Night of the long knives

[Silent Hunter]

Declaration of interest: I voted for Ed Balls in the leadership contest.

[copenhagen]

You must've loved the record of Gordon Brown then.

[Silent Hunter]

Originally Posted by Copenhagen

You must've loved the record of Gordon Brown then.

Not as much as I dislike David Cameron... To be honest, Brown wasn't a very good PM.

I voted for Balls as I was rather pleased with his attacks on Gove's educational policy; I felt Ed Miliband was trying to trash our legacy too much.

[copenhagen]

Originally Posted by Silent Hunter

Not as much as I dislike David Cameron... To be honest, Brown wasn't a very good PM.

I voted for Balls as I was rather pleased with his attacks on Gove's educational policy; I felt Ed Miliband was trying to trash our legacy too much.

Balls is Browns man and ideological buddy. Whether as Chancellor or P.M. Your legacy. Well I think a trillion quid legacy of debt aint much to crow about.

[Silent Hunter]

Originally Posted by Copenhagen

Well I think a trillion quid legacy of debt aint much to crow about.

I agree, but we did many other good things as well. Like these.

[copenhagen]

Minimum wage is one of the key reasons why we have record youth unemployment.

Human Rights Act stops us deporting and dealing with some very bad people and made no difference to our pre act freedoms. In effect it is a threat to national security.

PCO's. Policing on the cheap with limited training.

Wind Farms .A red herring in the fight against rising energy needs and CO2 emissions.

More children get good grades because they're less challenging and children are encouraged to do things like Media Studies.

Car scrappage scheme. Encourage more people to get into debt and in real terms damaging for the environemnt and raising CO2 emmissions by building new cars people didnt actually need.

50% of school leavers to go to university. Many don't need to go and end up in debt they'll never pay off chasing after too few jobs that they think they're now qualified for . Also why we have record youth unemployment.

EMA .Paying people to go to school ( i used my own self discipline and had a part time job) because for some reason they can't possibly have a part time job that pays them 30 quid a week (thats the states job) but costs the rest of us a fortune. Apparently many register to get the money and then leave.

Number 50 The government is supporting Nissan's investment in the production of its new Leaf car in Sunderland with a £20.7 million grant. Someones raking up whatever they can find to get to a 100.

59. Introduced the successful literacy and numeracy hours in schools.
We have some of the worst literacy and numercy of young children in the developed world. Thats just a chronic lie.

60. Abolished the Social Chapter opt-out introducing the right to parental leave, extended maternity leave and right to request flexible working time on International Women's DayOh bless. ie a tax on small businesses.

[B]62. Introduced Armed Forces Day as an opportunity for the nation to show its support for our servicemen and women on the day Gordon Brown showed his support with a surprise visit of British troops in Afghanistan[/B]
I dont't need nor do the rest of us need to be told to support the military by a government who sent an army to war with a chancellor who never cared much for the military and consistently cut their budget. "Blank cheque" for helicopters that never arrived. Radios that didnt work. Men bought their own equipment and body armour. The list is endless on that one.

64. Established an electoral commission to clean up politics on the day that the commission investigated Lord Ashcroft's donations.

65. Whilst it does not fulfil Michael Foot's deep conviction in nuclear disarmament, the UK has halved its nuclear arsenal since 1997 and remains committed to further reduction in concert with the international community.
A communist who had a dialogue with Moscow and appeared on rememberance Sunday in a Donkey Jacket. Who writes this stuff.

81. Labour investment has helped 93,000 more 11-year-olds master numeracy each year since 1997 - on the day the Tories misplace a decimal point and ‘report' that 54 per cent of girls in the most deprived areas fall pregnant by age 18 (should be 5.4 per cent)

Numeracy has got categorically worse. This is just a lie.
People on here think they win arguments because some one made a type o. They're juvenile aswell.

87. The prime minister now appears twice a year before a Commons select committee But can't be arsed to have him or his ministers to appear in parliament to announce policy as they respectfully should preferring to leak it all to the press.

89. Points-based system of immigration Yeah they got that well under control.

93. Introduced devolution in Scotland Cracking value for money to buy votes north of the border .How much did that parliament cost.

98. Record number of students in higher education I refer you to the levels of youth unemployment and manic student debt for people doing degrees that are meaningless in the real working environment. Tourism studies anyone.

