The Current Government

[Masterdog]

Has any one else noticed there is a very noticeable cycle in British politics?

Labour in, enters after the Tories fixes the country and thus becomes unpopular, cocks up and leaves a mess.
Labour out, Tories in - cleans up but at the cost of being painful. Everyone hates them as a result.
Labour in, Tories out - the cycle continues.

Yeah, it's often bought up in politics threads on here. Unfortunately it's rubbish. Remember Black Wednesday, for example? I don't know where the idea has come from that the Conservatives are hugely better stewards of the UK's economy than Labour are. Labour transferred the power to set interest rates to the Bank of England for example, generally considered an excellent idea now.
I'm not saying Labour haven't made mistakes - there has definitely been overspending and Brown did make some serious errors. But the idea that the Conservatives just clean up Labour's economic messes doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Both sides make mistakes, and both sides are mainly vulnerable to the global market.

 

[Tefal]

And what is there to stop an ideology from becoming a reality? I'll tell you - it's disbelief in the fact that the ideology can become a reality.

Your next point simply isn't true.

You proved it can't.

People said you'd have to pay more to the state to pay for university because the state could not afford it.

You rioted (ineffectively but still)

You wanted to tell about 60 million more people than there were students to pay much much more for the rest of their lives yet you think they'll all go "that's fine I'm happy to do it"

**** no they'll show you what a riot is and you'll have to use massive force to stop them.

Also what do you do then companies and people start leaving the country to escape the taxes?

 

[Dolph]

Yeah, it's often bought up in politics threads on here. Unfortunately it's rubbish. Remember Black Wednesday, for example? I don't know where the idea has come from that the Conservatives are hugely better stewards of the UK's economy than Labour are. Labour transferred the power to set interest rates to the Bank of England for example, generally considered an excellent idea now.
I'm not saying Labour haven't made mistakes - there has definitely been overspending and Brown did make some serious errors. But the idea that the Conservatives just clean up Labour's economic messes doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Both sides make mistakes, and both sides are mainly vulnerable to the global market.

On average, they are. The losses from black wednesday were smaller than those from Brown Bottom, for example, let alone the later decisions of the crazy scottish psycho...

Labour did transfer interest rates to the BoE (good), they also set up the tripartite system of regulation (bad). Furthermore, they massively overspent throughout pretty much their entire time in office (once fiscal lag is taken into account) even if you ignore the massive PFI spending...

All parties can suffer economic issues, either from mistaken decisions or from world events, but it takes a special kind of incompetence to nearly drag the country to bankruptcy 3 times as Labour have done during each of their 3 extended periods in office...

 

[The Halk]

Yeah, it's often bought up in politics threads on here. Unfortunately it's rubbish. Remember Black Wednesday, for example? I don't know where the idea has come from that the Conservatives are hugely better stewards of the UK's economy than Labour are. Labour transferred the power to set interest rates to the Bank of England for example, generally considered an excellent idea now.
I'm not saying Labour haven't made mistakes - there has definitely been overspending and Brown did make some serious errors. But the idea that the Conservatives just clean up Labour's economic messes doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Both sides make mistakes, and both sides are mainly vulnerable to the global market.

Indeed. It's only loosely true.

True = Labour have always stuffed it up. Eventually.
True = As they became unpopular they forgot their principles
True = The last conservative government in 1979 inherited a mess
True = The coalition inherited a mess

What is often missed...

True = New Labour had several years of acting responsibly.
False = The conservatives have never caused problems.

The conservatives came into power, sorted out the mess, made a mess, and then sorted that out.

 

[sigma]

How/why did Labour overspend during the good times? What did they do with all the money?

Genuinely interested.

 

[The Halk]

They quite simply over spent and under taxed. It started around the Iraq war when they became unpopular.

 

[Dolph]

How/why did Labour overspend during the good times? What did they do with all the money?

Genuinely interested.

Basically, they consistently spent 2-3% more each year than they received, despite booming tax revenues as we were at the top end of the economic cycle (this also has the effect of making the absolute overspend much higher). This officially started in 2002, but given the time it takes to turn the direction of state spending around, it is likely to have actually started much sooner, much as it'll take 5 years to reduce the current deficit to zero.

That's without all the off book spending via PFI which paid for all the new schools and hospitals, so they can be discounted form the benefits of running up the deficit during this period.

What the money was spent on was expanding public sector employment by 1million people or so, increased welfare payments and generally wasting it. This is shown by our lack of improvement or downright plummeting in world rankings and internal measures apart from a few around the NHS or GCSE scores in areas where there was massive investment and zero reform.

 

[JamesU2005]

While I am not a Conservative supporter I am willing to give them time and see if they deliver.

My only concern is the way they are rushing through these changes at break neck speed with what seems like very little consultation with independent reviewers. How anyone can make such drastic changes to the NHS, Education sector etc by being in power less than a year is seriously worrying.

