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. ?

Still waiting for Labour to set out its stall for the next General Election

This leaflet has, since September 2013, been distributed as part of the 'Labour doorstep' campaign:-

boatlady wrote:the immigrants with 15 children getting £55,000 a year top-up on a £20,000 a year salary

Do you have evidence for this rather inflammatory statement?

It came courtesy of the Times a couple of days ago. The same Benefits would apply to anyone with 15 children.

Does this make anyone want to shout 'whoopee!' and rush to vote Labour if they haven't before? It's just Labour thinking they have to be as mean as the Tories to batter the unemployable into losing their benefits in a different way.

The Lib Dems have stayed shackled to the evil Tories staying the course and maintaining compassion at heart. It might help if Labour showed it had some compassion too.

The elephant in the room is debt.

National debt or personal debt - it is still owed and the plug could be pulled by China or Rothschilds or whoever bailed us out when 'we' (i.e.Gordon) decided to cover the losses of the rogue banks so that all the savers didn't lose everything, all the businesses using the rogue bank didn't immediately go bankrupt, and all their employees didn't lose their jobs. He led and Europe followed. The World Bank was designed to put third world countries into debt - forever - so that they could never compete on a level playing field. Debt is the problem.

In my opinion money should be used to seed fund new industry and new creative (not service) businesses, to build capital and export raw materials or technological goods) while the debts are addressed by a fairer distribution of repayment of the national debt (not just by starving the poor, the sick, and the less able, as the Tories would have it)

methought wrote:-
Does this make anyone want to shout 'whoopee!' and rush to vote Labour if they haven't before?

Freezing domestic fuel prices, bringing back the 10p income tax rate, more free childcare, 200,000 new homes a year and improving the minimum wage are things which matter to a lot of people. Note that the leaflet rules out new borrowing “for day to day spending in 2015” but, reading between the lines, that leaves the door open for new borrowing for investment, which has to be a good thing. It’s the difference between a private individual borrowing to splurge a load of money on an expensive holiday or borrowing to buy a house.

Labour also announced these promises last year:-

• Repeal the Health and Social Care Act
• Regulate private rents
• Promote a living wage for public sector workers and shame the private sector into following that lead
• Offer a minimum 33-40% cut in student tuition fees
• Limit rail fare increases to 1%
• Re-impose the 50p rate of income tax
• Impose a mansion tax on properties valued at £2m or more
• Repeat the bankers’ bonus tax
• Reverse the bedroom tax
• Scrap workfare and replace it with a ‘compulsory’ jobs guarantee
• Offer a VAT cut or a ‘temporary’ VAT holiday
• Scrap Ofgem and bring in proper energy price regulation
• Break up the banks and set up a National Investment Bank
• Support mining communities and clean coal technology.

Labour’s national policy forum was held from 18 to 20 July in Milton Keynes. The party conference is from 21 to 24 September in Manchester. You can expect more policies to be announced then.

You seem to have fallen for the misleading Tory media claim that Labour would be tougher than the Tories on benefit claimants. What Rachel Reeves actually said was that Labour would be “tougher on reducing the benefits bill”. By making a serious effort to guarantee young people a job, by building hundreds of thousands of new homes and paying a living wage in the public sector, the benefits bill will fall because people will have less reason to claim so much, especially housing benefit.

Did you really mean to say that the Lib Dems have been “maintaining compassion at heart”? Where’s the compassion in voting through the bedroom tax? Where’s the compassion in not insisting that the vicious and incompetent sociopath Iain Duncan Smith was sacked long ago? Where’s the compassion in supporting Tory policies which have seen tax cuts for millionaires, while over half a million people in the seventh richest country in the world have to rely on foodbanks?   

So should we, as this thread asks, vote for “more of the same” next May? If you can’t find any positive reasons to vote Labour, maybe you could do so because the only plausible alternative is just too horrifying to contemplate. Grant Shapps has already promised us no-fault dismissals, as recommended by the Tory donor Adam Beecroft. Cameron wants to ban all strikes in the public sector. Christine Lagarde is trying to persuade Osborne to put VAT on food, books and children’s clothing. Oliver Letwin has let slip that the flat tax “could be possible”. The cruel and disgusting practice of foxhunting would become legal once again. And nobody should be in any doubt that another five years of the Tories would see the NHS fully privatised.

methought wrote:-
The elephant in the room is debt.

