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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Even though it is well over four years since it was in power LAB is still getting the blame for the cuts
YouGov's "blame for the cuts" tracker has LAB equalling best figures for the year – but still it gets most blame. See pic.twitter.com/QS9Dd84yjk
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For those more inclined to support Labour there is almost total denial of what the previous government did to this country. They make completely facetious points about Osborne borrowing as much in 4 years as Labour did in 13 completely ignoring the comparative starting positions.
They moan about "austerity" and the present government's inability to cut spending simultaneously and inconsistently, they do not seem to regard Labour opposing every cut as being a problem and do not seem to be concerned about Labour's lack of planning for the cuts already built into the next Parliament. It is a gross kind of irresponsibility and a serious threat to provision and funding of essential services in this country.
There, I feel better now.
On the contrary they have proved themselves absolutely consistent and reliable in terms of outcomes. It is those who refuse to accept the consistent evidence that I find exasperating.
"Ah the third one, that's the one where the Israeli Defence Minister had to resign for being culpable for the massacre of innocent Muslims.
The Israelis showed their revulsion for this chap and massacres of Muslims, they eventually made him Prime Minister."
Sharon was found culpable for allowing (and helping, I cannot recall) the Falangists to enter the Sabra and Chatila camps knowing that they were intent on slaughtering the inhabitants. An appalling crime. But the massacre was carried out by the Falangists (Lebanese citizens) not by Israeli soldiers, though for them to facilitate it was quite bad enough.
In more recent years similar criticism (and apportionment of legal responsibility) has been made of the Dutch soldiers who failed to protect the men in Srebenicza and, indeed, handed some of them in their protection over to the Serbs even after the massacre of 7000 Muslim men and boys had started and the Dutch were aware what was going on. That remains the worst war crime on European soil since WW2. And the way Europeans stood by as Bosnian Muslims were attacked and killed and expelled and tortured was utterly shameful. Perhaps we might remember our own utter moral cowardice and feebleness in the face of attacks on innocent European Muslims when being so vocal in attacking other countries.
BTW thank you for your response on the headline about statefunded Islamic schools. Relieved that it is not official Labour Party policy.
Those Israelis cheering on the death of children are a disgrace. They should be ashamed of themselves. Anyone glorying in the death of children should.
I don't think I've EVER met anyone who had planned to vote Labour but wasn't doing so because he thought we were to blame for the cuts. But I've certainly met Tories who didn't like the cuts but forgave them as they thought they were Labour's fault. Swing voters tend to say "both".
The Tories are fishing in the pool that blame both. Those who blame the Coalition or neither are almost certainly beyond reach (and help).
Weird coincidence huh.
Lab are partially getting away with over borrowing because Con won't admit the banks ****ed up and even if they don't know the details people can smell a rat.
It's felt/hoped that Labour have learned their lesson and will take a tougher line over some of the shadier practices.
I've said on here before that Brown's injection of money into public services after 1999 was tantamount to force-feeding a starving man a banquet. The atrophied organisations simply couldn't deal with the flood of money and ended up creating new bureaucracies to try and manage the money.
The public spending crisis really started when the money coming in (taxes) collapsed. The money going out was unsupportable. The restoration of income as much as the management of the expenditure was (or should have been) the priority of the incoming Government in 2010.
One of the unheralded achievements of the Coalition (and it should be trumpetted far more than some of the ideological guff) has been the liberalisation of local authority finances. Councils are now able to be much more inventive with borrowing, investment and re-financing. The more astute Authorities are seperately trying to reduce or even remove their dependence on central Government grant.
The more they can free themselves from that dependence the more they will be insulated from future reducations in central Government spending.
You still have to explain why we had the biggest collapse in GDP of any major Western economy and why we ended up with the worst deficit in Europe other than Greece.
Not my best post but YouGov's question on the economy and Lab bears repeating always.
A bit like Auberon Waugh, when he took over the Literary Review, endeavoured to have the word "sex" on the front cover of every issue to boost circulation.
