Tory policies not working

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'll tell you another lie that Gideon keeps getting away with repeating.

He says at every opportunity that Labour made up the figures in its economic forecasts and that He, Gideon, can be truted because he's set up the Office for Budget Responsibility to provide the economic prediction figures.

Simple, barefaced lying, as anyone can see for themselves if they check Labour's record for predictions over the last 13 years.

Time and time again, when Labour released predicted figures for economic growth, unemployment and borrowing, the Tories and their lackies in the City howled that the figures were too optimistic. We would go into recession. Everything would go tits up. Francis Maude, the Shadow Chancellor in 1997 predicted that Labour would tip us into recession by 1998. In fact, Labour presided over the longest run without a recession in this country for 130 years. But you don't see the Tories apologising for getting THEIR predictions wrong every single time.

True, Labour's predictions in 2007-08 as the whole world dropped off the cliff were guesswork. Just like everyone elses's were, EVERYWHERE in the world. We were in guesswork territory because no-one had experienced a global financial crisis like this for more than a century.

But think back. In 2008, when Alastair Darling's Budget figures showed just how horribly bad the recession was, he also said that we'd get back to growth by late 2009, and be strongly growing by mid 2010. The Tories and EVERY business think tank screamed \"Liar\" at him. But that was EXACTLY what actually happened. We came out of recession EXACTLY as Labour said we would, as the figures from the ONS in this graph of GDP growth show clearly (and look at what happened to growth after these t**ts took power...)



In fact, by mid 2010, the deficit was actually LOWER than Darling had predicted it would be in his budget 2 years earlier. So, far from fiddling the figures to lie about the state of the problem, Labour had actually painted a picture that was WORSE than it turned out.

Now contrast that with the Tories and the OBR. The first boss of the \"independent\" OBR was Sir Alan Budd. He is a right-wing economist who advised Ted Heath's Govt, was a senior economic adviser to Norman Lamont at the time of Black Wednesday (f**king brill eh?) and was chief economic adviser Treasury throughout Major's Government. Independent eh?

I'll tell you how independent he was. In August last year, the OBR leaked figures to Cameron to allow him to answer questions at PM's Question Time. When there was a media stink about this, Budd resigned immediately, saying of course that his resignation was nothing to do with the leak. Of course.

Anyway, back in June 2010, Budd's first OBR prediction was that GDP growth in 2011 would be 2.6%. That would have been a decent growth rate to come out of recession with. But it hasn't happened. We've stalled and the OBR itself is now admitting that the growth this year will be 1.7%. Put that into perspective, it means that the OBR overestimated the size of the growth of UK GDP during this year by about £20billion.

And now the head of the OBR is Robert Chote, who, as a student, was head of the Cambridge Uni Lib Dems society. \"Independent\" eh? And, surprise, surprise, Chote's first OBR report in Autumn last year was that we were growing strongly and that GDP growth for 2010 looked like being 1.8%. He said this, 32 days before the end of the year so the margin of error should have been tiny. In fact, the actual growth rate for 2010 ended up being 1.5% - he overstimated the GDP calc for the year by about £6billion even though the year was almost at an end!

So, remind me again. Which side always gave over-optimistic predictions and which side gave accurate, fair ones?


Independent and Accurate OBR? My pert, athletic, fragrant and depilated arse.

[BobG]

Thank you Billy. I'm glad to learn that my visceral loathing of that bloody Party and all its cretinous, brain dead, selfish members and supporters has a grounding in fact!

Y'know what? The one thing I have never understood about that Party is how it can claim to be 'Christian' and reprsenting 'Christian values'. Didn't Jesus suggest that the story of the Good Samaritan is how 'Christians' are supposed to act? Jesus, and by implication God, were/are inescapably socialists. That's the message and tone of the entire New Testament. The Tory Party at prayer makes me physically sick.