The biggest lie in British politics

Extracts from an article by Johann Hari:-

"Here’s the lie. We are in a debt crisis. Our national debt is dangerously and historically high. We are being threatened by the international bond markets. The way out is to eradicate our deficit rapidly. Only that will restore ‘confidence’, and therefore economic growth.

As a proportion of GDP, Britain’s national debt has been higher than it is now for 200 of the past 250 years. Check it on any graph by any historian. Since 1750, there have only been two brief 30-year periods when our debt has been lower than it is now. So we can afford to run a deficit, if that has a positive effect.  If we are ‘bust’ today, as George Osborne has claimed, then we have almost always been bust. We were bust when we pioneered the Industrial Revolution. We were bust when we ruled a quarter of the world. We were bust when we beat the Nazis. We were bust when we built the NHS.

Our debt is not high by historical standards, and it is not high by international standards. For example, Japan’s national debt is three times bigger than ours, and they are still borrowing at good rates."

For the full article:-
http://johannhari.com/2011/03/29/the-biggest-lie-in-british-politics/

I'm really pleased to see this type of comment appearing in the press - it's been clear to me for some time that the term 'employment' is used by this government in a very specialised way that has nothing to do with employed people having what we would consider gainful employment.

The use of 'self employment', zero hours contracts, workfare, and JSA sanctions to massage the unemployment figures is a cynical ploy to disguise the fact that, since 2010, people in England are living on smaller and smaller incomes, with increased dependence on State welfare. I hardly meet anyone today that isn't getting either Tax Credit or Housing Benefit

oftenwrong wrote:-
"Would you give the keys of the car again to the ones who crashed it last time?"....Someone needs to have an answer ready. Quickly.

Soundbites will always be effective with the superficial, and that proposed Tory line of attack has been in circulation for a couple of years now. It will no doubt convince those who want to be convinced. However, you must have noticed that every time a Tory (or Danny Alexander, not that there’s much difference) peddles the “Labour’s mess” lie on ‘Question Time’ or ‘Any Questions’, it invariably provokes a loud groan from a large section of the audience. I think it’s just about exhausted its mileage and people may be starting to blame the Tories for the fact that most of us are worse off than we were in 2010.

If you think a retaliatory soundbite is necessary, how about: “Will you leave your car in the hands of those who will flog it behind your back to their mates?”

Anticipating a dirty election campaign (which has already started – note Sajid Javid’s squalid little trick with the wreaths on 4 August), Harriet Harman and Douglas Alexander have promised a swift rebuttal of every Tory lie. It might help if we also have some ‘ammunition’ at our fingertips to use. This article might be a good place to start:-

The myth: Excessive government borrowing got us into this mess
The reality: The last government did not borrow excessively and it was the banking crisis that caused the recession

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/the-myth-excessive-government-borrowing-got-us-into-this-mess-8601390.html

And then there’s this one, which we’ve seen before:-

The biggest lie in British politics

http://johannhari.com/2011/03/29/the-biggest-lie-in-british-politics/

And this one:-

‘The mess we inherited’ – some facts with which to fight the Tory Big Lies

http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog/2013/08/19/the-mess-we-inherited-some-facts-with-which-to-fight-the-tory-big-lies/

Until 2008, Cameron and Osborne were promising to match Labour’s spending “pound for pound” if they came to power, but they don’t mention that these days. We can also speculate how much ‘better’ things would have been if those Bullingdon boys had been behind the wheel when the crash occurred:-

“Labour’s economic failure was the excessive bureaucratic interventionism of the past decade, too much regulation.” (Cameron, March 2008)

The car wouldn’t have needed any keys by now; those two would have written it off long ago.  

Why did Britain’s political class buy into the Tories’ economic fairytale?