Brown took the credit for the froth of the global credit mania which was worse here than almost anywhere else due to the City effect. He took all that unsustainable tax revenues and spent them. And then he spent some more creating the highest structural deficit in the western world. He allowed our banks to spiral out of control and our combined public and private debt ratios to reach the highest levels in the world. Anything to keep the wheels spinning and a delusion of wealth.
We had the worse fall in GDP because we were the most exposed to this uncontrolled lunacy. We recovered more slowly because our debt ratios were worse than anyone else and our broken banks were unable to supply credit. We created the absurd and unsustainable expectation that nearly 60% of our population were magically going to get more from the state than they pay towards it.
So there were global problems but they were problems that London played a key part in, mainly as result of chronically incompetent box ticking regulation. Our own problems were worse than any other large western country because our government had been staggeringly incompetent and had aggravated almost every aspect of the problems more than anyone else.
Brown is lucky he is allowed to walk the streets.
The Con cheek of the political class won't admit it and people smell a rat.
Interesting - I sincerely hope the car wasn't towed away just because she happened to perform a slightly poor road manoeuvre near the Foreign Sec's residence.
TOPPING said:
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Very funny BBC sports report last night - the reporter, getting them as close as she could, said: English, Welsh and Scottish athletes have won medals today..
Would love to take a look at the BBC memo instructing how to deal with UK athletes/medal winners...
There have been slip ups, given that most of the presenters are imported, most Scottish ones relegated to radio Scotland. Been a good few TEAMGB slips. Great games so far though and wonderful atmosphere and spirit, great crowds with lots of cheering for underdogs as well as the home teams.
Despite all the usual drivel spouted beforehand the English team have been cheered almost as much as the home team. Be a lot of disappointed bigots out there.
The formal Lib Dem statement in 2013 accounts over whether the party is financially viable sounds v ominous
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Btt2gZmIcAAnHaV.jpg
Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes 5m
The Lib Dem statement appears to acknowledge the risk that it might not be able to meet obligations (because of "unpredictable" donations)
1. Basle II rules, which placed a very low capital weighting on mortgages, and therefore enabled banks to expand their balance sheets more than they would normally
2. The rise of China as an exporter: to avoid dollars washing around the internal Chinese economy, trade surpluses were reinvested in buying up debt in the West, which both drove down interest rates, and made various different bonds correlate more than they should
3. The very lax monetary policies pursued by the Fed and others following the bursting of the dot com bubble and 9/11.
4. The very long period of constantly rising house prices in most markets (and particularly the US), which encouraged consumers to think that owning property (and leveraging up to buy it) was a one way bet.
5. Political moves in the US to encourage banks to offer credit to buy houses to people who would not normally have been credit worthy enough
6. Compensation policies at certain bank (Northern Rock, being the most obvious example) that encouraged growing the balance sheet at almost any cost
7. Demutualisation of building societies encouraged profit chasing over stability
8. The rise of a secondary mortgage market in the UK (and the growing importance of one in the US), which meant that banks were increasing selling on loans (and therefore were less concerned than they should have been about their ultimate credit worthiness)
9. The ratings agencies who gave AAA rating to synthetic products such as CDOs, therefore encouraging excessive amounts of capital to flow into mortgage financing.
It seems a perfectly reasonable statement to make - donations are inherently unpredictable. The Party recognises that, as a Member paying into that Party I'm well aware of that. Compared with where the fledgling Party was in 1989 my understanding is we're in fair shape despite the fall-off in membership.
Loved it.
Lovely people and atmosphere all over, and at the Hockey.
I heard that the England team were booed at the Rugby sevens.
Quite frankly, I'd be worried if The England team wasn't booed in Scotland
May well pass England's score.
Of course, Cook could always bring himself on. Got a wicket last time IIRC!
Is that what you're finding "on the street" (and "in the velodrome")?
It is true that, in the case of limited company, the directors are in big trouble if they continue trading when they know, or should know, that the company won't be able to meet its obligations as they fall due, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
My reading of the text shown is that they are in some difficulty and will have to watch the financial position carefully, but that the bank is still happy to continue providing credit. As long as that remains the case, they are OK.