Cheers

BobG

[LuckyGirl]

...... and the latest news is that MPs have decided the new expenses rules were too severe so have decided they will be relaxed. This allows them to claim more for 'accomodation, travel, and expenses'.

As I recall, although it may have changed at some point, there are no travel expenses when using public transport as they are given travel warrants (just like forces personnel).

[RedJ]

Thank you Billy. I'm glad to learn that my visceral loathing of that bloody Party and all its cretinous, brain dead, selfish members and supporters has a grounding in fact!

Y'know what? The one thing I have never understood about that Party is how it can claim to be 'Christian' and reprsenting 'Christian values'. Didn't Jesus suggest that the story of the Good Samaritan is how 'Christians' are supposed to act? Jesus, and by implication God, were/are inescapably socialists. That's the message and tone of the entire New Testament. The Tory Party at prayer makes me physically sick.

Cheers

BobG

I'm not Christian myself, but that's what I've been arguing for years. It's also rather ironic that Christmas has socialist values, yet capitalists use it t extract as much money as possible from us.

[donnyproletarian]

Thank you Billy. I'm glad to learn that my visceral loathing of that bloody Party and all its cretinous, brain dead, selfish members and supporters has a grounding in fact!

Y'know what? The one thing I have never understood about that Party is how it can claim to be 'Christian' and reprsenting 'Christian values'. Didn't Jesus suggest that the story of the Good Samaritan is how 'Christians' are supposed to act? Jesus, and by implication God, were/are inescapably socialists. That's the message and tone of the entire New Testament. The Tory Party at prayer makes me physically sick.

Cheers

BobG

I'm not Christian myself, but that's what I've been arguing for years. It's also rather ironic that Christmas has socialist values, yet capitalists use it t extract as much money as possible from us.

Used to have this ethic called the sin of usuary.Basically it meant it was wrong to rip off your brethren.Bit like the muslims have now.It got dropped when calvinism reared its ugly head with a work ethis compatible with modern capitalism.This is how the church has survived as a institution by adapting itself to the powers of the day.A million times removed from the original message of Jesus as practiced by the early christians who lived in communes for the first 300 years or so.Tony Ben as a good insight into this perspective in his book arguments for socialism .Occasionally some individuals like mother Teresa ,Francis of Assisi comes along and restores my faith in the Christan message .Ironically it is my upbringing as a catholic coupled with my own experiences that has given me a socialist outlook on life.As my old grandad used to  say find your own God and dont let pope or priest stand in your way

[BillyStubbsTears]

Yes it was those that was the pending factors of her first parliment, but then her Economic policy of standing away from the market did pay off (and her refusable attitude to do an Edward Heath and \"U-turn if you want to, the lady's not for turning\") and the economic boom that followed towards the end of her premiership, plus finally the defeat of the miners is what made her premiership remarkable. The 3 biggest triumphs: Faulklands, Economy turn-around and defeat of King Arthur.

See, that one always gets my goat. The number of times you hear someone trot out \"Oh yeah, she was a bitch but she saved this country's economy.\"

It's b*llocks. This graph is from the Office of National Statistics figures on UK GDP over the last 55 years.

What you'd expect in an economy that grew at a constant rate is a smooth, gradullay increasing curve. Broadly speaking, ignoring the peaks and troughs of booms and recessions that's exactly what's happened since 1955.

Thatcher's time in power is the blue section. Look at the graph and it's clear that the increase in GDP during her time was no better than it had been over the previous 3 decades BEFORE she took power. And there was no long-term step-change AFTER she went either.



What there WAS during her time in power that was unprecedented was:

1) A horrifically deep recession in 80-81 that pretty much wiped out heavy industry in this country.
2) A rebalancing of the economy in the country towards financial services, almost exclusively in the South East.
3) A disastrously uncontrolled boom in 87 and 88 as Thatcher's Govt slashed taxes for the Hooray Henries consumption went beserk and the South East went into warp-drive and the economy grew far too quickly, leading to the inevitable...
4) ...second devastating recession in 90-91.

