Darling played a pretty decent hand but he could not have organised the G20 conference, without which the remedial measures could not have been taken. That was Brown, and he pulled off the trick at the conference, which was no small matter.
Yes, of course the crisis should never have got to the point it did, but how many people, governments and institutions were culpable in that respect? Too many to list here.
And of course Brown himself would bear his fair share of the blame.
PtP, what specific measures from that G20 meeting are you referring to. Not a single resolution from that G20 meet made an iota of difference to the global economy. The TARP was already up and running by then and we had already bailed out and stabilised Northern Rock and RBS by then.
I am really struggling to come up with a specific measure that came from the meeting in question that made any difference to the global economic outlook. If you could enlighten me I would appreciate it.
All I remember were $1tn headlines and nothing else...
It's far more simple than that, Cameron lied repeatedly about a reorganisation, and he deliberately used his family to gain credibility for those lies.
Mike is right, it's his tuition fees pledge.
Dave's fault for putting Lansley in charge tbh. Should have put a competent minister in charge. Though I have no great admiration for Hunt, he is a huge improvement on Lansley.
I think the reason Cameron falls foul of Bercow is one of style, he's very much a student of Blair who worked out that due to the way it was reported he could turn PMQs on its head by using it as a bully pulpit to hit the LotO with whatever he wanted his talking point to be that week, with the added bonus that it meant getting away from any tricky questions. Dave lacks the wit/false bonhomie of Blair and so can't quite pull it off but the intent is there.
Ed M realised fairly quickly that this style wouldn't work for him, as Dave, self confident public schoolboy (for once this isn't being used as a denigration) that he is can always out bluster him and so banks on tripping him up on detail which he then uses to make a wider point. His best PMQs moments have come when he's tripped Dave up over detail and followed it up with a calculated remark.
Bercow's whole schtick when getting elected was that he'd put a stop to the worst excesses of the Blair tactics of turning the session into a quagmire in which everyone forgets what anyone said except the PM's talking points, and so this doesn't really suit Dave's style.
IIRC, there was a rather interesting Newsnight which saw the Christine Legarde totally shoot down the idea that Brown was the hero of the day. As she pointed out, it was Darling rather than Brown who deserved the praise for his hard work behind the scenes over a longer period of time.
And I do recognise his outstanding role in sorting out the mess. Not sure you would be capable of enough objectivity to recognise that.
He (and/or Darling, I'm not sure who should get the credit) did a reasonably good job sorting out the mess, after a wobbly start on Northern Rock (and after dragging Lloyds into the mess..).
Darling was pretty solid, but it was Brown's leadership at the G20 summit which avoided a catastrophy, and not just in this country - the model was followed successfully in numerous countries, notably the USA.
As you know, I grew to disike Brown and his leadership, but credit when and where it's due. Bad leaders can do good things, and vice-versa. I always enjoy the contrast with Blair, who was imo a good Prime Minister who made a catastrophic error in respect of Iraq. Brown was a bad PM, who got it right when the banking crisis was at its most perilous.
Considering how catastrophc it could have been, that's quite a big plus.
Peter - Remind me - I'm not being sarky, I've simply forgotten - what was so crucial about that G20 summit? What did it achieve in practical terms by individual governments and international instiutions? I do recall Gordon Brown receiving praise, which maybe he deserved, but a little elaboration would be appreciated (if only by me!).
It's far more simple than that, Cameron lied repeatedly about a reorganisation, and he deliberately used his family to gain credibility for those lies.
Mike is right, it's his tuition fees pledge.
Dave's fault for putting Lansley in charge tbh. Should have put a competent minister in charge. Though I have no great admiration for Hunt, he is a huge improvement on Lansley.
Putting Lansley in charge then taking his eye off the ball for six months. If you're going to declare that you can sum up your priorities in three letters and use your family to gain trust you don't put Lansley in charge of it, turn away for six months and then wake up to the fact that you've broken your word.