Jordan is having a mare and Ali looks seriously unthreatening, just hoping for a mistake. The weight on Broad and Jimmy is just too great on such a flat pitch.
This is the key one. Some people still see credit as some sort of democratic right, like voting or free healthcare or trial by jury.
It isn't. Banks are meant to be private businesses, not social services. They are meant to lend to people who stand a chance of being able to pay back.
I'm not spinning any line, as I understand it, this is the first the time the Lib Dems (or any other major party in the UK) have had to put such a note in their accounts.
On the plus side
Sam Coates Times @SamCoatesTimes · 21m
Apols, Lib Dem membership figures elsewhere in accounts. They are on 43.451 (2012 42,501)
Not in 1979.
Labour picked up the pieces of Tory mass unemployment after 18 years of woeful economic mismanagement in 1997.
And the economy is certainly not fixed now.
Studies have shown that default rates on Community Reinvestment Act loans were no higher and often lower than other mortgages of the time.
Which was a pretty crazy time, that said.
You were probably a twinkle in the milkman's eye at that point mind you.
I take the point that their bank is still willing to back them at this point but the responsibilities of a director or trustee cannot be delegated to a third party.
This is the test that has above all others created the modern day fashion for not enforcing the follow on (And I'd guess earlier than normal 1st innings declarations) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9bV3MRVu3s Eden Gardens Calcutta 2001 - caused a psyche shift in the powerful Aus/Indian teams at the time and probably followed through to the modern day theory by Cook declaring on the 2nd evening. But with a big enough 1st innings the follow on is still a very powerful tool - Or the 3rd innings will inevitably go on too long in most circumstances, Cook won't risk a target of 250 in the 4th even though it may offer the best chance of winning due to being able to lose the game.
Slogging out to get nearer to 600 may have been the better option.
I ask the question again though as I have not seen so many political parties "notes to the accounts" is this a normal qualification to put in in say the Labour, Green, Conservative, UKIP accounts or previous Lib Dem ones ?
Of course the economy is fixed.... Well, at least a lot of the rates were?
They should have went for a "bottom up" approach, find out which markets WEREN'T being manipulated, then work from there.
And after all these billions of pounds of fraud, how many British "bankers" have been jailed?
Glad Labour are still getting the blame, given it's largely their fault.
You seem to be arguing that there was no such thing as subprime....? Having read Lewis' book on the topic I find that difficult to believe.
To all intents and purposes it is exactly the same as it was before the crash, and as usual, those lower down were blamed and made to pay, while those who saw the real profits from the shambles quietly got on with getting richer.
Richard Navabi asked why the UK was hit so badly by the crash (insinuating it was Labours fault), while all the time knowing it is because the UK has the most unbalanced economy in the developed world, and relies on the service sector for almost 80% of GDP.
If there was no crash why the bump between 2007 and 2012 ?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10604117
Just the imagination of those out of work ?
It's the poor wot get the blame!
It's the same the 'ole world over!
Ain't all a bleeding' shame!
Never was truer word spoken!
Did I say there wasn't a crash?
You will have to make yourself a little clearer Harry.
I find intensely annoying that nobody at the top decision making level, including those in the Treasury, has gone to gaol, rather they have all taken their big fat pensions and been allowed to honourably retire. Even today its still going on, Lloyds Bank has been fined £218m for corrupt practices - the blow falls on the shareholders - not the incompetents who were in charge or the thieves that were ripping everyone off. Never mind, we are told that the SFO is considering, no really, considering whether they should investigate. The Septics get a lot wrong in their criminal justice system but, by the cringe, they don't fanny about when it comes to white collar crime. Want to clean up the city? Then make some of the senior people take real, personal, responsibility.
Unless what they did at the time was illegal, then there can be no criminal prosecution.
Be fair? When the English lads used to come up for the five nations, we used to boo them consistently and rub their faces in the ordure for anything up to 2 hours after the match, then get drunk with them. When England won, they did the same to us.
