Best Of

My guess is that 75% of the movement in public opinion on Brexit is nostalgia for the time before Trump, Covid and Ukraine.

Nostalgia for an imaginary period before Brexit.

The 2006-2016 period wasn't the best in the UK - bank crashes, high unemployment, uncontrolled immigration and then public spending restrictions.

You'd have to go back to between 1995 and 2005 for a period when things seemed good and the future rosy.

1989 to 2001 was the really rosy time imo.

Not sure about your date range, although the 1992 to 1997 Tory Government produced some comedy gold.

Oh to have been in a position to buy a house in 1995...

Sadly I was twelve.

Circa 1995 would have coincided with my 18% Bradford and Bingley mortgage rate...

18% of what, though?

I have a friend who bought a house in Cambridge for 550k last year. Was sold in 1995 for 35k. Renovated, but no loft conversion or floor space extension.

I bought that house in Whitchurch in Cardiff as a doer upper in 1991 for £62,000. Houses in that road were going for around £90K. I sold it in 2000 for £135K. However when the mortgage rate starts at a little over 10% in 1991 hitting the dizzy heights of 18% a few years later was no joke.

Are you sure about that ?

Interest rates peaked in October 1989 and were steadily falling throughout 1991 and 1992 (bar the one day wonder of Black Wednesday) and haven't been above 10% since September 1991:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.asp

I might have my dates wrong but I was certainly paying circa 18% on an interest only mortgage in the 1990s.

In 1990 you would have been but was that an endowment mortgage that you had ? I thought interest only mortgages only appeared in the 2000s.

An endowment mortgage was an interest only mortgage with a separate endowment policy that was supposed to repay the capital

My guess is that 75% of the movement in public opinion on Brexit is nostalgia for the time before Trump, Covid and Ukraine.

Nostalgia for an imaginary period before Brexit.

The 2006-2016 period wasn't the best in the UK - bank crashes, high unemployment, uncontrolled immigration and then public spending restrictions.

You'd have to go back to between 1995 and 2005 for a period when things seemed good and the future rosy.

The Blair Years...

There was never a better time to be PM than what Blair had.

And what did he achieve during it ?

48 quarters of successive growth

Peace in Northern Island.

The process had been going for years before Blair was in government.

What did Blair initiate as PM ?

Student tuition fees
Unrestricted immigration
Devolution

Anything else ?

Judged by his stated goals of getting Britain to join the Euro and getting the Labour party to love Peter Mandelson, he was a complete flop.

Some tasks are beyond even the greatest heroes of antquity and myth, never mind a modern politician.

My guess is that 75% of the movement in public opinion on Brexit is nostalgia for the time before Trump, Covid and Ukraine.

Nostalgia for an imaginary period before Brexit.

The 2006-2016 period wasn't the best in the UK - bank crashes, high unemployment, uncontrolled immigration and then public spending restrictions.

You'd have to go back to between 1995 and 2005 for a period when things seemed good and the future rosy.

1989 to 2001 was the really rosy time imo.

Not sure about your date range, although the 1992 to 1997 Tory Government produced some comedy gold.

Oh to have been in a position to buy a house in 1995...

Sadly I was twelve.

Buying a house is so 1990s, now you just have to hope to inherit one in your 60s! Better that than encourage housebuilding.

In the late 1980s the narrative of negative equity was all the rage. My flat in Peterborough went on the market at £62,000. It fell through and I sold it for £43K. That fell through and the final selling price was £29,000. Fortunately in 1983 I had paid 25 grand for it.

And yet, the Tories had a reputation for fiscal prudence. This was yet another example of their fiscal ineptitude.

My guess is that 75% of the movement in public opinion on Brexit is nostalgia for the time before Trump, Covid and Ukraine.

Nostalgia for an imaginary period before Brexit.

The 2006-2016 period wasn't the best in the UK - bank crashes, high unemployment, uncontrolled immigration and then public spending restrictions.

You'd have to go back to between 1995 and 2005 for a period when things seemed good and the future rosy.

1989 to 2001 was the really rosy time imo.

Not sure about your date range, although the 1992 to 1997 Tory Government produced some comedy gold.

Oh to have been in a position to buy a house in 1995...

Sadly I was twelve.

Circa 1995 would have coincided with my 18% Bradford and Bingley mortgage rate...

18% of what, though?

I have a friend who bought a house in Cambridge for 550k last year. Was sold in 1995 for 35k. Renovated, but no loft conversion or floor space extension.

I bought that house in Whitchurch in Cardiff as a doer upper in 1991 for £62,000. Houses in that road were going for around £90K. I sold it in 2000 for £135K. However when the mortgage rate starts at a little over 10% in 1991 hitting the dizzy heights of 18% a few years later was no joke.

Are you sure about that ?

Interest rates peaked in October 1989 and were steadily falling throughout 1991 and 1992 (bar the one day wonder of Black Wednesday) and haven't been above 10% since September 1991:

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/boeapps/database/Bank-Rate.asp

My guess is that 75% of the movement in public opinion on Brexit is nostalgia for the time before Trump, Covid and Ukraine.

Nostalgia for an imaginary period before Brexit.

The 2006-2016 period wasn't the best in the UK - bank crashes, high unemployment, uncontrolled immigration and then public spending restrictions.

You'd have to go back to between 1995 and 2005 for a period when things seemed good and the future rosy.

The Blair Years...

There was never a better time to be PM than what Blair had.

And what did he achieve during it ?

48 quarters of successive growth

You're putting the cart before the horse.

Blair didn't achieve 48 quarters of growth.

The 48 quarters of growth was why it was such a good time to be PM.

The issue being that many of the problems that the country has suffered since arose in those 48 quarters.

Including 45 successive quarters of trade deficit, 45 successive quarters of falling manufacturing employment and such like for rising house prices and increasing personal debt.