New nuclear power station.....

[IC1967]

But you made it look as though they had tried to lie about the fact that there was a world recession.

I didn't. You have interpreted my post in a wholly biased way and totally misinterpreted it. I don't think I could have explained it any better than I did. Are you from the hard left by any chance?

I'll have one more go for your benefit. There was a world recession. Labour did overspend. I blame Labour for our economic woes whilst still acknowledging that there was a world recession which made things worse.

I don't know how you can say that I said Labour had lied about the fact that there was a world recession when I said the world recession is precisely what they blame for our economic woes.

[not on facebook]

For once could this be discussed without descending into my dad's bigger than your dad and it's not my fault it's yours??

I'm afraid it is very important that people realise just who's fault our economic woes are. Labour would have you believe it was the world recession. While that didn't help, the main reason we are are in economically desperate times is because of Labour's wild overspending over 13 years. So take my advice all you lefties. Never vote Labour again!!!

They are two cheeks of the same arse.

For what Its worth i think labour have fcuked blighty right up with Their
Fcuking stupid overspending and the immigration policy that was treason
In my book.

If i ever moved back to pubcaster which i doubt very Much,i would never consider to vote labour Thats for sure.

Any  labour party members flapping my letter box to talk
Me to vote for them would Get a F C U K O F F

[River Don]

Oslo,

The Tories have shown they aren't averse to overspending and they love the cheap labour immigration brings.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Deliberate grammatical mistakes again Mick?

[not on facebook]

Oslo,

The Tories have shown they aren't averse to overspending and they love the cheap labour immigration brings.

The book is still open on them for me wrong or right tbh

[RobTheRover]

Planned to be built in uk by the french or the little  People from china.

Whoever builds it will run it iam lead to Belive.

Now i have no problem with the french or japs or whoever building an running a car plant in the uk,but a necular power station?

Not wanting to point out the obvious ,but surely This job should be done and run by the british government just so you all feal that you can sleep better at night.

Why force the British taxpayer to pay for the building of the power station, when you can just get a private firm to do it. It won't cost the tax payer a thing.

The British tax payer will pay for it by stealth, through massively inflated energy prices!

Wait until EMR (Electricity Market Reform) kicks in after December and up until 2020.  Expect a 30% increase before you consider the annual 9-10% SSE, British Gas, nPower et al stick on top.  This 30% will go straight to the government as part of a £100bn+ "grab" to fund more nuclear and biomass plant, and decommissioning the coal plant.

[wilts rover]

Well, either you or the government is wrong Rob, wonder which it will be....

We estimate that, over the period 2016 to 2030, EMR will result in an average reduction in consumer bills of between £38 and £53 compared to decarbonising using existing policies.

[IC1967]

Oslo,

The Tories have shown they aren't averse to overspending and they love the cheap labour immigration brings.

When Labour came to power they inherited a balanced budget. The Tories most certainly did not. Check your history. Labour always wreck the economy and the Tories always have to clear up the mess.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Do we need nuclear power?  Yes.  Do we need to get private companies to pay for them?  Yes.

Is this the best value for money we could get?  Most likely it is.  It might be an increase but the new stations have to be paid for somehow, it baffles me people can't see that.  I mean the government building them wouldn't make it any better for us, yes the bills might be cheaper (unlikely) but then the taxpayer has to fork out a fair whack each to pay for them.

Besides, it'll be British guys likely building them anyway.  British companies work all around the world so we shouldn't be afraid of foreign companies coming in here.

[BillyStubbsTears]

http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/attack-of-the-sock-puppets/?_r=0

Ahem.


I wonder...








Nah! No-one could deliberately play the role of being a stupid stooge quite as well as one or two do on here. Even if Murdoch was paying them.

[wilts rover]

Oslo,

The Tories have shown they aren't averse to overspending and they love the cheap labour immigration brings.

When Labour came to power they inherited a balanced budget a country where the infrastructure had gone to rack and ruin due to lack of spending. The Tories most certainly did not - spend anything on public transport, roads maintenance, schools, hospitals, provision for eldery etc. Check your history. Labour always wreck the economy need to rebuild the country - and the Tories always have to clear up the mess. suit the rich and high finance, who were the people whose reckless gambling caused the economic crash

Check your history

Check yours.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Wilts

Cheers Comrade. I now no longer need to post the post I was writing.