These lads would travel up from as far away Bristol to watch the match in our local pub, go figure? But they did it for years, even if they couldn't get tickets for the match itself.
Mr. Cole quoted the old song, the Red Flag up-thread. I would suggest that with relation to accounting standards in the UK, Cole Porter's, "Anything Goes" would be more appropriate.
One of the most interesting indicators (to me at least) is the point at which government debt-to-GDP starts to fall.
German government debt-to-GDP has been falling since 2011.
By the end of 2014, Ireland and the US will see debt-to-GDP numbers peak. (We may see Irish debt-to-GDP decline from 3Q, but it will be 4Q at the latest.)
At some point next year, the UK will see see debt-to-GDP starting to decline. Italy should follow by the end of the year.
If Spain's economic growth momentum continues then it should start to see its debt levels peak in early 2016 (and I may be pessimistic).
Although French debt-to-GDP increased just 1.2% last year, the ongoing and persistent recession, combined with the almost total absence of structural reforms, means that I'm not comfortable forecasting any reduction in debt-to-GDP in the foreseeable future.
1. Break a working regulatory regime and replace with a politically motivated mess that removed oversight of systemic risk; and
2. Spend, spend, spend, spend, spend, bloat the public sector, spend, more bloat, more spend, borrow, borrow, borrow, borrow, spend, borrow, spend, belch, there's no money left.
And we voted for that shit 3 times in a row.
Do I blame New Labour for wasting an opportunity to rectify the insanity "Thatcherism" started? Yes, and have said so on many occasions here.
Your problem is you think that George has changed anything, but the fundamentals of the idiocy remain solidly in place.
Governments and the markets basically "create money" at convenience, whim, or greed, and call it a "free market" economy. An economy that has no substance behind it other than blind faith.
OK but what is your point? some Jewish people are bloodthirsty islamophobes?
The big mistake that most banks make is they lend against the asset, not the person.
The tune varied considerably according to how much drink had been consumed (and also the words) ;-)
I note that today the BoE Chairman said of Lloyds Bank, “Such manipulation is highly reprehensible, clearly unlawful and may amount to criminal conduct.” The legal authorities have it would seem promised to consider whether they should investigate. What some people did was unlawful and those in charge are going to think about investigating.
If the Chairman of Lloyds Bank at the time of these malpractices can be allowed to accept his pension and wander off as if nothing had happened then we have the the risk to reward ratio totally wrong. I really begin to wonder whether the 80% plus tax rates of yesteryear were really such a bad idea.
As for what this government has done, yes, a lot of the structural problems remain. It's a bit rich of a supporter of a party which completely failed to fix the problems as they arose, and when it would have been much easier, and when money was plentiful, for the fact that they landed the coalition with a God-awful mess and no money. Of course it's taking time to fix that mess - I always said it would take three parliamentary terms.
You are absolutely right, Mr. Cole and I apologise unreservedly for any offence my stupid mistake may have given. I should have known better, indeed I do. My only plea in mitigation was that at the time I was trying to remember who write "Anything Goes". My first memory was that it was Arthur Anderson.
Lax lending standards are definitely stupid, may well be reprehensible, but they are certainly not (currently) criminal.
With RBS and Lloyds the situtations are slightly different. RBS bought ABN Amro for cash at the top of the cycle - substantially increasing its leverage into a downturn. Stupid? Yes. But not criminal. Lloyds bought HBOS because they were asked to. Stupid? Yes. But not criminal.
"Thatcherism" and "Reaganism" were the brainchild of a certain economist, whose had a theory that appeared to be true, and certainly seemed to be having results....
Up until you stood back from it and saw the entire wood, and not just your personal investment tree.
I have little hope that you and your ilk will ever be able to avert your gaze away from your favourite plant in order to start stepping backwards enough to see, and as such, this is becoming a waste of time.
Enjoy your day
Will be favourite again very soon.
How many Israeli civilians have been killed by the Palestinians?
How many Palestinian civilians have been killed by Israel?