Who is right about the British economy?

First topic message reminder :

As Lloyd Grossman would say "lets look at the evidence"

26th January 2010 - this was the date that the UK recession was finaly over, our growth returned back into the black again at 0.1% later revised upwards to 0.4%.

This was also a news story back in January 2010
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The begining of 2010 has seen some improvement in the uk housing market. People's confidence seems to have returned to pre uk recession levels.(Zoopla.co.uk)

In the second quarter of 2010 the economy of the United Kingdom was growing at 1.2%, the fastest rate of growth for nine years.

By July the new coalition government had been in power for a couple of months, the chancellor gave his first budget and the nation was put on alert for the waves of spending cuts and redundancies which were to follow soon.

Towards the end of 2010 UK growth began to go backwards again, and actualy went back into negative growth in the 4th quarter, perilously close to recession again.

So here we are in October 2011, 19 months after this government entered office and our growth figures are lower than what they were when they came to office in May 2010.

But not only is growth stagnant, unemployment is higher, inflation is higher, confidence is lower, no sign of a recovery in the housing market, and the promise that the private sector can take up the slack of the thousands made redundant hasent happened.

As we approach the 18 month mark, is time begining to run out for David Cameron and George Osborne. ?

The right-wing Press confidently forecast three years ago that banker-bashing would drive the wealth-creators to other Countries.
Evidently four individuals chose that course, but hundreds of Bankers and Hedge-fund Managers remain in London - where there is money still to be made.

Heard Gideon on the radio this morning (Radio 4) being interviewed about his new sceme to introduce forced labour for the unemployed
Two thoughts
1) Is it just me or was he being pushed a little bit harder than usual about the policy?
2) Shouldn't it be IDS announcing this scheme?

Ivan wrote:trevorw2539. Were there 19 millionaires in the last Labour cabinet? Did Labour cut 5,000 nurses, or did it increase the number by 85,000? Did Labour increase waiting times for treatment in the NHS, or did it reduce the delay from two years to four months? Did Labour preside over the slowest recovery for 100 years, or the longest period of uninterrupted economic growth for over 200 years?

I don't think the millionaires in any party are complaining about their benefits from taxcuts. Labour was/is living is a dream world. It left us in debt up to our necks.
I'm not an economist or politician. I just see the reality of the situation. We have to get out of debt. If this generation has to face tough times it is a situation of our own making. Great Britain of the past thought it was exempt from changing world circumstances. Unions demanded exhorbitant wage rises, people demanded more and more, prices went up and up, exports dropped and eventually we have reaped the whirlwind coming from the East.

I don't agree with all the Tories have done, and I certainly don't like, as an OAP on Government pension, having to make do. I don't expect things to improve quickly, but if my children are better off, so be it.

Up to recently I had intended voting Labour at the next election, but having heard Milibands speech I've changed my mind. I think caning the Companies in this country will put off future investment, and that investment provides jobs, taxes etc. How many times I phone a large Company with a problem, to be met with a foreign voice from some in the East. I believe his promise to freeze heating costs will backfire.

Still, we shall see.

Those are just my thoughts. I am not qualified to argue politically or economically.

Gideon Osbourne Said.
Tories vow fuel duty freeze to 2015.

Then it was said.


"Provided we can find the savings to pay for it, I want to freeze fuel duty for the rest of this Parliament," said Mr Osborne to loud applause. "Conservatives don't just talk about being on the side of hard-working people. We show it day in day out in the policies we deliver."

Just what does he mean when he says "provided", what happens to his vow if he cant make the appropriate savings, or is it a promise like the "we will not have a top down reorganisation of the NHS.
The word "provided" in the context used by this pratt, leaves it wide open for him to say later absolutely anything he likes as to why he hasn't stuck to his vow.
I think we are better off with Ed Miliband's promise to freeze energy prices and let the supermarkets fight for fuel customers at a time when petrol usage has dropped 

And if we have exceptionally hard weather in Europe during that time, the prices of energy will soar as demand increases.Will the Energy companies be able to meet the bill?
Perhaps we should all hibernate.

This thread currently amounts to a protest against Capitalism.

What do you want to put in its place?

trevor 2935 said.
 And if we have exceptionally hard weather in Europe during that time, the prices of energy will soar as demand increases.Will the Energy companies be able to meet the bill?
Perhaps we should all hibernate.