For any bairns who actually think that Mick has got a point, go Googling and dig out some photos of what Donny looked like in 1997, after 18 years of the Tories being in power. And then have a think...

[RobTheRover]

Well, either you or the government is wrong Rob, wonder which it will be....

We estimate that, over the period 2016 to 2030, EMR will result in an average reduction in consumer bills of between £38 and £53 compared to decarbonising using existing policies.

Well, I got my info directly from a Senior Manager in one of the big 6 utility companies, not a Tory propaganda machine, Wilts.  He told me that they were seriously concerned about it, and wanted to stress to its big commercial customers that this was purely a government stealth tax and they were just being used as the vehicle to collect it on behalf of the Govt. 

I found today's announcement about the new power station very interesting.  This Senior Manager told me that his company had decided to pull out of all plans to build new electricity generation facilities (and had informed the Govt so) due to the huge break even lag on payback times.  A nuclear plant has a breakeven of about 30 years, and no private investors will pump funds into projects with such a poor return.  Yet EDF have today!  I can only imagine this has taken a seriously "sweetened" deal behind the scenes, and the govt are hoping that one new plant will lead to other companies clamouring to do similar projects and open the floodgates.

[GazLaz]

Costain and Laing O'Rourke are building it I believe for those interested. Will be plenty of work there for those complaining they are unemployed.

[wilts rover]

Rob, sorry I should have given my source, which was the Government webpage about the EMR, so I suppose you could say it is Tory propaganda. I have no idea and your friend is certainly better informed than I am, my only point being what he is saying is different to what the government is saying.

Billy, apologies for stealing your thunder comrade, I will drive the tank and you can fire the gun next time.

[IC1967]

When Labour came to power they inherited a balanced budget, a country which was living within its means due to lack of spending financed on borrowed money. The Tories most certainly did spend on public transport, roads maintenance, schools, hospitals, provision for eldery etc. Check your history. Labour always wreck the economy and the Tories need to rebuild the country. The Tories always have to clear up the mess. Gordon Brown when in power couldn't do enough to cosy up to the City. These were the people whose reckless gambling contributed to the economic crash, but they were safe in the knowledge that their best mate Gordon would bail them out with taxpayers money

[BillyStubbsTears]

Here we go again Mick

Labour inherited a budget that was moving back into balance after the huge deficit of 93-94 (almost as big as the 09/10 deficit, even though the early 90s recession was not remotely as severe as that of the early 90s).

Labour then stuck to the Tories spending plans until 2001. 

The result? Well, you Mick kindly pointed out how poorly our 16-24 year olds did in the recent OECD survey of educational performance. This is the generation that inherited the schools that 15 years of cutbacks in education spending had left us with. By 2001, our education spending as a percentage of GDP was the lowest it had been for nearly 2 generations. You're a smart man. You draw the logic links.

Public transport. By 96-97, Givt spending on transport as a %age of GDP was the lowest it had been since Victoria was on the throne. The result? Underinvestment in rolling stock on the railways and bodged safety jobs done by cowboy contractors. There was a spate of maintainance-related crashes, many with fataties. We had seen nothing like that since the War. The network all but ground to a halt as emergency closures and maintainance work was cranked up. By 2001, if I was going on the train for a meeting in London, I would give myself 3 hours wiggle room, such was the likelihood of delays or cancellations.

Under Labour, Govt spending on public transport as a proportion of GDP more or less doubled.

I still travel to London by train regularly. Usually more than once a month. I can only think of one time in the last 6 years that I've been delayed on either leg by as much as half an hour. I make it that there had been only 1 maintainance-related fatality on the railways in the last decade. You're a smart man. You work out the logical link.

[Sprotyrover]

 Billy how did labour manage to spend money non the rail infrastructure ? Weren't they privately owned?
I did meet a bloke who had a long convoluted job title but basically he advised on risk,and he told me the the rail company was it Network rail had paid him to advise on their choice of company to replace infrastructure,basically there were two contenders  one was cheaper and he advised that their stuff wasn't up to scratch an would be knackered in 5 years the other company was 30 % dearer but would last 10 to 15 years by his reckoning,of course they opted for the cheapest alternative  necessary to avoid prosecution (catnap) and the rest is history

[RedJ]

Billy how did labour manage to spend money non the rail infrastructure ? Weren't they privately owned?