 

[Duke]

While I am not a Conservative supporter I am willing to give them time and see if they deliver.

My only concern is the way they are rushing through these changes at break neck speed with what seems like very little consultation with independent reviewers. How anyone can make such drastic changes to the NHS, Education sector etc by being in power less than a year is seriously worrying.

They wouldn't have just started planning things from the first day of office.

 

[scorza]

They wouldn't have just started planning things from the first day of office.

That's part of the problem, they're either supposed to tell us the public what they're planning to do which gives them a mandate for change, or they have to consult on their changes with the technocrats i.e. people who know what they're talking about. Neither of these things apply to the NHS changes. Worse still is that some of their mandated plans have turned out to be downright lies, such as not scrapping EMA or raising VAT.

 

[Rich_L]

Tbh after living in the societal abortion that is the US for a while where the free market roolz, it makes you appreciate the European socialist model a damn sight more - sadly it seems the Tories are looking to ape the former rather than the latter, despite many of the UK and European socialist institutions such as the healthcare, social housing, employment rights, education being highly admired and envied from this side of the pond.

 

[Dolph]

Tbh after living in the societal abortion that is the US for a while where the free market roolz, it makes you appreciate the European socialist model a damn sight more - sadly it seems the Tories are looking to ape the former rather than the latter, despite many of the UK and European socialist institutions such as the healthcare, social housing, employment rights, education being highly admired and envied from this side of the pond.

I disagree, most of the changes (such as the changes to the NHS) are far more European than American. The problem is too many people see our setups as similar to European setups now, and they aren't. We are currently different from both the US and from Europe, and the Coalition are trying to implement the best parts of both setups while recognising the failure of each, and the serious failings of our current setup.

 

[wildman]

With the lack of transparency, lack of direction, lack of policy, lack of their supposed "beyond reproach" position they hold.

Err no, can't stand the government, they cant answer a single question without

a. changing the subject
b. Spin
c. Back stabbing another party
d. Blaming someone else
e. Saying one thing and doing another
f. Saying they did do things when they clearly didn't

SO hows that different from the previous governments under Brown or Blair or are you just a biased left wing tree hugging moon maiden whale kissing socialist ?

I hold all governments whether the Labour, Conservative, Liberal or Fascist, with the same contempt. They all lie, they all act like pre pubescent school children when in the commons playing the sport of one one-upmanship and they all never take responsibility for the things they royally screwed up while in power. Labour have a lot to answer for as do the previous conservative administration in the late Thatcher / Major days.

 

[wildman]

Disagree. He looks like he's been in the past five.

I'll agree with that

 

[wildman]

Basically, they consistently spent 2-3% more each year than they received, despite booming tax revenues as we were at the top end of the economic cycle (this also has the effect of making the absolute overspend much higher). This officially started in 2002, but given the time it takes to turn the direction of state spending around, it is likely to have actually started much sooner, much as it'll take 5 years to reduce the current deficit to zero.

That's without all the off book spending via PFI which paid for all the new schools and hospitals, so they can be discounted form the benefits of running up the deficit during this period.

What the money was spent on was expanding public sector employment by 1million people or so, increased welfare payments and generally wasting it. This is shown by our lack of improvement or downright plummeting in world rankings and internal measures apart from a few around the NHS or GCSE scores in areas where there was massive investment and zero reform.

I still don't understand how they spent all that money and we still don' thave anything tangible to show for it.

From figures published September 2010, UK public sector net debt was £952.8 billion. (or 64.6% of National GDP) – Source: Office National Statistics [1] (page updated October 25, 2010)

Excluding Financial sector intervention, public sector debt is £842.9 billion or (57.2% per cent of GDP)

The PBR (annual government borrowing) forecast for 2010/11 is for net borrowing of £149 billion or 12.6% of GDP.

Thats close to a trillion in the hole, they didn't spend a trillion on Health and Education because we still have way toomany sick and thick people in this country !!!!!

 

[Delvis]

Meh...Its a government, they have good and bad points, I normally dont even get involved with them directly, waste of time normally, specially since 2008 and all the recession malarky then.

The only good thing ive heard Cameron say so far is that prisoners shouldnt be allowed to vote

Other than that, he's a liar half the time like most others who have been in power

 

[Jonny69]

I don't particularly bear any grudge against any of the parties. There are parts of all of their policies that I agree with and there is so little between them these days that I think any of the parties become complacent in time and need to be nudged out so changes can come about.

I doubt the current government will upset me, just like the previous one didn't upset me either.

I did miss out on the housing ladder due to being the wrong side of the sudden boom, I did then get stuck renting, then get screwed on my savings and next will be getting screwed on mortgage rates, but that is partly consequential due to my age and partly capitalism at work. At the time I seem to remember blaming estate agents, not the government.