I have a property in France and the electricity suppliers are the very same lot that now flog it to us in the UK. A couple of years ago the electric company told us here in the UK, they needed to increase their cash take for further investment. Funnily though the energy prices went up in my home in the UK, but stayed at the old rate in my French house. Strange though it may seem the poxy energy company is French, and as the Tory's who you seem to be siding with, never privatised our Utilities, this scenario would not have happened as the main beneficiary of the old UK energy company sell off are now the French. Well done the Tory Bastards.
Hibernation is a good word, I suppose just hiding ones head in the sand whilst we are being shat on from a great height is OK for you and the Tories.

trevorw2539 wrote:-
I just see the reality of the situation.

 
I don't think you do. The National Debt, as a percentage of our GDP, has been far higher than it is now. It was over 150% in World War One and over 200% in World War Two. See the chart here:-
 
http://www.ukpublicspending.co.uk/uk_national_debt_chart.html
 
Johann Hari has explained what needs to happen:-
 
“In a recession, private individuals like you and me, perfectly sensibly, cut back our spending. We go out less, we buy less, we save more. This causes a huge fall in private demand, and with it a huge fall in economic activity. If, at the very same time, the government cuts back, then overall demand collapses, and a recession becomes a depression. That’s why the government has to do something counter-intuitive. It has to borrow and spend more, to apply jump-leads to the economy. This prevents economic collapse. Instead of spending a fortune on dealing with mass unemployment and economic breakdown, with all the misery that causes, it spends the money on restoring growth.

Wherever it has been tried, it has worked. The Great Crash of 1929 was followed by a US President, Herbert Hoover, who did everything Cameron demands. He cut spending and paid off the debt. The recession grew and grew. Then Franklin Roosevelt was elected and listened to Keynes. He ramped up spending – and unemployment fell, and the economy swelled. It’s working now. Which countries have come out of this recession fastest? They are the ones like South Korea, which have had by far the biggest stimulus packages, paid for with (yes) higher debt. Which countries have fallen furthest and shattered most severely? The ones that tried to pay down their debts immediately with huge cuts.”
 
https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t646-keynes-friedman-and-the-paradox-of-thrift-who-is-right

bobby wrote:trevor 2935 said.
 And if we have exceptionally hard weather in Europe during that time, the prices of energy will soar as demand increases.Will the Energy companies be able to meet the bill?
Perhaps we should all hibernate.

I have a property in France and the electricity suppliers are the very same lot that now flog it to us in the UK. A couple of years ago the electric company told us here in the UK, they needed to increase their cash take for further investment. Funnily though the energy prices went up in my home in the UK, but stayed at the old rate in my French house. Strange though it may seem the poxy energy company is French, and as the Tory's who you seem to be siding with, never privatised our Utilities, this scenario would not have happened as the main beneficiary of the old UK energy company sell off are now the French. Well done the Tory Bastards.
Hibernation is a good word, I suppose just hiding ones head in the sand whilst we are being shat on from a great height is OK for you and the Tories.

Perhaps this is because 75% of France's electricity is Nuclear power. A cheaper form of electricity. The French Government I believe still has a majority stake in the Electricity Industry but the public also have shares. Investment needed in this countries energy is unlikely to be paid for by the French for the benefit of the English.

I am not siding with anyone. I only see the situation as it is. We are in debt and we have to get out of it. As an OAP of 74 living on a government pension if anyone has reason to complain it is people like myself. But can we live on credit without paying for it?

trevorw2539 wrote:-
We are in debt and we have to get out of it.

 
It shouldn't be the priority; we have to make the economy grow and create jobs. Labour should, as it did after our last assault from fascism, build a series of new towns, but this time in Wales, the Midlands and what Michael Fallon calls "the desolate north". Jobs would be created in building the towns, with homes provided on completion. Then we need to establish co-operatives in the industrial estates of those new towns, along with incentives to small firms to relocate to them.
 
Britain needs a good dose of socialist planning to compensate for the abject failures of capitalism. As Johann Hari suggested, jump-leads need to be applied to the economy. And as John Maynard Keynes said: “Look after unemployment, and the budget will look after itself.”

Speculate in order to accumulate.

