Britain now officially in double-dip recession

Purely on the subject of the economy - I believe the conservatives are doing less wrong than Labour did in their last 3 terms.

I think this perception I have is shared amongst a large part of the voting public.
 
Meh it was always going to happen, cannot see why anyone is in the remotest bit surprised by this as its hardly even news.

We've carried on spending billions (as a nation) as that's the culture of economics we've been stuck in since the 80's. Our economy is so dependent on the nation just spending money that we don't have it was always going to fall apart no matter what we do on our own.

Hosting the Olympics clearly hasn't been the best move as traditionally all these projects come in over budget and late (which in my mind should equal money back but again a mad culture of just spend money to get things done).

But meh no government wants to address that the country does not tax the right people (billions lost in corporation tax) or use the money it does tax correctly. Someone should punch the tory party for trying to recreate the 80's fire sale of the UK's assets as we really could have done with the income and economic control that comes from owning things like energy production and railways... Plus we would have never got that kind of money from the Dartford crossing or the forests.

Down with small government and believing that will create economic prosperity
 
Meh it was always going to happen, cannot see why anyone is in the remotest bit surprised by this as its hardly even news.

We've carried on spending billions (as a nation) as that's the culture of economics we've been stuck in since the 80's. Our economy is so dependent on the nation just spending money that we don't have it was always going to fall apart no matter what we do on our own.

Hosting the Olympics clearly hasn't been the best move as traditionally all these projects come in over budget and late (which in my mind should equal money back but again a mad culture of just spend money to get things done).

But meh no government wants to address that the country does not tax the right people (billions lost in corporation tax) or use the money it does tax correctly. Someone should punch the tory party for trying to recreate the 80's fire sale of the UK's assets as we really could have done with the income and economic control that comes from owning things like energy production and railways... Plus we would have never got that kind of money from the Dartford crossing or the forests.

Down with small government and believing that will create economic prosperity

Don't blame the Conservatives. They've underperformed, but the legacy left by Labour is a shambles.

The country is bankrupt, and that is going to take decades to put right. Once people get a grasp of that reality and leave the melodrama aside, perhaps some progress can be made to fix it.
 
Yeah, so if your trading partners aren't growing, you need to get your growth domestically. Raising VAT, which disproportionately affects lower earners who form the bulk of Britain's spending was an incredibly stupid move. Cutting the 50p rate of tax will do nothing to promote growth yet the chancellor made it his priority to get rid or reduce it as soon as he could. When tens of thousands of public sector workers join the 2.65m people in the dole queue it's only going to get worse. The chancellor has no answer for unemployment, and indeed appears to welcome it as an excuse to drive down terms and conditions for those who remain in employment.

The worst thing is that this severity of austerity is totally unnecessary and based on a lie, which you have repeated; that Britain is somehow in a similar position to Greece, and only adopting Osborne's plan to the letter will allow us to escape the same fate.

I dont really think its fair to say that I have repeated a lie, firstly we dont actually know its a lie as we have no way of knowing what state we would be in had we adopted a policy of spending rather than austerity. All we really have is opinion on how it would differ and I clearly stated that it was only my opinion.

The fact that thousands of public sector workers (local authority at least) joined the dole queue was really down to the fact that it was a bloated and inefficient machine that was sadly over populated by a lot of people who quite frankly do nothing but justify their own existence.
 
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Oh well, daft people will vote Labour back in and the idiots there can spend us out of another recession, again, that will result a few years later in the UK being plunged into a horrific recession of the likes America suffered last century, woo.

Here's the idea Scorza, we'd still be in recession under Labour, just with massively higher debt, massively higher deficit and be in a far far worse situation.

It's NOT about avoiding recession, its about riding the inevitable recession Brown put us on course with as well as possible, its that simple. The way to ride it as best as possible is with the lowest debt and lowest deficit they could achieve. Labour have faught tooth and nail at every turn to make cuts quick enough to lessen the blow of a recession while Labours plan was to continue spending to "fake grow" our economy........ WHICH WAS THE RUDDY REASON FOR IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Labours years of spending for artificial growth is what got this country in trouble, their plan of doing this again, and again and again is utterly flawed, have the conservatives got everything right no, have they done better than Labour did, without question. LIkewise without the idiots on the other side lying to the press and talking utter rubbish, had they helped come up with cuts and plans for more cuts rather than fighting every single cut and trying to make the other side look bad for every single cut, this country would be in a better place than it is now also.

