year (~6b at election time), then +1 in 1998 and reached +16 in 2000 before swinging very quickly back to an even larger deficit, accompanied by a 20-30% increase in public sector employment.
As for what did Blair's government do to deregulate the market? The FSA was effectively created to allow finance to regulate themselves, ie not regulate themselves at all. Most of the board were ex-finance and the employees were well known for not having a clue about the financial products they were supposed to be controlling. It was a calculated move to let the banks fund the massive spending plans.
Anyway, that's enough of this for me. You need to read something other than The Guardian for a change.
Aye, his missus has slept with 6 milkmen.He doesn’t believe in contraception so not hard to dissect why he’s ended up with 6 kids in 12 years
I wish I had a middle-name like 'Wulfric'.
Sixtus ffs.
"Sixtus"
"Wulfric"
"Fitzwilliam"
Don't you Brits have laws about child abuse?
Edit: Never mind Boniface
"Wulfric"
"Fitzwilliam"
Don't you Brits have laws about child abuse?
Edit: Never mind Boniface
I imagine poor Peter is the most bullied kid in Britain.
They're brilliant names. Not Boniface, obviously.
I doubt any of those kids really get bullied. They probably believe that they're more important than any other children and undoubtedly will grow up to be selfish cnuts.
Especially Sixtus. Just look at him. Lazy fecker probably has someone to wipe his arse for him.
It's AEthelred Nicodemus I have a problem with, mate.
We can only hope that his children have inherited his skills as a writer.
https://www.irishtimes.com/culture/...ip-apart-jacob-rees-mogg-s-new-book-1.3898239
Jacob's crackers.
Sorry.
Sorry.
#sorrynotsorry #olivertwist #coattails #bringbacktyphoidHe's a relic from a bygone era. Explains why his kids are Liverpool fans I guess.