What's crazy is that I was talking to a doctor friend of mine from school, he said that most of the people who were made redundant under the reorganisation were hired back after paying them off. Mostly manager types rather than medical staff. Functionally the new body is the same as the old one and is run by the same people and has a very similar remit, but at his trust they spent a significant amount of money on it that they had previously earmarked for new state of the art equipment for some kind of heart stuff that he does.
I think that Miliband's problems with Scotland go back further than even this Falkirk scandal, his campaign strategy and input at the last Holyrood elections or since appears almost non existent. And now thanks to his difficulties with Unite and Len McCluskey, this is become even more stark. Scottish Labour have been out of power at Holyrood now for six years, and the wider party out of power at Westminster for three years. And still the Scottish Labour party politicians appear to be using Holyrood as a stepping stone on the road to Westminster which sends a very poor message to the voters.
The only issue which Scottish Labour Westminster politicians have shown any passion for is the Independence Referendum, but then their own jobs depend on this fight. And many of those local Scottish Labour MP's are as closely linked or reliant on Unite as their Leaders, which makes raising or criticising Unite's behaviour in their own back yard as problematic for them too. When it came to the choice between taking on Unite's bad behaviour vs protecting the interests of ordinary Scottish Labour voters and workers at a time when the Union is at risk. Miliband and his party chose to back down against its biggest donor and it looks terrible.
Why is it seen as automatic that there will be an NHS A&E crisis this winter? What if there isn't? Sounds a trifle risky for Ed?
Relatively low risk, unless Miliband develops a reputation as the man who predicts ten out of every two crises. He's already some way down that track and I can see as the election looms this will become a theme of the Conservatives attack: Labour said there would be four million unemployed, in fact unemployment has fallen for X consecutive months and there are more jobs in Britain than ever before; Labour said our policies have killed growth, in fact we have [one of] the fastest growing economies in [the developed world/Western Europe]; Labour said we were wrong to cut the top rate of income tax, in fact the highest earners now pay a higher proportion of income tax than ever before; Labour said our policies would hit the poor hardest, in fact we have lifted hundreds of thousands of low wage earners out of tax altogether; Labour said that we would have winter after winter of crisis in the NHS and that our reorganisation would result in the collapse of the NHS, in fact the NHS employs more doctors and more nurses than ever before, is better funded than ever before and has fewer managers than were employed under Labour. In this parliament Labour have opposed every welfare cut, defended benefits for people earning more than £60,000 a year and predicted disaster at every turn. They have hugely underestimated the resourcefulness and the spirit of the British people. In everything they have said and done they have been wrong. We know, and the public know, that they have learned nothing from their failures in government. We know, and the British people know, that they cannot be trusted with power again.
Of course, the lines of attack would have to be molded to the circumstances of the time; not all will be relevant and some others may be.
One assumes that Miliband has adopted this approach because he has well-placed sources within the NHS telling him to expect chaos, and he is feeling confident that the risk of it not occurring are sufficiently slight and the benefits from predicting the "crisis" sufficiently good that it is worth the risk.
In any event, we have before us the unedifying prospect of a winter in which Labour supporters will be grasping for every problem in every hospital as evidence of a crisis. *Shudder*
IIRC from a C4 documentary about the weekend the banks had to bailed out, it was Darling who stayed up late in No11 to thrash out the Banking rescue package. He had to wake up Brown to get his agreement as PM, something which I thought was interesting and indicated quite clearly that it was Darling and not Brown who was the key figure here even if Brown did try to take the personal credit politically.
Richard Nabavi, Decrepit John, Peter the Punter and others:
The FSA was specifically warned about the RBS/ABN AMRO debacle in early 2007, a full 18 months before the crisis. They were given the information which should have made them ask questions. They didn't.
And G Brown was not the hero of the financial crisis. If anyone was, Darling was. Those banks were in trouble from at least spring 2008 and action should have been taken then. It wasn't because the government dithered and dithered and dithered until eventually action was taken 5 minutes before every bank in the country would likely have had to close its doors. The PM simply was not willing to take action early enough; he deserves much less credit than he is given for taking action at the last minute. We should never have been in that position.
