Gordon Brown -a bit of truth for once

quote:

Originally posted by TimCarter50:
What other lies or acts of incompetence can you mention?

Tim

Or positive achievements too, if you want to be fair.

The independence of the bank of England has been one of Labours major achievements, removing interest rates as an election winning and economy destroying tool in the way it was used by the Tories in the previous administration.

I’d like to see the same thing happen with health as mooted this week (being run by health professionals) and Education.

Plenty of incompetence and lies – after all, they are politicians.

Cameron is a brilliant liar. He either believes what he proposed in the last Tory manefesto or he believes what he's saying now. How can we know? One thing I can be sure of; the Tory party don't support anything he's saying now. They are just keeping quiet in the hope he can fool everyone into voting for him.

Then the real Tories will come crawling out of the woodwork.

Regards

Stephen

quote:

Originally posted by TimCarter50:
We heard again yesterday about how the Government have held interest rates at their lowest rates for many years. Interesting.

Tim

Tim, I'd be interested to know where this quote came from. Brown and Blair are the first to acknowledge that interest rates have been the responsibility of the Bank of England's MPC since Labour were elected in 1997.

Some commentators, including Eddie George, the former chairman of the MPC, would argue that they have been too low for too long. What seems to be happening is that the MPC are too scared - by the CBI, primarily - to raise rates at anything more than 0.25% every few months at the most (they're now over the rate you mention as the Euro criterion - are you sure you're not confusing interest rates with the inflation rate?). Anyway, all this is better than what happened under Nigel Lawson (move rates up and down to win elections, create a housing bubble, watch it burst, bail out) and Major/Lamont (try and go into the ERM at the wrong rate, watch sterling wrecked by speculators).

Seems to me that arguing politics is a bit like watching a tennis match. You can even imagine the grunts as the 'ball' is returned, and the cheers of the crowd when a point is one. Whilst I can appreciate the arguments ('facts') touted by both sides, I can't help wondering whether the outcome would be the same irrespective of who won/wins.

Would Britain have been significantly different given a Conservative government for the last term of office? I think not...

/dl

quote:

Originally posted by David Legge:
Would Britain have been significantly different given a Conservative government for the last term of office? I think not...

/dl

I think you've been out of the country for too long.

Interest rates would be higher. House repossessions higher. Unemployment higher. No minimum wage. No fox hunting ban. No devolved parliaments. No smoking ban. NHS and public transport worse even than now. No freedom of information act, no investment in alternative energy, no civil partnership.

To name but a lot.

We’d have still had the war, of course….

Regards

Stephen

quote:

Originally posted by David Legge:
Seems to me that arguing politics is a bit like watching a tennis match. You can even imagine the grunts as the 'ball' is returned, and the cheers of the crowd when a point is one. Whilst I can appreciate the arguments ('facts') touted by both sides, I can't help wondering whether the outcome would be the same irrespective of who won/wins.

Would Britain have been significantly different given a Conservative government for the last term of office? I think not...

/dl

So...Tell us all how wonderfully Democratic things are in Sweden now. (Wwhhaack ! .. UUUUnnngggh.....Applause..)

quote:

Originally posted by Stephen Bennett:

quote:

Originally posted by David Legge:
Would Britain have been significantly different given a Conservative government for the last term of office? I think not...

/dl

I think you've been out of the country for too long.

Interest rates would be higher. House repossessions higher. Unemployment higher. No minimum wage. No fox hunting ban. No devolved parliaments. No smoking ban. NHS and public transport worse even than now. No freedom of information act, no investment in alternative energy, no civil partnership.

To name but a lot.

We’d have still had the war, of course….

Regards

Stephen

Guys please (sends ball into the air ready to whack over the net.....)

Yes, GB handed Interest rate control over to the BofE (big cheer by the crowd). However, they have limited scope for rises as the level of interest rates in the WORLD are now tied to the Euro zone. Get on-line and you will see that it’s the Euro based countries that are setting levels for everyone else.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/in_depth/europe/euro-glossary/1216651.stm

To repeat, if the UK interest rate is higher that those in Euro countries, companies/ banks/ investment funds/ people will borrow at the low rate and invest at the higher rate in the UK. This cannot be allowed otherwise the UK will be bankrupt very very quickly.

Why is it that Labour supporters just don’t get this? Maybe you read the Sun too much rather than the Telegraph.

As for the following:

House repossessions higher: As Interest rates are being held down, this is not going to happen whomever is in power. Mind you, raising over 40 taxes when they said they would not raise tax at all is not helping anyone to keep up with their mortgage payments. Before you shout “what taxes?”, how about National Insurance (NI), the removing of the NI cap, Tax on Pension Funds, Council tax at an average of 8% per annum across all Councils, Insurance premium tax, should I go on?

Unemployment higher. Well unemployment is down I’ll give you that. Mind you, since Labour came to power, they have put such restrictions on paying unemployment benefit that a whole swath of people took themselves off the system, younger people were put on training programs (this doesn’t give them a job it just takes them off the register although they still get paid their benefits) and of course, 1M, I will say that again, ONE MILLION more people are employed in Public services. Well, that reduced the dole queue by a million, even through quango’s are overloaded as a result. John Prescott wanted Regional Governments so he could employ a few thousand more at the Tax payers expense; thank goodness people saw through that rubbish..

No minimum wage. Good point, no idea whether every government had to do this under European legislation, still a good thing nevertheless.