You can't long term run a country the way Labour did, want to do now, and will do if/when they get back in power, and absolutely disgustingly, rather than admit their mistake, admit their ridiculous plan of propping up the GDP with borrowed money, they have the actual balls to make it more difficult to make the cuts that are absolutely needed?

Here's where Labour put us, a 3% shrink in construction output, a 0.4% manufacturing output reduction and a 0.1% growth(or was it loss) in the service sector averages out to a 0.2% loss overall.

That's right, Labour turned us into a service sector country, with no basis on manufacturing, construction or any world leading industry to rely on that is the entire reason our country is screwed, our economy is bad and Labour are utterly retarded. Their plan for fixing it, keep borrowing money we can't afford to borrow, to artificially create jobs that aren't needed in the public service industry, all the while shrinking the private sector and real "money making" industries.

+1, Fantasic post TBH, pitty is will fall in stupid ears
 
The credit rating agencies are full of fools, probably in the same league as you lolhausen

It's not that they're full of fools. More that they create their own prediction. If they predict a country is doing poorly the markets reflect that, and the country does poorly... It's a foolish system, I admit, but the people working there aren't all stupid xD

kd
 
Stop making sense and getting in the way of a good rant / headline.

0.2% contraction, wow, you have to wonder how accurate and representative these figures are.

Sometimes you do wonder if better control over the media wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, I’ve always been fed up to the back teeth how they lead and influence the population from one media storm to another.

we have just been saying in the office that the media kind of started it. we were all fine then get told recession is coming. so everyone panics and starts not spending == recession.

cant we just hang the murdochs and charge £10 for everyone to watch. recession ends. you just have to 'think outside the box' ;)
 
Sat reading through this. Girlfriend leans over "what you reading now, pfft... Why dont they just print more money?"

After I took my head out of my hands i thought id share this with you all.

Enjoy!
 
Oh well, daft people will vote Labour back in and the idiots there can spend us out of another recession, again, that will result a few years later in the UK being plunged into a horrific recession of the likes America suffered last century, woo.

Here's the idea Scorza, we'd still be in recession under Labour, just with massively higher debt, massively higher deficit and be in a far far worse situation.

It's NOT about avoiding recession, its about riding the inevitable recession Brown put us on course with as well as possible, its that simple. The way to ride it as best as possible is with the lowest debt and lowest deficit they could achieve. Labour have faught tooth and nail at every turn to make cuts quick enough to lessen the blow of a recession while Labours plan was to continue spending to "fake grow" our economy........ WHICH WAS THE RUDDY REASON FOR IT IN THE FIRST PLACE.

Labours years of spending for artificial growth is what got this country in trouble, their plan of doing this again, and again and again is utterly flawed, have the conservatives got everything right no, have they done better than Labour did, without question. LIkewise without the idiots on the other side lying to the press and talking utter rubbish, had they helped come up with cuts and plans for more cuts rather than fighting every single cut and trying to make the other side look bad for every single cut, this country would be in a better place than it is now also.

You can't long term run a country the way Labour did, want to do now, and will do if/when they get back in power, and absolutely disgustingly, rather than admit their mistake, admit their ridiculous plan of propping up the GDP with borrowed money, they have the actual balls to make it more difficult to make the cuts that are absolutely needed?

Here's where Labour put us, a 3% shrink in construction output, a 0.4% manufacturing output reduction and a 0.1% growth(or was it loss) in the service sector averages out to a 0.2% loss overall.

That's right, Labour turned us into a service sector country, with no basis on manufacturing, construction or any world leading industry to rely on that is the entire reason our country is screwed, our economy is bad and Labour are utterly retarded. Their plan for fixing it, keep borrowing money we can't afford to borrow, to artificially create jobs that aren't needed in the public service industry, all the while shrinking the private sector and real "money making" industries.

while i admit Labour were ****e, its not like anyone before them in recent years was any better. how much of a dent did Maggie put on the manufacturing businesses? a ****load more than 0.4%

we have been run by useless self serving incompetents for years and i cant see it changing. vote for blue, red or yellow numpties.
 