Remember that the PB Tories declared the Labour conference a disaster for Ed. As someone said down thread, there are none so blind as those who cannot see.
@Max Exactly the testimony of my buddy. They have wasted millions on recreating something they already had. I have no idea how this ever got through
What's even more stupid is that the management fought the changes but were basically told by the DoH to either implement the change or face sanctions. So the management basically paid themselves off and then they were rehired by the trust's board for the replacement body. In doing so the hospital (a very high profile one) was unable to buy the new equipment they had their eye on and they had to delay by 3 years the refurbishment of one of their wings. Basically they cancelled and delayed a whole bunch of capital spending to pay off and then rehire managers.
PES picks Schultz for Commission President candidate. He was the front-runner, but I'm not sure what happened to the primary they were supposed to have - either a stitch-up or nobody else ran. Their press release is a bit coy about it...
IIRC from a C4 documentary about the weekend the banks had to bailed out, it was Darling who stayed up late in No11 to thrash out the Banking rescue package. He had to wake up Brown to get his agreement as PM, something which I thought was interesting and indicated quite clearly that it was Darling and not Brown who was the key figure here even if Brown did try to take the personal credit politically.
Richard Nabavi, Decrepit John, Peter the Punter and others:
The FSA was specifically warned about the RBS/ABN AMRO debacle in early 2007, a full 18 months before the crisis. They were given the information which should have made them ask questions. They didn't.
And G Brown was not the hero of the financial crisis. If anyone was, Darling was. Those banks were in trouble from at least spring 2008 and action should have been taken then. It wasn't because the government dithered and dithered and dithered until eventually action was taken 5 minutes before every bank in the country would likely have had to close its doors. The PM simply was not willing to take action early enough; he deserves much less credit than he is given for taking action at the last minute. We should never have been in that position.
It comes to something when Darling preferred Lagarde for the IMF job.....
Richard Nabavi, Decrepit John, Peter the Punter and others:
The FSA was specifically warned about the RBS/ABN AMRO debacle in early 2007, a full 18 months before the crisis. They were given the information which should have made them ask questions. They didn't.
And G Brown was not the hero of the financial crisis. If anyone was, Darling was. Those banks were in trouble from at least spring 2008 and action should have been taken then. It wasn't because the government dithered and dithered and dithered until eventually action was taken 5 minutes before every bank in the country would likely have had to close its doors. The PM simply was not willing to take action early enough; he deserves much less credit than he is given for taking action at the last minute. We should never have been in that position.
Darling played a pretty decent hand but he could not have organised the G20 conference, without which the remedial measures could not have been taken. That was Brown, and he pulled off the trick at the conference, which was no small matter.
Yes, of course the crisis should never have got to the point it did, but how many people, governments and institutions were culpable in that respect? Too many to list here.
And of course Brown himself would bear his fair share of the blame.
Peter: the crisis did not come out of the blue in 2008. There were plenty of warnings, some public, some private. Believe me, I know. The FSA bears a considerable part of the blame with regard to RBS/ABN AMRO but the Treasury were very closely monitoring the health of B&B, Lloyds, RBS and others for months before the Lehmans bankruptcy and should have taken action much much earlier than they did. The Irish banks were also in deep doo-doo by this time and given UK banks' exposure to them that too was a warning signal. They didn't, which is why - as far as the UK was concerned - the crisis was very much worse than it should and could have been.
The G20 conference was far later - by all means give credit to Brown for whatever he did there but it's a bit like giving the ship's captain credit for organising a rescue after he's steered the ship onto the rocks.
Apple announced this Monday that it will be building a manufacturing plant right here in the United States that will create more than 2,000 jobs. And that's not all. Its US manufacturing facility will also be running on 100 percent renewable energy! I'm not an Apple fan or hater, but when it comes to creating job opportunities in the US, producing something right here in the country I live in, and also using renewable energy, it's three wins in my opinion and I'm all for it. I think this is a great move by Apple and I hope the company brings more jobs back home.