No fox hunting ban. Given all the problems in the UK and around the world, this government spent more time on this topic than any other. And of course there is almost no enforcement at all. Since it became law, Hunt’s still do what they did and only one person has ever been prosecuted. What a waste of time and money.

No devolved parliaments. So the Scots have their Parliament, spent over £500M on a new building, are the only ones able to vote on things that effect Scotland, but they can still vote on things that effect England. This is a good thing, right?

No smoking ban. What smoking ban? The Irish, Welsh, Scots, Italians, etc. enforced this with minimum notice or fuss, but England can’t have it until sometime next year. And why, because the Cabinet couldn’t agree it. And the biggest objector? John Reid, a Scot who thinks its OK not to smoke in Scotland.

Public transport. John Prescot spent the two years before Labour came to power, and the two years after, banging on how he was going to ensure Britain had the best, joined up transport system in the world. What have we heard in the past 6 years about it? NOTHING.

No freedom of information act. This was a European mandate, and one being enacted by every country around the world. Mind you, the week before it became Law, the Government, your holier than thou government, sent a directive to all Government departments to destroy all e-mail in their systems just in case someone might ask a question about something held their mail system. They were also told not to create records of paper based documentation being held so that they could honestly say that they either didn’t know if they had the information being requested, or it would be too expensive i.e. over £400, to dig it out.

No investment in alternative energy. What alternative energy. Labour want to go back to Nuclear.

No civil partnership. This is a good thing. The only good thing to come from 9 years government? Hmmmmm.

Do you want to bat the ball back my way and we can move onto failing Pension funds, failing endowment policies, working class people paying Inheritance Tax, eh, eh…

Tim

Failing endowment policies. Good try. The reason this has come up in the 2000's is that the policies were taken out in the 1980s - now who was in charge of the economy then I wonder?

<Streaks accross Centre Court with banner above head "There are only two certainties in life: Death and taxes">

Lots of ladies gasp and faint.

quote:

Originally posted by TimCarter50:
[Do you want to bat the ball back my way and we can move onto failing Pension funds, failing endowment policies, working class people paying Inheritance Tax, eh, eh…

Tim

Not really. You've agreed that Britain would have been different, more or less! We could argue the details till The Rapture comes home, but it'd be pointless. Some people love the last Tory years; some didn't.

I don't believe the parties are identical or that Britain would be the same whoever is in power.

Regards

Stephen

quote:

I think you've been out of the country for too long.

Sad but true.

quote:

So...Tell us all how wonderfully Democratic things are in Sweden now.

Err, just had a general election so it must be a democracy. Can't get my head around the system (Proportional Representation) though. You vote for the party rather than the individual (OK, not quite true, but it is the ruling principle.) so who have I actually voted for. I'd really like to see the person who I vote for and ask them a few home truths if they don't deliver promises... The Social Democrats got 35% of the votes, Moderates (Conservative) 26%, the remaining 6 (!) parties between 5% and 8%. This is somehow converted into seats, and the political infighting necessary to achieve a coalition government; right wing this time, if you're interested.

So, what's topical. Jobs, taxes, etc. no different really to the UK. And seriously, I don't think that it really makes any difference who is in power.

/dl

quote:

Originally posted by rupert bear:
Failing endowment policies. Good try. The reason this has come up in the 2000's is that the policies were taken out in the 1980s - now who was in charge of the economy then I wonder?

Sorry, endowments were fine until the Euro zone came into force and Labour came to power. When did you start getting your warning letters about failing policies? Mine started 5 years ago. Coincidence?


Deuce

[/QUOTE]

I've lost track of who's quoting who here.

Not deuce at all matey, warnings about shortfalls were issued by the mid-1990s before Labour got into power, and it was fairly obvious they weren't going to work for most people who took them out in the Lawson boom. You could also argue that it was the early 90s slump that caused the problems. Saying they were 'doing fine' until 1997 is preposterous.

Oh, how clouded memory is. If you check back, and I have, it was in the mid '80's that the sale of endowment policies hit their peak. It was, however, not until the turn of the century when low interest rates, and inflation, started the bells ringing and the subsequent cycle of warning letters. This was also the time when the FSA started to investigate claims that endowment mortgages had been mis sold.

Interestingly, this was also the time when GB started to tax pension funds. Hmmm, endowments and pensions starting to fail, I know, let’s tax the fund holders. Nice one Gordon.

Now, whilst the initial view that only policies taken out from the mid '90's would be affected, low interest rates, low inflation and increased taxation has meant that policies taken out in the late '80's are also being effected.

Mine included, and it’s only over the past 5 years I have had the warning letters

As a side line, I have always felt that low inflation was not as good a thing as you might think. Indeed, an inflation rate of around 5% would seem to keep everything ticking over nicely. Let me know if you are bored enough to want to know why I think this is.

15/40? 40/15? 30/30? you tell me.

It’s not for me to comment if your memory is clouded or just selective but endowment mortgages actually reached their peak in the late 80s. Shortly thereafter alarm bells started to ring as falling interest and inflation rates from the early 1990s raised the distinct possibility that returns might not meet the required projections and shortfalls would result. Concern over endowments and calls for their regulation had been raised in Parliament by 1995. The final nail in the coffin for endowments was indeed around the turn of the century but was not as a result of NuLab policies or the existence of the Eurozone, but due to the global bear market of 2000-2003. If you want to drill down to causes closer to home, I recall that many commentators blamed the life assurance industry itself for it’s deficient asset allocation policies not to mention the flawed design and misleading marketing of the endowment vehicle itself.