She categorically did NOT \"turn around\" the economy. What she did was to implement a deranged, fundamentalist right-wing economic experiment that threw the economy into a mad decade of carnage and uncertainty with absolutely NO long term gain.

It's all there on that graph.

[BillyStubbsTears]

By the way, that graph also shows how crucial it is that we get back to decent growth quickly. The 2008-09 recession was severe - the most severe for 80 years at least. We have a long way to go to get back onto the long-term growth trend. The longer we grow BELOW trend, the worse the long-term hit will be on our economy.

The long-term growth trend is about 2.5-3% per year on average since 1955. That was pretty much exactly the growth rate that Labour had us coming our of recession with. Yes, it meant that reducing the deficit would have taken longer, but that was a balance between growth and deficit cutting.

This lot are ideologically obsessed with cutting the deficit above all else, as quickly and deeply as possible. What they have NOT addressed is what this will do to the growth of the economy. The figures over the last year are not promising, because as the cuts have kicked in, growth has dropped off a cliff and even went into reverse in the winter.

[BobG]

I suppose this country gets what it deserves. The generic illiteracy, the credulous acceptance of propaganda, the parroting of of messages with an agenda, the inability to do any research at all, the absolute inability of 90% of people to even think, then maybe we are getting what we deserve. Until such times as people actually bother to stop a second, think a minute, we will get ecomonic pygmies like this crowd of cretinms. Dangerous cretins at that too.

And thank you DP. I shall look up Tony Benn's book. Not my favourite politician, but an intelligent one nevertheless. (And as for the Church (Catholic and Protesant) - I despise it/them. The cause of more wars than just about every other cause put together, blown in the wind in pursuit of personal and organisational survival for hundreds of years, avoidance of principle at almost any cost and just about the most corrupt organisation the world has ever seen).

On that subject, hands up everyone who has ever visited the Vatican Museum? A truly breathtaking, astounding, mind blowing display of beauty, of perfection, of idealised endeavaour and achievement. It's truly stunning. And then, after goggling at the serried ranks of Michelangelo's, da Vinci's, Giotto's and God knows what else, step back a minute. Just who paid to have that lot created? And just what good could the Church, the supposed saviour of the common man, do with a planned series of sales over, say, 50 years. There's enough wealth sat doing nowt in that one small little corner of Rome to pay off the entire third world debt. It's an obscenity. It's a blot on humanity.

Cheers

BobG

[Sandy Lane]

The Sistine Chapel is truly breath-taking and just by virtue of the fact that masterpieces of perfection were painted on the ceiling is incredible enough, but the overwhelming-ness of it is surreal.  But agree, the greed and vast wealth of Vatican City is truly as you say, a blot on humanity.

[BobG]

When you go into the Sistme Chapel, it looks pretty ordinary tbh. Not much in there. One tiny little door in the corner. Bit tatty really. Oh yea. There's some paintings on the ceiling. But they didn't take my breath away - at first. The thing that really got me though was when you're up by the altar, looking back towards the door, there's this chuff sitiing on a cloud, in the corner above the door. And I swear to you, I really do, this characters legs are hanging out in space. They are. Really! They're hanging off a fluffy little cloud. You can wander around, change your angle, but his bloody legs are still hanging there.

They're not of course. It's strictly 2 dimensional. But bloody hell! The optical illusion is just bloody immense. It's fan bloody tastic. A brilliant place. I'll let the Church keep that one. Can't really sell it can they? Who'd cart it away?

[Sandy Lane]

Don't remember the dangling legs, , but I remember getting quite a neck ache from looking up and following the stories depicted up there.  Also liked the ceilings in the long hallways leading to the Sistine Chapel, and yes it's kind of small, not much in there, somewhat humid probably purposely or maybe from everyone crowded in there, but once you get the hang of following the sequence of the stories, quite enthralling!  Hell and the devil looked quite fun I remember, lol