I see Mr Roy from Glenrothes 2008 is stepping down in 2015.
Nothing personal but as an example, let's assume he's got 7 years accrued service in the MP pension scheme at that time and base salary is say £60k. Then 1/40 accrual = 7/40 x £60k for life which is £10,500pa with 50% spouse, inflation-linked benefits.
There may even be 3x this as a tax free lump sum straight from the taxpayer as there is with the NHS old scheme but not sure so let's say not. Also don't know the MP commutation factor for more tax free cash versus less taxable pension income - would be interested to know that. Often it's a measly 9 to 12 in DB pensions but would like to know what MP's get?
Someone in the private sector would need circa £300,000 to get that £10,500pa - saving approx. £40,000pa in those 7 years.
Someone elected for 13 years is looking at circa £20,000pa which is worth £600,000 or more...
Imagine the leverage on their pensions if they do raise their salary to say £80k as well...
No wonder there's so many MPs still and of course so many PPCs!!
It's a disgrace.
Yes and not a peep from him in those 5 years , easy money indeed
Richard Nabavi, Decrepit John, Peter the Punter and others: .
Yes, of course the crisis should never have got to the point it did, but how many people, governments and institutions were culpable in that respect? Too many to list here.
And of course Brown himself would bear his fair share of the blame.
Peter: the crisis did not come out of the blue in 2008. There were plenty of warnings, some public, some private. Believe me, I know. The FSA bears a considerable part of the blame with regard to RBS/ABN AMRO but the Treasury were very closely monitoring the health of B&B, Lloyds, RBS and others for months before the Lehmans bankruptcy and should have taken action much much earlier than they did. The Irish banks were also in deep doo-doo by this time and given UK banks' exposure to them that too was a warning signal. They didn't, which is why - as far as the UK was concerned - the crisis was very much worse than it should and could have been.
The G20 conference was far later - by all means give credit to Brown for whatever he did there but it's a bit like giving the ship's captain credit for organising a rescue after he's steered the ship onto the rocks.
At best I would say the G20 was useful in persuading people that this wasn't the end of the world and that the Fed and other central banks would stand behind systemically important players in the market. That was an important message at the time but the damage had been done and, at least in the UK, the money had been spent.
Richard Nabavi, Decrepit John, Peter the Punter and others:
Peter: the crisis did not come out of the blue in 2008. There were plenty of warnings, some public, some private. Believe me, I know. The FSA bears a considerable part of the blame with regard to RBS/ABN AMRO but the Treasury were very closely monitoring the health of B&ignal. They didn't, which is why - as far as the UK was concerned - the crisis was very much worse than it should and could have been.
The G20 conference was far later - by all means give credit to Brown for whatever he did there but it's a bit like giving the ship's captain credit for organising a rescue after he's steered the ship onto the rocks.
You would sooner we had hit the rocks, Cycle?
Of course the origins of the crisis go way back, and Brown must bear his fair share of the blame, as I indicated in earlier posts. It is however absurd to make him solely or even principally responsible for the crisis.
It is not absurd however to argue that of all the World Leaders he was the most decisive in taking the lamentably late measures to avoid the worst consequences.
He was also the best qualified, which is fortunate, but that bit was luck.
IIRC from a C4 documentary about the weekend the banks had to bailed out, it was Darling who stayed up late in No11 to thrash out the Banking rescue package. He had to wake up Brown to get his agreement as PM, something which I thought was interesting and indicated quite clearly that it was Darling and not Brown who was the key figure here even if Brown did try to take the personal credit politically.
"Shipbuilding is to end at at the historic BAE systems dockyard in Portsmouth but the decison will be reversed if Scotland votes for independence, Downing Street sources said."
Another reason for the English to want Scots independence......