Because they get huge subsidies. This PDF shows some of how it works (and it isn't dodgy, it's just the file name's a bit odd).

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sproty

Table 1b, page 5

http://www.parliament.uk/Templates/BriefingPapers/Pages/BPPdfDownload.aspx?bp-id=SN00617

[IC1967]

Labour inherited a budget that was moving back into balance after the huge deficit of 93-94 (almost as big as the 09/10 deficit, even though the early 90s recession was not remotely as severe as that of the early 90s).

Labour then stuck to the Tories spending plans until 2001. 

The result? Well, you Mick kindly pointed out how poorly our 16-24 year olds did in the recent OECD survey of educational performance. This is the generation that inherited the schools that 15 years of cutbacks in education spending had left us with. By 2001, our education spending as a percentage of GDP was the lowest it had been for nearly 2 generations. You're a smart man. You draw the logic links.

Public transport. By 96-97, Givt spending on transport as a %age of GDP was the lowest it had been since Victoria was on the throne. The result? Underinvestment in rolling stock on the railways and bodged safety jobs done by cowboy contractors. There was a spate of maintainance-related crashes, many with fataties. We had seen nothing like that since the War. The network all but ground to a halt as emergency closures and maintainance work was cranked up. By 2001, if I was going on the train for a meeting in London, I would give myself 3 hours wiggle room, such was the likelihood of delays or cancellations.

Under Labour, Govt spending on public transport as a proportion of GDP more or less doubled.

I still travel to London by train regularly. Usually more than once a month. I can only think of one time in the last 6 years that I've been delayed on either leg by as much as half an hour. I make it that there had been only 1 maintainance-related fatality on the railways in the last decade. You're a smart man. You work out the logical link.

I'll reply properly when I've got more time. My immediate thought is that you seem to think its OK for us to live beyond our means as long as the train service improves.

You also forgot to mention that despite a huge increase in spending on education we have continued to fall down the league tables. We're now lower than we were when Labour took office. So much for spending loads of money we didn't have. Not got us very far has it.

Where I violently disagree with you is that you think we should have a certain standard of living no matter what the cost. I think we should have the standard of living that we can afford. If that means longer waiting times in A & E then so be it. At least we can afford A & E services unlike many poorer countries that have to live within their means. Why should we be different.

[IC1967]

Right. All you lefties out there who state that the Tories didn't spend enough while in power and that it was justified for Labour to really let rip on public spending, can you please explain the following extract from the Labour party 1997 manifesto:

Spending and tax: new Labour's approach

The myth that the solution to every problem is increased spending has been comprehensively dispelled under the Conservatives. Spending has risen. But more spending has brought neither greater fairness nor less poverty. Quite the reverse - our society is more divided than it has been for generations. The level of public spending is no longer the best measure of the effectiveness of government action in the public interest. It is what money is actually spent on that counts more than how much money is spent.

The national debt has doubled under John Major. The public finances remain weak. A new Labour government will give immediate high priority to seeing how public money can be better used.

New Labour will be wise spenders, not big spenders. We will work in partnership with the private sector to achieve our goals. We will ask about public spending the first question that a manager in any company would ask - can existing resources be used more effectively to meet our priorities? And because efficiency and value for money are central, ministers will be required to save before they spend.

Save to invest is our approach, not tax and spend.

[wilts rover]

I always find it is easier to leave it to the experts

http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn43.pdf

Section 4 I think you will find the most useful

[RobTheRover]

Rob, sorry I should have given my source, which was the Government webpage about the EMR, so I suppose you could say it is Tory propaganda. I have no idea and your friend is certainly better informed than I am, my only point being what he is saying is different to what the government is saying.

Billy, apologies for stealing your thunder comrade, I will drive the tank and you can fire the gun next time.

No problem, Wilts.  And the info wasnt strictly from a friend - it was an organised presentation from our contracted supplier to prepare us for the report we will need to write to our Chief Accountant to inform them what will need to go into the budgets for the next 10 years or so.  What is quite disappointing is that all the political parties seem to be in support of EMR, despite Ed's assertions on a price rise freeze should Labour get in.  Does he mean he will block EDF, nPower et al raising prices whilst still scooping up the £100m+ from EMR?  Some clarity needed, I feel.