"The government has repeatedly used the metaphor of sticking to a ‘household budget’ to justify drastic cuts. But this is not only a misleading comparison, it is also dangerous. Government finances are not at all like household finances, but even at this level their analogy doesn’t work because borrowing for investment is a normal and sensible thing to do at the family level. For example buying a house to invest in the future of your growing family, investing in repairing your car to make sure you can still get to your job, which pays your income and enables you to pay off your borrowing.

What seems appropriate at the personal domestic level is quite wrong at national level. Take the ‘maxed-out credit card’ – while family borrowing is very important as shown above, we all like to live within our means. But if we all cut our personal debt at once, the economy would go into catastrophic depression. This is because what you or I spend, keeps others in work, and what they earn and spend keeps more people in work. If we all cut spending at once, economic disaster arrives like a flash.

Falling real wages amounts to cutting wages. If everyone has lower wages, they have less money in their pockets to spend. When fewer people spend, the economy shrinks. This applies to savings too. If we all save at once, there is no consumption and no spending to stimulate investment so the economy goes into a downward spiral."
 
http://classonline.org.uk/docs/2013_austerity_illusions_and_debt_delusions.pdf

The "Workers' Collective" was a marvellous idea until political bosses replaced the Capitalist Boss.

There will always be humans who exploit other humans.

http://t.co/30HRYzFTbM

Really good article here from today's Guardian - the role of market forces in a health economy.
I found his conclusions compelling

market forces in a health (healthy?) economy

"Market Forces" can be compared with Fire - a good servant but a dangerous master.  We can applaud the competition for our custom that results in a cheaper can of baked-beans or fresher vegetables, but many of the things we spend our money on are indeed natural monopolies.  The "competition" to pipe drinking-water into my house is fictitious, as is the fable that we can "choose" what sort of gas and electricity to consume.

Ed Miliband's declared intention of putting the brakes on the avarice of our (foreign-owned) Energy companies should be the first shot in a national campaign to regain control over the essentials of Life, which plainly include health care.

http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/we-could-fix-our-economy-giving-every-man-woman-and-child-6000-cash
 
Interesting piece in this week's New Statesman - we could fix our economy by applying Quantitative Easing to giving a one-off grant to every man, woman and child.
 
I'm rather convinced by his reasoning - wonder what the rest of you think?

I think we used to call that "Devaluing the currency".

Didn't work for Harold Wilson or Nigel Lawson, nor Norman Lamont - though 2008 was not unlike an enema in the wallet.

Investing in big business and housing bubbles isn't having the desired effect, either - all seems to go to offshore tax havens or to inflate the price of housing  - at least if people had money in their pockets, surely most of it would go back into the economy and stimulate demand for goods and services? -- thus increasing the demand for labour? which might then drive wages up?
 
Didn't realise earlier Chancellors had done this - I don't have any recollection - maybe have to brush up on my history

Lookups: Shadowing the Deutchmark
E R M
Black Wednesday
"Devaluation doesn't mean that the Pound in your pocket is worth any less." (!)

Thanks OW - I will improve my education

Source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYFCYxaCIAA1UE0.jpg

It's the Parliamentary Tradition. Anybody who WANTS to be an MP is clearly unsuitable.

Ivan wrote:... Source: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYFCYxaCIAA1UE0.jpg

Hi Ivan

When you look at Atlee's achievements is it any surprise that he was virtually unanimously voted best PM ever by just about all sectors of opinion? Of course not. However the comparison is invidious for a number of reasons. The National debt is, according to your estimate 39% greater in real terms than in 1951 so in 60 (sixty) years we have seen a growth in the national debt of less than 0.5% per year (don't forget it is compound so you cannot divide 39 by 60 and expect to get the right result!). What was the growth from 1945-51? In today's terms probably astronomical. You would rightly respond that it was post war and we had lots of reasons to borrow massively and I accept that (and not even as 'special pleading') but it makes the comparison unreasonable.

As far as the rest goes I also think the 'nearly full employment' is also a bit misleading in that, again the comparison is not really like with like economic cycle wise. I think this is probably as fair a review of the trend in unemployment post war as I have read. It also shows a bias because you do not tackle the issue of denationalisation. Which of those listed that were denationalised were renationalised by the Labour Party under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. To be fair they had twelve years to get on with it.