Everyone knows the yards will close on a NO vote so voting YES makes no difference whatsoever. Once referendum is over , either way Plymouth will be saved and Govan yards closed.
"Shipbuilding is to end at at the historic BAE systems dockyard in Portsmouth but the decison will be reversed if Scotland votes for independence, Downing Street sources said."
Another reason for the English to want Scots independence......
Everyone knows the yards will close on a NO vote so voting YES makes no difference whatsoever. Once referendum is over , either way Plymouth will be saved and Govan yards closed.
That's ridiculous and paranoid. For one thing, Plymouth is not under threat - it's Portsmouth.
What happened today sadly makes sense, given the limited amount of shipbuilding going on. As someone asked this morning: when did Portsmouth last build a complete large ship?
@Max Exactly the testimony of my buddy. They have wasted millions on recreating something they already had. I have no idea how this ever got through
The politics of this are still a mystery. Cameron was told by his pollsters to use his personal circumstances to detox on the NHS (As Brown was told to use his disabled son later but refused) and he spent four years promising no reorganisation. Then in June 2010 Lansley came up with this insanity, Cameron wasn't engaged or interested, Norman Lamb had been blackballed from Health by Lansley, Number Ten didn't have enough political advisors to spot it so it went through. And the irony of course is that the changes didn't need legislation at all.
Its a pattern with Cameron, the photo shoot, the proclaimed personal priority, then the disinterest.
Once again tim your comments are a product of your imagination. I really do believe that Labour supporters live on a different planet. The only problem is that they were given the vote.
And I do recognise his outstanding role in sorting out the mess. Not sure you would be capable of enough objectivity to recognise that.
He (and/or Darling, I'm not sure who should get the credit) did a reasonably good job sorting out the mess, after a wobbly start on Northern Rock (and after dragging Lloyds into the mess..).
Anybody could have handed the banks a gazillion pounds and saved the day, little skill required for that fix luckily.
Richard Nabavi, Decrepit John, Peter the Punter and others:
The FSA was specifically warned about the RBS/ABN AMRO debacle in early 2007, a full 18 months before the crisis. They were given the information which should have made them ask questions. They didn't.
And G Brown was not the hero of the financial crisis. If anyone was, Darling was. Those banks were in trouble from at least spring 2008 and action should have been taken then. It wasn't because the government dithered and dithered and dithered until eventually action was taken 5 minutes before every bank in the country would likely have had to close its doors. The PM simply was not willing to take action early enough; he deserves much less credit than he is given for taking action at the last minute. We should never have been in that position.
Darling was useless, as per other post anybody off the street could have saved the banks by giving away hundreds and hundreds of billions of pounds. Crap Crap Crap and is still the same.
"Shipbuilding is to end at at the historic BAE systems dockyard in Portsmouth but the decison will be reversed if Scotland votes for independence, Downing Street sources said."
Another reason for the English to want Scots independence......
Everyone knows the yards will close on a NO vote so voting YES makes no difference whatsoever. Once referendum is over , either way Plymouth will be saved and Govan yards closed.
That's ridiculous and paranoid. For one thing, Plymouth is not under threat - it's Portsmouth.
What happened today sadly makes sense, given the limited amount of shipbuilding going on. As someone asked this morning: when did Portsmouth last build a complete large ship?
"Shipbuilding is to end at at the historic BAE systems dockyard in Portsmouth but the decison will be reversed if Scotland votes for independence, Downing Street sources said."
Another reason for the English to want Scots independence......
Everyone knows the yards will close on a NO vote so voting YES makes no difference whatsoever. Once referendum is over , either way Plymouth will be saved and Govan yards closed.
That's ridiculous and paranoid. For one thing, Plymouth is not under threat - it's Portsmouth.
What happened today sadly makes sense, given the limited amount of shipbuilding going on. As someone asked this morning: when did Portsmouth last build a complete large ship?
Well substitute Portsmouth for Plymouth then , still the same story.