And so much of the rest of it is, we spent more on this and this and this and this and our school is lovely but he kids can't read but the PFI intitiave that paid for the school is the biggest rip off ever and we're in hock for it for the best part of 30 years and Gordon Brown ruined the best private pension system in the world putting old people into poverty and created so many BS public sector jobs the guardian didn't have enough paper to advertise them all and he kissed arse to he city because he couldn't give a tuppeny toss or didnt notice he was encouraging a massive housing credit bubble because those bankers paid him the taxes he needed to pay for the interest on all the money he borrowed which meant we went from a budget defecit in 1997 of 8 billion up to 180 billion by the end of the following decade which is why we're a trillion quid in debt with no real way of getting out of it but its not our fault its Goldman Sachs OK? Good.

[Hop]

But the "achievements" were all done with borrowed money. We'll still be paying for some of them in 70 years.

It's not hard to borrow money to employ people. It's just stupid. It leads to lower employment in the long run.

Others aren't achievements at all. The climate change act, for example. The only way to make it work is to give us the most expensive, unreliable electricity in Europe. The impact on jobs will be devastating.

There was a company in North Wales called Anglesey Aluminium. It employed 540 people smelting aluminium. It was the largest such plant in Europe. It closed 2 years ago because it could no longer afford electricity prices in the UK.

AA used to have a deal to get cheap power from Wylfa nuclear power station. Labour didn't believe in nuclear power, they "invested" in wind instead. The power is far too expensive (something else we will be paying for for decades to come) and unreliable (at peak demand last December wind was providing less than 0.5% of our electricity needs.)

Some achievement. We pay more, get less, and destroy jobs.

Or what about this:

24. Over three quarters of GP practices now offer extended opening hours for at least one evening or weekend session a week

GPs used to carry out home visits out of hours. Now we pay GPs far more and instead get barely qualified foreign doctors to do the job on the cheap with much worse results.

I think Balls will be a bad move for Labour. Firstly, he clearly wants Miliband's job. Labour spent a long time with Brown sabotaging Blair because he wanted the top job. I expect a repeat with Balls/Miliband.

Second, Balls is the architect of Britain's terrible economic performance during the 00s. Labour need someone who can trash their record, not the man who was responsible for it and thinks it was brilliant. At the next election Labour are going to have to convince the public that they understand the problems of high debt. Balls isn't the man to do that.

[copenhagen]

Originally Posted by Hop

But the "achievements" were all done with borrowed money. We'll still be paying for some of them in 70 years.

It's not hard to borrow money to employ people. It's just stupid. It leads to lower employment in the long run.

Others aren't achievements at all. The climate change act, for example. The only way to make it work is to give us the most expensive, unreliable electricity in Europe. The impact on jobs will be devastating.

There was a company in North Wales called Anglesey Aluminium. It employed 540 people smelting aluminium. It was the largest such plant in Europe. It closed 2 years ago because it could no longer afford electricity prices in the UK.

AA used to have a deal to get cheap power from Wylfa nuclear power station. Labour didn't believe in nuclear power, they "invested" in wind instead. The power is far too expensive (something else we will be paying for for decades to come) and unreliable (at peak demand last December wind was providing less than 0.5% of our electricity needs.)

Some achievement. We pay more, get less, and destroy jobs.

Or what about this:



GPs used to carry out home visits out of hours. Now we pay GPs far more and instead get barely qualified foreign doctors to do the job on the cheap with much worse results.

I think Balls will be a bad move for Labour. Firstly, he clearly wants Miliband's job. Labour spent a long time with Brown sabotaging Blair because he wanted the top job. I expect a repeat with Balls/Miliband.

Second, Balls is the architect of Britain's terrible economic performance during the 00s. Labour need someone who can trash their record, not the man who was responsible for it and thinks it was brilliant. At the next election Labour are going to have to convince the public that they understand the problems of high debt. Balls isn't the man to do that.

Oh I agree. I mean we could all have a 5 bedroom house with all mod cons and a Ferrari if someone gave us a line of credit long enough. Still got to pay for it though in the end. Don't get me started on PFI. Incompetence beyond belief. Some businesses took people who have never had a real job for a right ride there. We are in major, major trouble. The co-aliton is just making things worse but less slowly if Im honest. The position New Labour has put us in is mind boggling. We'd need spending cuts of probably 70% and epic tax cuts to rebalance the books. Its that bad. But whose going to be able to do this. Electoral wilderness would beckon. Defending the New Labour legacy is like defending syphilis.

[copenhagen]

Originally Posted by Hop

But the "achievements" were all done with borrowed money. We'll still be paying for some of them in 70 years.

It's not hard to borrow money to employ people. It's just stupid. It leads to lower employment in the long run.

Others aren't achievements at all. The climate change act, for example. The only way to make it work is to give us the most expensive, unreliable electricity in Europe. The impact on jobs will be devastating.

