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Could the economic crisis turn out to be god-sent to Labour?
BillieTheBot
Posts: 8,721 Bot
Seeing as Gordon Brown's rescue package has impressed Europe so much every other country is to copy it, and that he seems to have temporarily shut up even his many critics in the media, this crisis could be to the government's advantage get.
Does anyone here think that Cameron & Osborne would have done a better- or even similar job? The ming boggles as to what those two would have done. Christ...
I think at the end of this crisis people will still see Labour as the safer pair of hands in which to entrust the economy. This could yet save the government's bacon- if not necessarily Gordon Brown's- at the next election.
Does anyone here think that Cameron & Osborne would have done a better- or even similar job? The ming boggles as to what those two would have done. Christ...
I think at the end of this crisis people will still see Labour as the safer pair of hands in which to entrust the economy. This could yet save the government's bacon- if not necessarily Gordon Brown's- at the next election.
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Comments
I doubt they'd have done any better - but I don't think they could have done much worse.
Gullible people might take such a view... I prefer this view of Gordon Brown and the economy.
I doubt it. Labour are the incumbent party and it's under their watch that the pound has got weaker and weaker, Britain's gold was sold on the cheap, the national debt has got out of control, non-existent regulation allowed the disaster of Northern Rock - and so on...
The Republicans have royally fucked up in America and as incumbents the American people will throw them out of office at the next election (presuming the economy takes precedence over religious superstition, homophobia and racism). Brown deserves the same fate. Unfortunately, David Cameron won't bring the 'hope' that Barack Obama offers for America.
Why? The rescue package is hardly the idea of Brown/Darling. They have taken the economic advice of people across the political divide, and financial business etc, to come up with the package. Why do you think that Cameron and Osbourne would not have sought the same advice themselves?
ETA: Oh, and also because conservatives/right wingers are allergic to the word 'nationalisation'- which is pretty much what is happening with at least two of the banks involved.
What's Bush been doing then? He's one of the biggest nationalisers in American history!
But you can't just assume things. Desperate times call for desperate measures, regardless of which political party. Take Brown and his 10p tax rate debacle that targeted the poor ... hardly historical Labour, was it?
Almost certainly Cameron/Osbourne would have done the same thing (though it might have been spun differently). However, as they didn't think we'd got rid of boom and bust they might have been better prepared. The Govt milked the banks in the good times, now it has to deal with the bad...
Yeah, but you're a smart guy and have much more interest in British politics than most of the electorate, it seems.
I don't think we can have it both ways regarding boom and bust to be honest. Either we got rid of it (whether by the last Tory government or the Labour one) or we didn't.
In any case, while mistakes might have been made, I think it's rather unfair to try to suggest the biggest worldwide economic crisis the planet has seen in a generation is current UK government's fault.
And there was me thinking it was the banks that have been milking all of us during the good times, only to beg for money when things go belly up:
To be fair, if who got elected was based on who had the best understanding of the current financial crisis, then the Lib Dems would be way ahead in the polls, because Vince Cable has called everything throughout and years before too. The financial crisis has almost certainly cut the Tories lead though, because Gordon Brown has appears proactive, and David Cameron has appeared impotent in this situation. It's certainly the best thing that could've happened to Labour considering where they were 6 months ago, but I think a lot of that is down to the Conservatives' complete failure to show any initiative in this situation. It's not about what you do, it's about looking like you're doing something.
As for Bush being right-wing, well thats where the the whole right/left thing falls down. He is authoritarian, in that he locks people up left right and centre for next to no reason. But economically he is not right wing, not properly, he's used debt to finance pretty much every big project since he got in and left the cupboard completely bare.
Massive amounts of taxation (basically last 10 years Govt spending boom has been bankrolled by the city)
Taxation in this country is so low it's pathetic.
That's before the greedy cheating bastards exploit every loophole in the book to devoid our coffers of billions and billions and billions of Pounds every single year.
The government hasn't milked anyone. And taxation is certainly not to be blamed for any ills whatsoever that we're seeing today.
True - the worldwide crisis is not the government's fault (although it has contibuted) BUT the UK crisis almost certainly is e.g. too much easy debt and allowing the banks free rein in their risky way.
It's about 35% of GDP, so frankly not an insignficant amount. Luckily due to relatively low tax rates, our economy is likely to weather the storm better in human terms than other countries
(PS you mistunerstand - I'm not blaming taxation. I am pointing out that it taxes from the banks which has fueled the Government's spending boom. This tax is going to reduce with a major impact on public finances - whilst it's not mentioned this is actually probably more damaging than £50bn of assets purchased, where we get a return)
While one can accuse the government of fucking up when they sold that gold cheaply, and a few other things, this current crisis is, in my view, 110% attributable to the banks and the financial world.
Actually the Fed has a lot to answer for, they should have seen what cutting and cutting rates would lead to.
However, neither is Macavity. Our lazy and compliant media might like you to believe this, but it is a lie. When the general election does come, people will remember that Gordon Brown was the man who got us into this mess in the first place. He's the one who introduced the regulatory regime which failed us so disastrously. He's the one who flogged off our gold reserves on the cheap. He's the one who spent stupid amounts of money on unreformed, failing public services. He's the one who wasted billions of pounds on his own pet projects. So given what a miserable failure this man was as Chancellor, why the hell is he still around today?
This feature from the Guido Fawkes blog pretty much sums up what I think at the moment.
Due to a lot of the econmic stuff not effecting me massivly (being student scum and that), i'm still far more concerned with the so called social reforms (more like deforms) being put into place and that there are so many little specialist areas in both social care and health which have not been well funded under labour (nor were they under the tories mind you), and that their ideas about education are fucking potty.
but no, i don't think that this will save labour...the only thing that will do that is if this lib dem leader abdicates and the tories come up with some more verging a little too right bullshit...but of late they seem to be wobbleing around centre