Again the cost of utilities is a poor comparison. How much was a unit of electricity in 1951? There is no comparison. Just because water rises in cost 20% does not mean this is a bad thing if wages rose by 21%. Clearly they did not (unless you were MD of a Fortune 100 company  ) but what was the adjusted value - actually it may have been worse than you paint it because in that period the average wage actually fell  

Apart from that the numbers actually are misleading they do not make any comparison between the two as similar figures are not available on the Atlee side of the poster. By doing so you can make just about anything seem what you want. Do you remember the picture


I am sure you do. It is a very clever piece of spin. It was also very effective. In my mind it was also very dishonest. Within a very short time MT had hiked unemployment up by a million. Your poster (the source you supplied was merely the location of the poster and not a source as in who provided it which I would like to know) is equally dishonest. It does not compare like with like and has clearly cherry picked the information to paint the two sides in different ways. In passing I would also point out that the demographics have changed dramatically from Atlee's time. What was the population in 1945->51 and its make up compared to today? These things are all relevant.

If you really want to make a telling poster then, in five years time (hopefully I am still alive and kicking  ) keep the left hand side about Atlee and compare it with a right hand side about Ed Miliband. If they read almost the same I might change the habits of a lifetime and vote Labour.  

Bellatori wrote: .... I might change the habits of a lifetime and vote Labour.  

Gosh, that comes as a surprise.

Stop all forms of state benefit for working people - tax credits, housing benefit, child benefit. (It would, at least, demonstrate what an illogical system we have and how much government is subsidising the profits of the private sector by topping up workers subsistence wages). It would instantly prove that for many work does not pay and that many businesses are operating with wage structures that do not function in reality - and that those higher up need to cut their cloth to suit. Wage structures need to be planned from the bottom up - keep your company's total wage bill as it is now and firstly provide those at the bottom with a 'real' living wage and then see what is left over to share amongst those higher up the chain.

Force them to realise what a pittance many employers pay; and thus force the employers to re-jig wage structures. This must not be done by raising the price of services/goods. Middle and higher earners in the company must help facilitate a 'living wage' by taking cuts to their salaries - they've got away with stealing more than their fair share for years....and are more guilty of sponging off the state than anybody signing on.

Why should we be subsidising private companies wage bills when the boss/bosses/shareholders are greedily consuming all the profits to fund their lifestyles? They are nothing but thieves and leeches; are a burden on the welfare state and a burden on our economy.

Since 1980 we've had Robin Hood in reverse - money being taken off the poor to feed the greed of the neo-liberal thieves......it's time that trend was reversed.

"prove that for many work does not pay" is not a sentiment that would have been understood in the 1930s, sickchip.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/britain_wwone/jarrow_01.shtml

This piece is anti-coalition not pro-Labour and it is important to make that distinction because the intended point of this is to argue that the mistakes of the coalition have let Labour back in similarly to how Labour's mistakes let the coalition in.

It's all Labour's fault! Well that is what we have been told for the last four years. They caused the banking crisis, they left the economy in a mess, they allowed immigration to spiral out of control and they allowed people to live the high life on benefits. Yet after all the posturing and bellowing that we should be laying the blame firmly at the door of the Labour Party things really haven't improved that much. The Labour Party did make mistakes and those mistakes cost them the last election and it would be wrong to counter the "it's all Labour's fault" with "none of it is Labour's fault". But four years after this government got into power the blaming of the previous one for everything is a way of covering up their own inadequacies; the coalition's policies that were meant to drag us back from the brink of oblivion haven't worked. In fact they have borrowed more than Labour ever did! They have continued to blame Labour despite the fact they have had more than enough time to implement their policies. Instead of accepting that their policies have failed (or are taking far longer to work than we were promised) they keep pumping out the tired line that Labour are to blame. This is becoming tiresome. Ordinary people are not feeling any better off for having this coalition government who are "making tough decisions for the good of this country"; the number of people using food banks have rapidly increased due to the depth and severity of cuts to the poor. That is something that should shame this country. In 21st century Britain people should not have to rely on charity to put food on the table for their children nor should they be choosing between eating and heating. Although it should be noted that food banks started under Labour. The "tough decisions" the coalition have made are not tough in any way, shape or form. The Liberal Democrats have sold out by jumping into bed with a party which they had direct conflict with on issues such as immigration, welfare and Trident. As a result they have had to betray nearly every popular pre-election policy they had and have potentially consigned themselves to the political wilderness for the foreseeable future. The knock on effect (which in fairness couldn't be predicted) is that UKIP could be occupying their place which is not what this country needs at all. The Liberal Democrats could argue that without their presence in government the Tories would have cut deeper than they already have but this is not enough. The Lib Dems sold themselves out and betrayed thousands of students who voted for them on the basis that they wanted to scrap tuition fees and people will not forget that in a hurry. The Tories have shown that they are blatantly not the party for change as they continue to avoid clamping down on tax havens, tax dodgers and the spiraling cost of living as corporations put astronomical profit before consumers - they are still a party of the rich for the rich.