There was a company in North Wales called Anglesey Aluminium. It employed 540 people smelting aluminium. It was the largest such plant in Europe. It closed 2 years ago because it could no longer afford electricity prices in the UK.

AA used to have a deal to get cheap power from Wylfa nuclear power station. Labour didn't believe in nuclear power, they "invested" in wind instead. The power is far too expensive (something else we will be paying for for decades to come) and unreliable (at peak demand last December wind was providing less than 0.5% of our electricity needs.)

Some achievement. We pay more, get less, and destroy jobs.

Or what about this:



GPs used to carry out home visits out of hours. Now we pay GPs far more and instead get barely qualified foreign doctors to do the job on the cheap with much worse results.

I think Balls will be a bad move for Labour. Firstly, he clearly wants Miliband's job. Labour spent a long time with Brown sabotaging Blair because he wanted the top job. I expect a repeat with Balls/Miliband.

Second, Balls is the architect of Britain's terrible economic performance during the 00s. Labour need someone who can trash their record, not the man who was responsible for it and thinks it was brilliant. At the next election Labour are going to have to convince the public that they understand the problems of high debt. Balls isn't the man to do that.

Oh he does , how to generate high debt, he knows that beautifully in fact all Labour governments do.

[Silent Hunter]

Originally Posted by Hop

At the next election Labour are going to have to convince the public that they understand the problems of high debt. Balls isn't the man to do that.

"Oppositions don't win elections; governments lose them". What Labour need to appear as a half-way decent alternative to an unpopular Coalition. If the situation is bad enough, they may well get in that way.

That said, I am concerned about Ed Miliband (who I didn't give any of my preferences too) in a debate.

As for terrible economic performance; I don't call continuous growth from 2000 to 2007, a fairly short recession and around 1.5 million unemployed for most of that decade "terrible", but we'll have to disagree.

We don't have a debt level anywhere like Ireland or Portugal and the bulk of that increase in debt was in the last three years, due to a collapse in tax revenues.

[copenhagen]

Originally Posted by Silent Hunter

"Oppositions don't win elections; governments lose them". What Labour need to appear as a half-way decent alternative to an unpopular Coalition. If the situation is bad enough, they may well get in that way.

That said, I am concerned about Ed Miliband (who I didn't give any of my preferences too) in a debate.

As for terrible economic performance; I don't call continuous growth from 2000 to 2007, a fairly short recession and around 1.5 million unemployed for most of that decade "terrible", but we'll have to disagree.We don't have a debt level anywhere like Ireland or Portugal and the bulk of that increase in debt was in the last three years, due to a collapse in tax revenues.

Pray tell me how this was achieved? Actually I'll tell you . Gordon and Tony said. Do you take plastic? They also created epic levels of public sector jobs . These are not real jobs as far as the real economy is concerned. Economically they're meaningless apart from the fact that they drain it. Its why so many are getting cut.

The increase in debt caused by a drop in tax revenue was caused because the credit bubble burst, the bubble which fuelled the growth. They are symptomatic of each other. The left just don't get this. Nor do the so called right, who aren't really right.

[Silent Hunter]

Originally Posted by Copenhagen

Pray tell me how this was achieved? Actually I'll tell you . Gordon and Tony said. Do you take plastic?

Yes, I do "get it". There was a global credit bubble which burst.

I think we're all just now. This isn't getting any of us anywhere.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.

[copenhagen]

Originally Posted by Silent Hunter

Yes, I do "get it". There was a global credit bubble which burst.

I think we're all just now. This isn't getting any of us anywhere.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.

No you don't because they had a hand in it too . You fall for this line that it was all Wall Streets fault but it wasn't just them. The government were to blame also. Bad regulation, no understanding that a credit bubble was occuring, an encouragement of the housing bubble with no realistion of the consequences. This all done through fiscal policy. Look at Canada and the Australians for how it should've been done. the Wall Street is entirely to blame is an utter cop out. See Browns mansion speech where suck up to the city to see what he was doing. Don't fall for the Wall Street is entirely to blame line.

[Silent Hunter]

Originally Posted by Copenhagen

Don't fall for the Wall Street is entirely to blame line.

I don't think they were entirely to blame. I think that they should shoulder the majority of the blame.

[copenhagen]

Canada and Australia rode this out very well, all things considered because they weren't profligate with their domestic spending and set up system that protected their domestic banking system from what happened because they understood the folly of it. (Alistair Darling said they had no way of knowing this, either he's lying or incompetent compared to his Canadian counterpart) Either way Blair and Brown screwed it up big time as they wanted to profit politically from the tax revenue it engendered and they encouraged