[IC1967]

I always find it is easier to leave it to the experts when I can't counteract an excellent point made by another poster.

http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn43.pdf

So lets completely ignore what Labour said in their manifesto shall we. How very convenient. You ignore the manifesto statement because it doesn't fit with your leftie ideology and is a very uncomfortable truth for all you advocates of spend, borrow, spend, borrow.

On page 4 of this report you will find the following statement describing the growth in public spending:

The average real rate of increase during the Conservative years of 1979 to 1997 was 1.5 per cent, and under the Labour government from April 1997 to March 2009 it has been 3.2 per cent.

So despite what Labour said in their manifesto about the Tories overspending and doubling the national debt etc. they then proceeded to more than double the real rate of increase % in public spending! This was despite Labour sticking to the Tory spending plans for the first 4 years in power.

What an absolute joke.

[not on facebook]

Said This before but the more leftie the western world Goes the bigger and deeper the Hole that we find our sens in to be dug out Of.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Mick

It's called politics. It's a dirty business. Remember Dave making such a big issue about the March of the Makers and the Big Society before the general election in 2010? Remember Gideon telling us that sticking to Labour's deficit reduction plans would be catastrophic, even though he's reduced the deficit more slowly than this and calls it a success? Remember Thatcher having the Labour Isn't Working posters in 1979, before implementing policies that put unemployment up by 2million in 2 years? That's what happens in politics. People say what they need to say to get gullible people to vote for them. It's what they do afterwards that matters.

Labour's manifesto in 1997 reflected Blair's paranoia that Labour must be seen to be fiscally hard. It was an obsession with him. Look at Figure 2.1 on p4 of that IFS report. Look at how low Govt spending was as a proportion of GDP by 2000-01. Think about what I posted earlier about the appalling state of our schools and railways by that time. It was a mistake. Our public infrastructure was rotting away with Govt spending being so low. It was this manic drive to cut public spending (under the Tories and Blair) that left us with an education  system that has churned out such poor performing 16-24 year olds by 2012.

Blair's manic caution won the argument in 97-01. Brown won the argument after that and insisted that a civilised society had to see more public spending. By 2007, Govt spending as a proportion of GDP had increased to more sensible levels. That graph shows it clearly Mick. After that, when the global economy collapsed, our public spending sky-rocketted, as it did in every advanced country in the world. as it had done in 1980 and 1991, the last times we'd had recessions. As the IFS says:

Figure 2.1(b) show that public spending as a share of national income tends to fluctuate with the economic cycle. During the recessions of the early 1980s, the early 1990s and the late 2000s TME rose as a share of national income.

Have a closer look at that report. Look at Fig2.4 and tell me Brown spent recklessly before the crisis struck

Have a look at Table 4.1. It immediately kills several big myths.
1) Social security spending between 97-08 rose at a much lower rate than it has done historically.
2) The REALLY big increase in Labour's spending was for capital investment, not current spending. In other words, Labour spent money on repairing the infrastructure that had been left to rot for a generation. That is why our schools, hospitals and railways and our town centres have incomparably better infrastructure than they had 16 years ago. The money wasn't pissed away on dole wallahs and scroungers. It was invested to give us all a better place to live in.

Look at Table 4.2.
It shows that the REALLY big increase in welfare spending came under Thatcher and Major. Under Labour, it fell significantly as a percentage of GDP.
Conversely, under Thatcher and Major, education spending as a % of GDP fell (a criminal thing to do) whilst Labour redressed the balance, bringing spending back up to civilised levels.

Shall I go on? Or do you want to do some reading for yourself for once, instead of spouting your usual pub bore inanities?

[Sprotyrover]

maybe the Laboyr party knew what it was doing at government level but I can confirm that they literally had been burning money at local level,I regularly used to get calls in late February from colleagues in different partners ships wanting to know if I could spend the odd 100 k they had left in their budget.
Some idiot who wanted to blow £ 50 k on trying to identify the hidden drug users of a town, another idiot who blew 60 k on an  IT project that failed when all they had to do was buy into an existing IT project for 8k. But no they wanted their own it project .
The PCT which always had its meetings at diner time and always put a Buffett on.and I can go on and on,what about the 7 local government offices that have shut down,do we miss them? Just what did all of those tosspots on 50 k plus salaries do?.
A4E just what did it do that was different to the DWP?