However, the coalition have been successful in demonising the poorer end of society and causing class conflict within the working class. They have turned the working class on each other and whilst they all fight each other they are not fighting against the draconian policies that are bringing misery to their lives. There has been this carefully constructed wave of media criticism and articles highlighting extreme cases of "benefit Britain" which have fed into this perception that there is a benefit cheat on every street that is living the high life at working people's expense. A good example of this is the Jeremy Kyle show, where nearly every guest is either unemployed, on drugs, been in prison or all three and when there is a guest who is in employment the audience are encouraged to clap and cheer that person as if they are as rare as a unicorn. I even heard of an episode where Jeremy encouraged the audience to give a woman a round of applause because she knew who the father of her child was which is astonishing! You cannot blame the government for this type of show but it is the stereotypes that are paraded on the programme like cattle that are demonised by the media and held up as the norm, which is simply not true and they help form the "justification" for these savage cuts. There are those who try to cheat the system and that is a fact however, these are in the minority and should not be portrayed as being common amongst those who are on benefits. Many people who claim any of the various benefits available actually work and need to supplement their income due to being on a zero hour contract or working part time. There are not enough full time jobs to go around at this moment in time. Despite Tory claims that zero hour contracts "keep people in work" the reality is that those contracts deny people basic workers rights and mean that the people tied up in them become dependent on benefits through no fault of their own to top up their income so that they can put food on the table.  

This idea perpetuated by the coalition that "we are all in this together" is being shown up as an outright lie when policies such as the spare room subsidy or bedroom tax as it is dubbed, has been drafted up when there are millions of pounds being milked from this country through tax havens. Whilst these maybe legal that does not make it right. No ordinary working person has the option to go through a tax haven as their tax is taken before it reaches their bank account so why is it ok for one group but not another? They are a rich person's luxury. If you earn money in this country you should pay the tax rates that are set  irrespective of whether you live in London or Monte Carlo. It seems that if you're rich and wear a smart suit you can take away millions from the government and it be acceptable but if you're struggling to make ends meet and need a helping hand you're a scrounger. This simply is not fairness. The other problem with the bedroom subsidy is that there are simply not enough council houses to go around so people cannot just move into a smaller property. It is well documented that a lot of council houses were sold off in the 1980s and not rebuilt by the Thatcher, Major and Blair governments. Although the money that was made from selling the council houses was not allowed to be used to replace the properties that were sold off. The Labour government under Tony Blair should have built more social housing but they did not and the problem that stemmed from the 80s now has greater consequences for us today. The next government, whoever it maybe, must address this by not only building more social housing but also looking at the cost of private rent and working out a way of how that can possibly be capped. The Labour Party made mistakes that drove their core voters into the grateful arms of the Tories and Lib Dems; they must accept this fact and learn from it.

The coalition's actions are actually pushing voters towards the Labour Party. In some ways Labour are lucky that the coalition have made some poor decisions in office. The largest group within the electorate are beginning to grow tired of "it's all Labour's fault" and fed up at being demonised and having to bear the brunt of the economic crisis whilst the coalition allow their "friends" to get away with taking their share of the burden. The problem with all political parties is that they often do not keep their election promises and therefore people become disillusioned with them and decide to vote for another. Moreover, they are seen by many to be all scrabbling for the centre ground, none of them want to push too far left or too far right. This means that people can find it hard to distinguish between them other than the colour of their logos and ties. This alienates people and goes part of the way in explaining why voting numbers have decreased over recent elections. Each party must start keeping it's election promises and they must become distinctive from the others. The Liberal Democrats could struggle in the next election because they have come across as treacherous and Nick Clegg as a Tory whipping boy. By going into coalition with the Conservatives some of the electorate may find it hard to differentiate between the two whereas before their principles were clearly separate. As for the Tories they have shown that the slogan "the party for change" was a line a stand up comedian could be proud of. Some people took a chance on them, I heard people say "I'll give them a go because Labour aren't doing much at the moment. They might have changed." The Tories are finding hard to bridge the gap between the right wingers and the moderates within the party which was shown up explicitly during the gay marriage debate. This is a problem which parties on the right often do not encounter. Labour possibly has the best chance of being able to offer a difference at the next election because under Ed Miliband they have a change of direction to that of Blair/Brown and through the mistakes of the coalition they are able to separate themselves from those policies. But it will come down to two key questions: Can voters relate to/be pulled in by Ed Miliband? And have they won back the voters trust yet? Adam Ant once sung "music's lost its taste, time to try another flavour" well politics has lost its taste (for some) so maybe it's time to try another flavour? Which party will offer it? We just have to wait and see.