No it isn't. If Scotland does get independence, then it looks as though Portsmouth may start building ships again for the obvious reasons. But that would be a very costly move.
If Scotland remains within the UK, there would be no point in moving the facilities to a site that has not built complete ships for decades. The Clyde bases will have the facilities, the equipment, and the skilled workforce.
It is a credit to the workforces in those bases. Take pride in them, and don't let your paranoid conspiracies spread FUD amongst them.
Comments
I am really struggling to come up with a specific measure that came from the meeting in question that made any difference to the global economic outlook. If you could enlighten me I would appreciate it.
All I remember were $1tn headlines and nothing else...
On here, Dave wins PMQs every week
Ed M realised fairly quickly that this style wouldn't work for him, as Dave, self confident public schoolboy (for once this isn't being used as a denigration) that he is can always out bluster him and so banks on tripping him up on detail which he then uses to make a wider point. His best PMQs moments have come when he's tripped Dave up over detail and followed it up with a calculated remark.
Bercow's whole schtick when getting elected was that he'd put a stop to the worst excesses of the Blair tactics of turning the session into a quagmire in which everyone forgets what anyone said except the PM's talking points, and so this doesn't really suit Dave's style.
Complete idiocy.
It's the Tories who are sacking close to a thousand jobs in Scotland !
London Labour......giving the Union to the SNP......
Of course, the lines of attack would have to be molded to the circumstances of the time; not all will be relevant and some others may be.
One assumes that Miliband has adopted this approach because he has well-placed sources within the NHS telling him to expect chaos, and he is feeling confident that the risk of it not occurring are sufficiently slight and the benefits from predicting the "crisis" sufficiently good that it is worth the risk.
In any event, we have before us the unedifying prospect of a winter in which Labour supporters will be grasping for every problem in every hospital as evidence of a crisis. *Shudder*
Exactly the testimony of my buddy. They have wasted millions on recreating something they already had. I have no idea how this ever got through
Remember that the PB Tories declared the Labour conference a disaster for Ed. As someone said down thread, there are none so blind as those who cannot see.
Unbelievable incompetence from Lansley.
http://www.pes.eu/en/news/pes-ratifies-nomination-martin-schulz-candidate-designate
http://www.politics.co.uk/news/2011/05/29/darling-prefers-lagarde-for-imf
http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/joan-mcalpine-slaughter-great-war-2677005
Peter: the crisis did not come out of the blue in 2008. There were plenty of warnings, some public, some private. Believe me, I know. The FSA bears a considerable part of the blame with regard to RBS/ABN AMRO but the Treasury were very closely monitoring the health of B&B, Lloyds, RBS and others for months before the Lehmans bankruptcy and should have taken action much much earlier than they did. The Irish banks were also in deep doo-doo by this time and given UK banks' exposure to them that too was a warning signal. They didn't, which is why - as far as the UK was concerned - the crisis was very much worse than it should and could have been.
The G20 conference was far later - by all means give credit to Brown for whatever he did there but it's a bit like giving the ship's captain credit for organising a rescue after he's steered the ship onto the rocks.
At best I would say the G20 was useful in persuading people that this wasn't the end of the world and that the Fed and other central banks would stand behind systemically important players in the market. That was an important message at the time but the damage had been done and, at least in the UK, the money had been spent.
The remedial measures became possible because Brown called a G20 conference. How could Darling have done that?
And you think Brown snoozed while Darling did all the hard work? I don't think anybody got much sleep during those fraught days.
What happened today sadly makes sense, given the limited amount of shipbuilding going on. As someone asked this morning: when did Portsmouth last build a complete large ship?
Answer, as far as I can tell, HMS Andromeda, in 1967
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Andromeda_(F57)
If Scotland remains within the UK, there would be no point in moving the facilities to a site that has not built complete ships for decades. The Clyde bases will have the facilities, the equipment, and the skilled workforce.
It is a credit to the workforces in those bases. Take pride in them, and don't let your paranoid conspiracies spread FUD amongst them.