[IC1967]

It's called politics. It's a dirty business. Remember Dave making such a big issue about the March of the Makers and the Big Society before the general election in 2010? Remember Gideon telling us that sticking to Labour's deficit reduction plans would be catastrophic, even though he's reduced the deficit more slowly than this and calls it a success? Remember Thatcher having the Labour Isn't Working posters in 1979, before implementing policies that put unemployment up by 2million in 2 years? That's what happens in politics. People say what they need to say to get gullible people to vote for them. It's what they do afterwards that matters.

Labour's manifesto in 1997 reflected Blair's paranoia that Labour must be seen to be fiscally hard. It was an obsession with him. Look at Figure 2.1 on p4 of that IFS report. Look at how low Govt spending was as a proportion of GDP by 2000-01. Think about what I posted earlier about the appalling state of our schools and railways by that time. It was a mistake. Our public infrastructure was rotting away with Govt spending being so low. It was this manic drive to cut public spending (under the Tories and Blair) that left us with an education  system that has churned out such poor performing 16-24 year olds by 2012.

Blair's manic caution won the argument in 97-01. Brown won the argument after that and insisted that a civilised society had to see more public spending. By 2007, Govt spending as a proportion of GDP had increased to more sensible levels. That graph shows it clearly Mick. After that, when the global economy collapsed, our public spending sky-rocketted, as it did in every advanced country in the world. as it had done in 1980 and 1991, the last times we'd had recessions. As the IFS says:

Quote
Figure 2.1(b) show that public spending as a share of national income tends to fluctuate with the economic cycle. During the recessions of the early 1980s, the early 1990s and the late 2000s TME rose as a share of national income.

Have a closer look at that report. Look at Fig2.4 and tell me Brown spent recklessly before the crisis struck

Have a look at Table 4.1. It immediately kills several big myths.
1) Social security spending between 97-08 rose at a much lower rate than it has done historically.
2) The REALLY big increase in Labour's spending was for capital investment, not current spending. In other words, Labour spent money on repairing the infrastructure that had been left to rot for a generation. That is why our schools, hospitals and railways and our town centres have incomparably better infrastructure than they had 16 years ago. The money wasn't pissed away on dole wallahs and scroungers. It was invested to give us all a better place to live in.

Look at Table 4.2.
It shows that the REALLY big increase in welfare spending came under Thatcher and Major. Under Labour, it fell significantly as a percentage of GDP.
Conversely, under Thatcher and Major, education spending as a % of GDP fell (a criminal thing to do) whilst Labour redressed the balance, bringing spending back up to civilised levels.

Shall I go on? Or do you want to do some reading for yourself for once, instead of spouting your usual pub bore inanities?

I can't stop laughing at your reply. Elections are won and lost on the economy. Labour obviously believed what they said in their manifesto which is a complete contradiction of everything you ever espouse about how the Tories didn't spend enough during their time in office. You have been exposed just as the Labour party has and no amount of obfuscation will change this fact. How you can dismiss what Labour said in its manifesto and what they actually did in power so glibly is extremely funny. How anyone can have trust in a party that says one thing and then does completely the opposite is beyond me.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I'll give you your due Mick. You keep trying. But you're not getting the hang of this business of checking facts and coming to a conclusion based on that are you? You will keep on coming to a conclusion first, then spouting rubbish to back it up.

Let's see. You seem to have an issue with what Labour said about debt in their 1997 manifesto and what they then did. So, doubtless you'll know what Labour's record was on spending and debt between 1997 and 2001 when the next general election occurred? Govt spending as a percentage of GDP came down from 40% to 34%. Promise kept.

Then, in the 2001 manifesto, Labourcwas explicit that they were going to increase spending to invest in public services.

Before 1997 we promised and kept to two tough years on spending to get the public finances in shape. Now, consistent with meeting our fiscal rules, we promise substantial rises for key public services. To help deliver our plans, our ten-year goal is the renewal of local government.

We will now:

increase education spending by more than five per cent in real terms each year for the next three years as we increase the share of national income for education in the next Parliament
increase health spending by an average of six per cent in real terms each year for the next three years
increase spending on our police – an extra £1.6 billion a year by 2003/04
increase spending on transport by 20 per cent for the next three years, on our way to a £180 billion investment of public and private money for transport over the next ten years
use a £400 million reward fund for local government in return for signing up to clear targets to improve local services.

They told the country what they were going to do.  They won a landslide. Then they did it.

Remind me. What's your point?