Feedback on "It's all Labour's fault! The coalition cock-up."
 
This article deserves the wide circulation afforded in the national media, but it should anyway resonate with the majority of Cutting Edge readers, with the possible exception of our resident firebrands.
 
I read this as a call for "Fair Government" - and who could argue against that?  It's true that our main parties are jostling for the middle-ground, which may provide an explanation for the high profile of UKIP, which is defending one specific corner of the political spectrum.  It's also obvious to us now that the Blair administration abandoned more Socialist principles than just the one in Clause 4.  The failure to resume council-house building was a particularly black mark, since the provision of shelter is a fundamental responsibility of any civilised government.

Thank you for your kind feedback. I'm sure someone will disagree with me though but it adds to the fun and is what this forum is all about.

The reason I wrote it was that I had been seeing many Tory supporters on Twitter continuing to blame Labour in the same way the coalition government are doing and quite frankly it is becoming boring! And whether you vote Labour religiously, might vote Labour or never would you can see that is a tiresome and pathetically weak argument that has been worn out.

Labour made many mistakes under Blair and as a result they lost the last election but 3/4 years down the line the coalition cannot continue to blame the previous administration when they've had more than enough time to enact the policies that were meant to 'save us'. Truth is they need to deflect attention away from their failures. Labour have been gifted one hell of an opportunity for the next election - can they capitalise? I don't know.

The issue with parties grabbing the centre ground is that 1) people become disillusioned and don't vote and 2) there is a rise of parties like UKIP. Neither of this things are particularly desirable.  But also it means potentially there will be more coalition governments as no one can get an outright majority. That is one of the legacies of Blair's Labour - the centering of politics. He was successful in grabbing that ground to get Labour into power in 1997 that now all the parties want a slice (some of the more "old school" Tories think that is where Cameron is trying to pull them). This has meant they have perhaps, certainly in Labour's case, pulled away from their core support which is dangerous as they are your proverbial bread and butter and the ones who will, in all likelihood, turn out on election day.  

It is all about fairness because if a government is not there to serve its people then what is the point in it being there?

Why the return of growth doesn't prove that Ed Balls was wrong
 
Extracts from an article by George Eaton:-
 
If Ed Balls is such a liability to his party, one wonders why so many Conservatives exert so much energy calling for his departure (the answer, as some privately acknowledge, is that he is one of Labour's greatest assets).

The return of growth after three years of stagnation is nothing to celebrate. As Balls wrote: "We would need 1.4% growth in each and every quarter between now and the election simply to catch up all the ground lost since 2010." (In the USA, where the Obama administration maintained fiscal stimulus, the economy is 3.2% larger than in 2007.)

The continued fragility of the banking sector, the rise in global commodity prices and the eurozone crisis have all constrained growth. It is precisely for these reasons that wise minds counselled the chancellor against austerity. As Balls warned in his celebrated Bloomberg speech in 2010, Osborne was "ripping out the foundations of the house just as the hurricane is about to hit". Hippocrates’s injunction to "first, do no harm" should have been his watchword. Instead, with the private sector already contracting, he chose to tighten the squeeze.

The double-dip may have been revised away, but the austerians didn't only promise that Britain would avoid another recession, they promised, in the words of Osborne's first Budget, "a steady and sustained economic recovery". The shadow chancellor never said that there would be no recovery, only that it would be painfully slow. And he was right. What we got was the slowest recovery for more than 100 years.
 
