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This is an excellent summing up of the situation that awaits us!

""Some in Tory high command think they can get away with telling the voters “it’s all Gordon’s fault”."

I think those in "Tory High Command" are under no illusions and I am sure they realise (and if they don't then they very soon should..) that if they take this approach it will backfire. That said, of course much of the problem IS directly traceable back to Brown who we must not forget was Chancellor through the Blair Years.

And innovate!

There is something like £200bn of value in the Local Authority housing estate, a third of which is occupied by people who do not claim any benefits at all. If they don't claim benefits, they are presumably working.

Sell them part-shares in their homes and release the cash. That's quite a few billions of income without recourse to borrowing or taxpayer's money.

We just need to be honest. We need to get real about what government can and can't afford to do.

Can we afford to spend billions invading countries that are nothing to do with us? Can we afford a lavish welfare system that subsidises the lazy? Can we afford to continue the state-mandated Ponzi scheme knownas National Isurance?

We need to tell people that sorting out the economy will be a ten-year job, AT BEST and that they should expect some pretty harsh economic medicine to get us over the Brown era.

"It is certainly necessary that the electorate understand the scale of the economic mess likely to be bequeathed to a Conservative Government in fourteen months' time".

This is to reiterate a point I bang on about the whole time. According to Gordon, unemployment is 1.97 million; according to CCHQ and Frank Field it is over 5 million.

According to Gordon knife crime was going down until the ONS told it as it is. A credit boom arose out of cheap and available credit, because the BoE was controlling an artificially low inflation figure.

Even a couple of weeks ago Gordon was claiming that government debt as a percentage of GDP was no higher at 40% than in 1997.

Jonathan, the electorate still does not understand the scale of the current economic mess and, if they are still ignorant about it when we get in, their patience with us will not last long.

Please can we get all the basic relevant data out in the open very soon!

The Conservative message for the next decade should be based on re-balancing the economy away from services, and into making Britain into a nation that produces once again. Such a strategy would also take care of concerns over food and fuel security.

Currently the British economy is 3/4 composed of services. Due to the performance of financial services in particular, until the credit crunch, it appeared that Britain was a wealthy country purely in terms of cash-flow. However this masked the reality of an economy driven by debt, one in which the low-wage/part-time work culture of the service sector has had to be topped up with state subsidies in the shape of tax-credits and personal overdrafts.

We need an economy that can pay for better wages out of productivity, with more full-time work. An economy that can supply our domestic market and at the same time provide the essential safety-valve of exports, crucial at times when domestic supply slackens.

Many believed the service economy, and a huge network of SMEs would be the answer to Britain's post-industrial decline. However this has left our economy fragmented with small business unable to cope with shortfalls in liquidity and the retail service sector collapsing as the credit that fueled spending has dried up.

A new strategy for business for the next decade must involve a move towards the promotion of conglomerates with local trade associations established to bring businesses together. Restrictions on mergers should be scrapped so that we can produce a stronger economy with bigger and more concentrated businesses that can not only ride out problems with liquidity, but can also have bigger and bolder forward planning aimed at exports.

Of course those who view economics from an ideological rather than a pragmatic perspective will claim that conglomerates and regional trade associations would be 'anti-competition', but unless something is done to strengthen the ability of our economic base to compete with foreign business then our economy is doomed.

Its time for Conservative politicians to work out a new business strategy for the next ten years. The old economy, top-heavy with 76% invested in services, has collapsed along with the debt that fueled it. Now we must become a nation of producers again, with a balanced economy, supplying our own market, exporting and creating jobs that take people off welfare, jobs that pay decent wages so that people don't have to resort to credit to make ends meet. A new bigger, more consolidated economy, one that can compete on the international stage.

Sell them part-shares in their homes and release the cash. That's quite a few billions of income without recourse to borrowing or taxpayer's money.

Novel idea - and just who is going to lend to them ?

Maybe it will be like Student Loans - the more that apply the higher the Government's debt since it is the Treasury funding Student Loans too.

Really, can we have better ideas that simply stealing public housing from Housing Associations to privatise ?

Sell them part-shares in their homes and release the cash. That's quite a few billions of income without recourse to borrowing or taxpayer's money.

Novel idea - and just who is going to lend to them ?

Maybe it will be like Student Loans - the more that apply the higher the Government's debt since it is the Treasury funding Student Loans too.

Really, can we have better ideas that simply stealing public housing from Housing Associations to privatise ?

"If they don't claim benefits, they are presumably working."

No. Not everyone out of work claims benefits.

"Sell them part-shares in their homes and release the cash."

And even if they are working ,they may not be earning enough to have the money for this. Do you live in the real world?

Tony it would be wonderful to see large scale Manufacturing again in the UK, but would this be possible with Globalisation and the WTO? What International Business will pay UK workers what we consider a decent wage when they can send the work to India and pay what may be good money to the Indians but petty cash to a Brit?

Alas the World has shrunk to the size of a PC Screen and businesses can be managed from anywhere by the click of a mouse.

Also in Post-Industrial Britain we have lost the skill sets that once existed. How long would it take to train a new workforce?