From an article by Ha-Joon Chang:-

“Contrary to the Conservative portrayal of it as a spendthrift party, Labour kept the budget in balance averaged between 1997 and 2002. Between 2003 and 2007 the deficit rose, but at 3.2% of GDP a year it was manageable. This rise was not due to increased welfare spending. According to data from the ONS, social benefit spending as a proportion of GDP was more or less constant at about 9.5% of GDP a year during this period. The dramatic climb in budget deficit from there to the average of 10.7% in 2009-2010 was a consequence of the recession caused by the financial crisis. The recession reduced government revenue by the equivalent of 2.4% of GDP between 2008 and 2009-10 and it raised social spending.

When private sector demand collapses, as in the 2008 crisis, the government ‘living beyond its means’ in the short run may actually reduce public debt faster in the long run, by speeding up economic recovery and thereby more quickly raising tax revenues and lowering social spending. If the increased debt is accounted for by spending on projects that raise productivity – infrastructure, R&D, training and early learning programmes for disadvantaged children – the reduction in public debt in the long run will be even larger.

The success of the Conservative economic narrative has allowed the coalition to pursue a destructive and unfair economic strategy, which has generated only a bogus recovery largely based on government-fuelled asset bubbles in real estate and finance, with stagnant productivity, falling wages, millions of people in precarious jobs, and savage welfare cuts.”

For the whole of this article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/oct/19/britain-political-class-tories-economic-fairytale

Meanwhile the "independent" Bank of England maintains an interest rate of half-a-percent, and continues to print extra money.

The Lib-Dem component of our coalition government has successfully argued for a tax "threshold" at £10,000 a year, below which a worker would not even figure in the PAYE system (except for National Insurance contributions). Gideon Osborne liked the idea so much he proposes to raise that threshold to £12,500 a year. His full pre-election give-away budget is due to be revealed on December 3rd.
The conventional wisdom amongst Treasury mandarins, that having all employees on their records regardless of whether income tax was payable discouraged the black economy has evidently been discounted.

As an aside, some political commentators think that voter apathy will increase at election time, because many more will now feel unaffected personally by the outcome.

Don’t cling to Nurse Cameron, there’s a fair way to fix our economy

Extracts from an article by Polly Toynbee:-

Cameron’s pitch in ‘The Guardian’ that “red warning lights are flashing on the dashboard of the global economy” will no doubt draw some wry smiles, with good reason. Ah, so when global tremors threaten a Conservative government, it’s not their fault. But when the greatest global crash in generations strikes a Labour government, the cause is Gordon Brown overspending on tax credits for the low paid.

Looking for foreigners to blame is no surprise, since as things stand under Cameron and Osborne, debt is rising; the deficit is on the up again; welfare spending is £16.5bn overshot due to high rents and low pay; Treasury receipts are falling; living standards are flat or down after three years of flat-lining austerity; while inequality rises and social mobility sinks. So they cast about to lay the blame on a dangerous outside world of Ebola, Syria, Ukraine and, above all, failures in the feckless eurozone.

It’s for Labour to offer something better. And it can. By cutting the deficit more slowly, it has at least an extra £30bn to ease the coming pain, calculates the Resolution Foundation. It leaves open the door to borrowing for infrastructure investment for a million homes, transport and good jobs.

Ed Miliband has bet the bank – plus bankers’ bonuses – that ballooning inequality is the great issue of our time. He’s not alone, as the IMF, the World Economic Forum and even Mark Carney of the Bank of England identify it as the root cause of long-term economic woe: if too many are paid too little, who buys the goods and pays the taxes?

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/18/cameron-tories-fix-economy-tories-global-downturn-austerity

In my opinion, this article is a valuable lesson in basic economics and is worth reading in full….  

Cameron is right to warn of another recession, but wrong to blame the world

Extracts from an article by Robert Skidelsky:-

Ministers are up to their old game of blaming everyone but themselves for Britain’s economic woes. First, they said they were “clearing up the mess” left by Labour. When recovery stalled, it was because of the Greek crisis. Now Cameron warns of a new recession even before it has happened – because Europe is not doing its job of recovering properly.