For the whole article:-
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/10/why-return-growth-doesnt-prove-balls-was-wrong

Nevertheless it's good to know that our Council Tax goes to pay conscientious public servants in a good cause.

Traffic warden slaps parking ticket on ambulance vehicle while paramedics treat patient

Simon Gledhill, Dorset County Council’s parking services manager, said: “The traffic warden saw that the vehicle was causing a clear hazard to the travelling and pedestrian public.

“Emergency vehicles are treated like any other vehicle unless their blue lights are on.

“This indicates that they are on an emergency call and we will not give them a penalty charge notice.

“In this situation there was nothing to indicate that this vehicle was on a call and was therefore ticketed.”

“Discussions have taken place with the Ambulance service and we have agreed to rescind the PCN on this occasion.”

Bournemouth Echo

bobby wrote:Apologies for going off topic. When I was an Ambulanceman ...

No apologies necessary... What you say makes perfect sense. The warden sounds like a typical 'jobs worth'. Sadly, stupidity is to be found in every walk of life

The news this week is of thousands of customers of RBS and subsidiaries NatWest and Ulster Banks whose Credit/Debit Cards stopped working.

Apparently the Chairman blames "decades of under-investment in IT" but does not comment upon the £50million bonus paid out to RBS employees in THIS year.  Question of priorities, obviously.

Saying that because the UK economy is recovering then it must mean that the government's policies were correct is a bit like saying that the economic policies of the 30s were correct because Britain eventually came out of the Great Depression. That won't stop the government spinning that line though.

By coincidence, the 1930s government of Britain was also a coalition.  With Gideon Osborne now making warlike noises about even further caps on welfare spending after 2015, he's obviously laying a political trap for Labour, but will the Lib-Dems feel themselves to be the real target?

Stumbling Toward The Next Crash

Extracts from an article by Gordon Brown:-

"Most of the problems that caused the 2008 crisis — excessive borrowing, shadow banking and reckless lending — have not gone away. Too-big-to-fail banks have not shrunk; they’ve grown bigger. Huge bonuses that encourage reckless risk-taking by bankers remain the norm. Meanwhile, shadow banking — investment and lending services by financial institutions that act like banks, but with less supervision — has expanded in value to $71 trillion, from $59 trillion in 2008.

Precisely what world leaders sought to avoid — a global financial free-for-all, enabled by ad hoc, unilateral actions — is what has happened. Political expediency, a failure to think and act globally, and a lack of courage to take on vested interests are pushing us inexorably toward the next crash."

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/12/19/opinion/gordon-brown-stumbling-toward-the-next-crash.html?_r=2

FCA Replaces FSA.

Titanic Deckchairs re-arranged.

Who's to blame for the crisis, bankers or benefit claimants?

Extracts from an article by Seumas Milne:-

"Cameron's is a government of naked class interest, waging war on the poor while slashing taxes for banks, corporate giants and the richest people in Britain. Its cuts have hit the most deprived, the disabled and women hardest. Its austerity programme halted recovery for four years and has cut most people's real terms pay deeper and over a longer period than at any time since the 19th century. Wealth is being energetically redistributed up the income scale.

This is the government of foodbanks, payday loans and the bedroom tax. None of that is, of course, very popular. So to divert anger from the top to the bottom – from those who caused the economic crisis to its most deprived victims – Tory politicians and their allies have turned their fire on migrants and benefit claimants. In this task, they have the advantage of a mostly pliable media running a daily campaign against 'welfare' and immigration. Latest up has been ‘Benefits Street’, which kicked off with a ‘Little Britain’ style portrayal of unemployed claimants as criminals, scroungers and addicts. It's only one of a string of such shows whose themes are the meat and drink of Tory tabloids.

The reality of the social security system is very different. Most goes on pensions, and far more is spent subsidising in-work poverty wages and insecure jobs than the unemployed. The government and their friends in the media want to turn people's anger at poverty and insecurity against their neighbours. The alternative is to turn it against the bonus-grabbing bankers, tax-dodgers, rapacious landlords and employers who are actually responsible."

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/16/crisis-bankers-benefit-claimants-class

He's not wrong.
The extract you quote also refers to the creeping racism that is entering public debate via a narrative that blames 'immigration' for lowering wages, increasing rents, reducing jobs and taking over our scarce public services (social housing, health care, benefits, education).

We live in disagreeable times