To anyone saying "it's all the Con-Dem's fault" or "it's all Labour's fault" – don't be so short sighted.

It's down to a combination of factors which include global economic turmoil and decades of miss-management from consecutive UK governments.

DM brushed on it but it might have been lost in his wall of (very good) text.

The decisions made by the current government are the result of the decisions made by the previous government which were a reaction to the government before them and so on and so on, all the way back to the Second World War and beyond.

It's not as simple as blaming the last two years, or even the last 20!

Ultimately it's short term politics, ideologically driven, by both of the main parties llocally, and a broader collection of international issues on the global stage which has dropped us into this mess.
 
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Ah the old, pretend we weren't really in recession the entire time, I think I already said what the tories did, they have put us in a better position for a recession that was 100% always going to happen due to the handling of the economy in the past 15 years, and specifically for how we "got out" of the last recession.

We FAKED our way out of the last recession, and by we I mean Labour, by borrowing more money and putting us in bigger debt, and increasing the burden of unrequired public service jobs that we could never at any stage afford.

Why haven't tories been able to do much to magically turn around 40 years of horrific economy planning in the UK? Do you really not know, a strong economy needs business, manufacturing, private sector making profit in this country, labour(and past tory governments) have destroyed this countries industry and left us with literally millions to many jobs in the public sector. Labour pushed up benefits and unemployment, and pushed forwards with many incredibly expensive plans to hide unemployement(like pushing as much of the population as possible into 4 years of extra education).

How much more would have been done by now if at every single cut that was absolutely needed to LESSEN OUR DEBT BURDENS, Labour hadn't pretending it wasn't happening. Labour put their heads in the sand, have no care for the economy or the future, they just want to be the "good guys" who wouldn't make cuts, they are campaigning to get in power, nothing more or less. If they cared for the economy they would have backed EVERY cut, made it much easier to slash the deficit by another 40-50billion.


This is where people just don't seem to get it, our economy is built on nothing, it was propped up by borrowing that is completely and utterly unsustainable, a "real" recession has ALWAYS been coming, the question was when and how bad. Labour's plan of keep borrowing more and more to keep buying our way out of one both, made the incomming recession worse, bigger, longer and their current plan is to... keep doing the same.

We've got Abu Dhabi, fully aware that their economy will collapse on the end of their oil supplies who for a decade or two have been investing all their profits into alternative worldwide industries that now have a massive and quickly growing turnover? When they saw one industry ready to disappear, they spent billions WHEN THEY HAD IT, on a NEW INDUSTRY. WHen Labour saw industry disappearing, they hid the unemployment by creating jobs we didn't need, that were paid too much, that unions have MASSIVE power over, and utterly screwed us. When you're making money in a healthy economy you PAY OFF DEBT so when the economy is going badly you AREN'T IN DEBT. What Labour did was when the economy was healthy they INCREASED DEBT MASSIVELY but spending money they never had, on the idea that economys will never ever get worse, they have always done the exact opposite of what we should have been doing. We should have paid off all debt, and then spent money we had on growing new industry, this would have put us in a hugely strong position for future world economic issues. Instead we let industry shrink, we increased public spending massively beyond our means, we got in heavy debt, we got a massive deficit, we got a massive public sector jobs increase, we got massive public sector wage/pension burden that we couldn't afford with our economy at its strongest, let alone now.

Everything Labour has done for the past decade has utterly boned us, completely, and their current plan is to continue making it worse.

Excellent post and agree wholeheartdly

I'm not bothered who are in power they all do things we the public don't like. BUT our years under Labour have been a shambles from toss er Blair to bigger toss er Brown
 
There are only two kinds of Western economy. One in which you borrow a lot from Central Banks in order to pretend you're flatlining, and one in which you borrow even more in order to pretend you're growing.

Labour chooses the latter, Conservatives the former. Either way it's an illusion. But it seems to work as long as every Western nation all pretends at the same time. It's synchronised mass fiscal (or is it monetary... probably both) delusion on an impressive scale.