The amount of activity in an economy depends on the total of spending. Spending creates incomes: incomes create jobs. Spending is made up of private sector spending and government spending. If the private sector – businesses and households – reduces its spending, then total spending can only be kept up by the government increasing its own spending. If the government simultaneously reduces its own spending, then the amount of activity in the economy is bound to fall. If we take Britain and the eurozone together this is exactly what has been happening since 2010. Government spending has been cut, and this has dragged down total spending.

The resumption of UK growth in 2013 had nothing to do with fiscal 'austerity'. It was mainly caused by quantitative easing (QE) – pumping money into the economy – which a country with its own money-creating central bank can do, but which the European Central Bank currently lacks a mandate for. However, QE has produced a lopsided British recovery. The new money has gone mainly to owners of assets, who use it to buy up securities and real estate, reproducing the bubble economy that caused the crash in the first place.

For the whole article:-
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/nov/18/david-cameron-recession-policies-cut-deficits

This version of events totally convinces me - but it's amazing how much currency the other narrative - that Labour ruined the economy - still appears to have.

It's quite clear to me that our current woes as a country date back to the '80's and the destruction of the industrial infrastructure - which had been the main wealth-producing part of the economy - replacing it with a financial sector based mostly in London.
This meant that, when a world recession took place, we had all our eggs as  it were in the one basket.
Immediate swingeing cuts to public spending and especially the tightening up of benefits (which is actually more expensive than just giving people what they need to live) has meant that there is less money circulating in the economy - leading to a worse recession - simples

Even this week, though, I've been called an idiot for not understanding that Labour wrecked the economy - you just can't reason with some people

I wonder if the Sanctions against Russia, of which Cameron is always calling for more, has anything to do with the down turn in the German economy which seems to have sent shudders through the rest of the Euro Zone?

Could well be astradt, but Cameron would blame anyone for what he does anyway would he not?

The Lyons Report Housing Review

The Labour Party's  commission on housebuilding headed by Sir Michael Lyons reported last month,  but you may have missed it as the media seemed more preoccupied with Ed Miliband's digestion of a bacon sandwich among other activities. Under Labour housing minster Nye Bevan, the 49,250 houses built in England during 1946 had been increased to 193,590 completed in 1948.  Harold Macmillan then saw a total 293,110 finished in 1954.  Miliband wants to set a target of 200,000 units a year by 2020, twice the number of homes built in 2013.

A modern feature of the market is the number of new-build properties being sold "off-the-plan" to BTL landlords, many of whom are foreigners with no intention of moving here themselves.  The effect is to put first-time buyers at an ever greater disadvantage in trying to get onto the notorious housing-ladder, as well as making life even harder for working people forced into renting, especially in the Southeast of England. Simply building more homes faster is not likely to force prices downwards, as the cost of land and other development costs, not least borrowing charges, will make the description affordable housing a sick joke for so long as there is investor confidence and a ready availability of credit due to quantitative easing (printing money).

Sir Michael Lyons believes that housebuilding must copy the example of the 1940s by increased social housing provided by Councils and housing associations from the 22,400 units released last year to become 50,000 in 2020.

Well OW, what do you expect us Labour supporters to say with regards to your post my friend, second it for one, as the number of housing places that have been sold off by this scum is unbelievable is it not, especially when those same numbers have not been replaced, it therefore leaves so many unhoused on the street and basically living rough does it not.
Of course this tory scum cares not one bit about that do they, because it is what those poor unemployed mostly deserve.

It would seem that CBS News hasn't quite got things right about the British economy, unless Ed Balls has aged a lot recently!  


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/B3jx4HVIMAEfwDd.jpg

Sir Michael Lyons believes that housebuilding must copy the example of the 1940s by increased social housing provided by Councils and housing associations from the 22,400 units released last year to become 50,000 in 2020.

He's dead right - we urgently need more decent standard social housing to squeeze the private landlords out of the market - private rented property has become well-nigh unaffordable for most

Never truer word boatlady, private rented property would leave you broke before you even think about doing any shopping would it not.

This video dates from 2012, when the Nobel laureate Paul Krugman was arguing about austerity with the Tory MP Andrea Leadsom and the City financier Jon Moulton.