Of course there may be a case for saying that if you're going to borrow, borrow big. The too big to fail rule applies to nations as well as banks. They'll let Greece go to the wall, but we'd make a much bigger mess if our society imploded, so maybe Labour have it right... if you play by the corrupted and corrupting rules of global finance.

Still, the good news is that our Apple overlords had a great quarter. They'll soon be rich enough to buy the world and solve all problems with an app and a screen protector.
 
+1, Fantasic post TBH, pitty is will fall in stupid ears

Exactly.

The amount of money Labour ****ed away making ten of thousands of Public Sector non-jobs was amazing. Unfortunately this meant that the great unwashed masses thought they were doing a good job. This means they'll probably be voted back in a the whole cycle will repeat.

I'm not a massive fan of the Coalition and some of their policies are bad but as for the economy I believe they are doing the best they can. I mean it's not easy to stimulate growth when most of the western world is financially falling apart.
 
Sat reading through this. Girlfriend leans over "what you reading now, pfft... Why dont they just print more money?"

After I took my head out of my hands i thought id share this with you all.

Enjoy!
Not sure why you are face-palming... what do you think QE is?.

(it's a stupid idea, but what she said is exactly what we are doing/have done).
 
Ah the old blame it on Labour, what have the Tories done in nearly 2 years in power?

Wipe Labours backside.

Ah the old, pretend we weren't really in recession the entire time, I think I already said what the tories did, they have put us in a better position for a recession that was 100% always going to happen due to the handling of the economy in the past 15 years, and specifically for how we "got out" of the last recession.

We FAKED our way out of the last recession, and by we I mean Labour, by borrowing more money and putting us in bigger debt, and increasing the burden of unrequired public service jobs that we could never at any stage afford.

Why haven't tories been able to do much to magically turn around 40 years of horrific economy planning in the UK? Do you really not know, a strong economy needs business, manufacturing, private sector making profit in this country, labour(and past tory governments) have destroyed this countries industry and left us with literally millions to many jobs in the public sector. Labour pushed up benefits and unemployment, and pushed forwards with many incredibly expensive plans to hide unemployement(like pushing as much of the population as possible into 4 years of extra education).

How much more would have been done by now if at every single cut that was absolutely needed to LESSEN OUR DEBT BURDENS, Labour hadn't pretending it wasn't happening. Labour put their heads in the sand, have no care for the economy or the future, they just want to be the "good guys" who wouldn't make cuts, they are campaigning to get in power, nothing more or less. If they cared for the economy they would have backed EVERY cut, made it much easier to slash the deficit by another 40-50billion.


This is where people just don't seem to get it, our economy is built on nothing, it was propped up by borrowing that is completely and utterly unsustainable, a "real" recession has ALWAYS been coming, the question was when and how bad. Labour's plan of keep borrowing more and more to keep buying our way out of one both, made the incomming recession worse, bigger, longer and their current plan is to... keep doing the same.

We've got Abu Dhabi, fully aware that their economy will collapse on the end of their oil supplies who for a decade or two have been investing all their profits into alternative worldwide industries that now have a massive and quickly growing turnover? When they saw one industry ready to disappear, they spent billions WHEN THEY HAD IT, on a NEW INDUSTRY. WHen Labour saw industry disappearing, they hid the unemployment by creating jobs we didn't need, that were paid too much, that unions have MASSIVE power over, and utterly screwed us. When you're making money in a healthy economy you PAY OFF DEBT so when the economy is going badly you AREN'T IN DEBT. What Labour did was when the economy was healthy they INCREASED DEBT MASSIVELY but spending money they never had, on the idea that economys will never ever get worse, they have always done the exact opposite of what we should have been doing. We should have paid off all debt, and then spent money we had on growing new industry, this would have put us in a hugely strong position for future world economic issues. Instead we let industry shrink, we increased public spending massively beyond our means, we got in heavy debt, we got a massive deficit, we got a massive public sector jobs increase, we got massive public sector wage/pension burden that we couldn't afford with our economy at its strongest, let alone now.

Everything Labour has done for the past decade has utterly boned us, completely, and their current plan is to continue making it worse.

Spot on. The public are disillusioned to what is actually required to turn the economy around. Nor are they aware of how things actually work. It seems the general consensus is 'as long as I'm okay for the next few years and no worse off' they're happy.
 
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