At the time, Moulton was a Tory donor, but he decided that Osborne wasn’t cutting the state hard enough and so he now contributes to UKIP instead. 2,727 of Moulton’s staff at City Link lost their jobs when he put the firm into administration on 24 December, but he didn’t bother to tell them – they found out via the press that they won’t be paid after 31 December.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_r-AKruzmkk

Typical of a Tory donor with no conscience or sense of loyalty.

What a lovely xmas present for all those staff that are no longer working.

When CityLink last changed hands, the price paid by its current owners was ONE POUND.

Which may have contained a message.

Even more disgusting OW, IS THAT HE NOW DONATES HIS MONIES TO THE UKIP.
How much lower can Moulton get sacking all those workers too on Christmas bloody eve to ruin their Christmas for them.

Who is more suitable for the role of chancellor?  

Ed Balls: 1st class degree in politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford. Then studied economics at Harvard and taught there. Later became lead economic writer for ‘The Financial Times’.

George Osborne: 2nd class degree in history at Oxford. Wanted to be a journalist but failed to gain a place on ‘The Times’ trainee scheme. Briefly folded towels then worked at Tory central office.

Been clear for some time that Gideon is winging it - I suspect that's why he's losing weight, often looks a bit 'spaced out' etc - being such a fraud must be very stressful.

Not much choice is there Ivan? 1st class in everything against 2nd class in everything plus failure= Ed.

Indeed Stu, except there are many more second claases than first and still many of these second class twits still vote for the first classes.

Cannot argue on that point i'm afraid Mel.

boatlady wrote:Might be interesting if there were some evidence - something to debate - as it is, seems redflag may have won that round

Had not looked at this thread for several days and found it rib smashing to read the defence for the party that dug the greatest financial hole for the British people in modern times .
It seems that we are out performing all other major EU countries on every success indicator known , BUT
No hint of this is mentioned .
Inflation is almost too low , unemployment nearly halved and real growth is with us .
Yet still the Left bleats and whines

Some of them point to wages having lagged behind inflation over most of the last few years .
What did they imagine would happen in a period of austerity where life saving surgery for the banks was the only priority of real consequence ? Are they really as wilfully ignorant of how and why the wheels turn in the real world ?
You can never get real growth when the money earning engine is in the garage!!
The working class cannot spell the word let alone affect it --- other than by productivity gains which are always desirable but little to do with the size and depth of recent problems .
Equally , the public sector cannot be a source of new wealth , by definition .
So , as usual the private sector has to keep the " consumer army " alive .
The positive effects of growth come a long time after it has been targeted in the boardroom . It can take years to open foreign new markets and achieve profit .
Like so many on the Left , it seems the one subject they never really understand --- let alone practise--- is simple appreciation of the way an economy ebbs and flows plus the sequencing necessities involved .
That is , first earn your new real growth . Then make sure it is sustainable . Then reward the workers wage increases if inflation rules and if prospects are good , based on expert analysis and not just greedy whining from the workers who will always want more even if the Day of Judgement was tomorrow .

patakace wrote:-
Had not looked at this thread for several days and found it rib smashing to read the defence for the party that dug the greatest financial hole for the British people in modern times .

I'd be surprised if anyone bothers to read your post beyond the whopping lie in the first sentence.  

The LSE Growth Commission is a mix of academics, business leaders, economists and banking experts, not Labour Party hacks. It concluded that British economic performance was strong throughout the period of Labour government 1997-2010, and GDP per head grew faster in the UK than in France, Germany, Italy or Japan. Productivity growth in terms of GDP per hour was second only to the US, and improvements in employment rates were better than in the US.

This success, they say, was not due to an unsustainable bubble in finance, property or public spending. From 1997-2007, finance contributed around 0.4% to a 2.8% productivity growth. They make clear the crash was an international phenomenon which cannot be blamed on Labour policies, and that Labour did not leave Britain more vulnerable once the crash occurred. They say the structural element of the deficit was 1% of GDP in 2008 – it rose to 5% by 2010 because of the crisis in consequence of the fall in tax receipts. So the increase in the deficit was a consequence not a cause.

http://www.alastaircampbell.org/blog/2013/08/19/the-mess-we-inherited-some-facts-with-which-to-fight-the-tory-big-lies/

Labour didn't dig any holes; it pursued policies which Cameron and Osborne were promising to continue until the global crash occurred. Judging by what Cameron and Redwood were saying at the time, the banks would have been even less regulated if the Tories had been in power. If you have to rely on a very tired old Tory lie to support your case, you must be desperate.

The "hole" patakace was created by banks who refused to be regulated worldwide. Do you not know that banks are stronger than governments? Banks loved your Tory Witch because she was the one who d-regulated them, no resistance to that. She had to derive revenue from somewhere after decimating our industrial base.
Mervyn King has recently stated that Labour were "NOT responsible for the crisis" and in any case your Tory lot went along with spending. The figs are now worse than they were in 2010 even following harsh austerity measures meted out to the poor the sick and the young. Inflation is low because people do not earn enough to spend and now with the oil price reduction it's even lower, no thanks to this government at all.

You talk about "jobs" being created, indeed they have been, part time, self employed, contract employment,all at or below the min wage and you know it, with £2.50 per hour for so called "apprentiships", nothing but cheap labour. Don't you know man that this is the reson Gideon lacks tax revenue? He is not bothered though because this means he is unable to fund the services, which leaves the door and the excuse to privatise open as planned. Perhaps you do not realie that like thousands of similar folk who have been well and truly duped and brainwashed. Get real patakace and face the truth and the reality of the situation please.

Ivan ,
You  seem to  have trawled the depths to desperately refute what every expert on the planet knows --- that Labour could not add and subtract and went on a spending spree almost unparalleled outside of a world war situation .
Of course Labour wish to blame matters on the global  recession following the bursting of the US real estate bubble .
However that just exacerbated matters .
And  if you mean that GB went spending crazy BECAUSE there was a recession that is a different proposition ;   namely  , that the Government collectively went crazy .
Don't quote AC  . It is like recommending a whisky to a recovering alcoholic -- which he is of course .
Your whole idea  of using  the global recession to mask Labour's criminal  financial behaviour ,  stinks .
It was the British and western govt's in general  that produced the mess .
Certainly not the Tories because they had not been in power for a decade .
Talk about selective amnesia . Quite stupendous .

Mel ,
Why preach to the converted ?
In fact why preach to someone who has been a preacher for decades ?
Of course Banks are the State . Whom in their right mind would think otherwise ?
But Labour were in charge here for 13 years and that  was like putting  a mental defective  in charge of  a  Hospital --- Perez in charge of the Big Brother House to use a simple  up to date analogy --- to cater for those who live under ground .
Don't blame the Tories for your mess . Just apologise and stop meddling in areas where you are novices .

I can now patakce see how the preacher has definately been duped and brainwashed by the Tory media/press.
Reading rags such as the Daily Mail will not educate you with the truth. I certainly do not need you to offer examples which go no way in putting your argument in perspective.
The Tories were in charge for a very long time before the last Labour government and what disasters were meted out to the average man in the street.

You cannot say that Mervyn King is a "novice", his statement makes a mockery of your anaylisis.

You simply ignore the facts I put forward and in particular Thatcher's deregulation policy along with her buddy Reagan. This is where the problem started and you ignore it and pass the blame on Labour spending. All governments borrow heavily, even this shower. If you want REAL JOBS created, then borrowing must fund infrastructure which apart from producing thousands of jobs, creates wealth and improves services and indeed gives back by way of tax revenues.
You just can't get away with arguing against the very fact that the Tories are hell bent on continuing their idology of tranferring wealth from bottom, middle to the top, it is their dream and goal, always has been and always will be.
If you are unable to come to terms with my argument, then it is you who has become the"novice" just like the blinkered thousand that have also been duped by this disgusting so called government.

I have read the first few lines .
Don't be childish , Mel , if you want anything approaching a sensible chat .

You are like someone desperately arguing the Palestinian cause--- dragging up History ad hoc and being constantly selective .
Just take responsibly for the catastrophe Labour inflicted on its electorate .
The names of Brown, Miliband and Balls are a stain on our heritage . As representatives they let the country down .
They were negligent , arrogant and failures .