Yes, and the two tasks of (1) explaining the scale of the economic mess, and indeed the social mess while we're at it, and (2) handling the electorate's expectations, should go hand in hand with a third, namely acknowledging that serious and far reaching measures are needed that go well beyond mere "better management" of the Augean stables that Britain now so sadly resembles.

To put it another way, the days of "heir to Blair" and "sharing the proceeds of growth" are long gone and will not come back. The sensible message will be much more like: "Britain is broken. Blair, Brown and NuLab broke it. We will do our best to fix it but we suspect it will be a long and difficult task. Please be patient with us. You surely do not want the wreckers back."

"Britain is broken. Blair, Brown and NuLab broke it. We will do our best to fix it but we suspect it will be a long and difficult task. Please be patient with us. You surely do not want the wreckers back."

A very good and succinct message, David. I hope that over the next few months we will use this theme as a guide, first to convince the majority of the electorate of the truth of the first two sentences and then secondly to show what we can do to fix the mess.

An important aspect of the second part is to show that we have the talent and energy to perform. It is to be hoped that there will be quite a lot of additional talent coming in after the election.

"What International Business will pay UK workers what we consider a decent wage when they can send the work to India and pay what may be good money to the Indians but petty cash to a Brit?"

Steve, very good point. For this reason I believe Britain, the EU, and other Western economies should collectively set a wage-equalization-tariff to impose on all economies that gain an unfair advantage due to sweatshop labour.

As the the emerging economies grow and living-standards improve, we may well see workers in those countries starting to demand better wages. However China is already finding a way around this by using the African people for sweatshop labour. So China, in particular, will always gain an unfair advantage over Western economies through wages.

There are only three ways the West can compete with the coolie economies. Through lowering our own wages and living standards, through the imposition of direct tariffs on goods, or through my preferred measure, the imposition of a wage-equalization-tariff. To ensure that Western and Eastern economies are operating on a level playing field.

Of course a tariff on wages would have to be flexible. It should only apply in the most extreme cases, but if British and Western economies are to have any chance of supplying their own markets, then such a tariff must be applied.

So, Tony wants to impoverish vast swathes of the world and prevent them from developing and improving. Nice.

I think one part of the vast debt problem, which nobody seems very keen to talk about, but which is just as crucial as national debt, is, Private debt! The debt incurred with unaffordable mortgages, uncontrolled clothes-buying ON PLASTIC, with no co-lateral, endless holidays, again on plastic, I even heard one man interviewed on TV, state that he put his mortgage repayment installments 'on the plastic'!!! How cool is that - to use the ubiquitous modern expression (wrongly!, so what!).

At the moment, the wider public do seem to be spending less - judging by the plight of the shops in the high street, and that is part of the very difficult conundrum that we are all facing for the future...

The banks and stores persuaded everybody, starting around twenty years ago, that 'plastic' was the way forward. Many of the younger people on this website, grew up in that culture, and would regard any method other than either the internet or plastic as pre-historic. But neither the internet or 'plastic' cards are immune to abuse - cloning for example - and much of that is NOT home grown!!

I think there are at least two big issues that have to be addressed, in addition to the ones constantly being discussed at the moment.

1. People/the general public, HAVE to get into the habit of living within their means, I am sure there will be people with fierce arguments against this, but this is a basic principle, and yes, the banks ARE guilty too of encouraging us (I had a leaflet from my ban only the other encouraging me to take out a loan, which made me VERY angry!), but money does NOT grow on trees, someone somewhere HAS to pay for our prodigality!

2. The second big issue, is a direct consequence of the first, and just as important. As people in developed countries begin to spend less this is going to/IS ALREADY having a 'knock-on' effect in the 'developing world', or poorer countries who have been manufacturing (for a pittance) all the stuff that rich people have indulged in.

Somehow, we in the West have to help these people, because they themselves will become very angry - maybe not all of them, but.., otherwise the sense of injustice that they will feel, will have to find an outlet! And it won't be possible to shut them up with the sort of 'Help the Poor' tactics that certain Prime Ministers like to spout - money that goes into the pockets of Magabe lookalikes! So?????

Dave, do you think the Chinese and Indians worry or even care about the state of our economy? Their principle objective is to undermine British and Western business through sweatshop labour. Something they have done to great effect. Its about time we returned the serve.

Tony,

I suggest you acquaint yourself with Adam Smith, and then move on to history with an overview of the 1920s and 30s.

David, I'm not interested in ideological icons. Its time we all turned iconoclast and burnt the outdated ideas of the past. We have to apply modern pragmatic solutions to the modern age. Let's leave the court-economists to smugly hug their copies of Smith, Ricardo, Keynes and Marx. We need to declare the age of economic ideology is dead and get on with the business of sorting our economy out.

"I'm not interested in ideological icons"

It would be nice if you were interested in actual economics, though.

"We need to declare the age of economic ideology is dead and get on with the business of sorting our economy out."

And how will you do that with no appreciation of the consequences of your proposed actions? You propose to act blindly?

David, I do not wish to turn this thread into a personal 'bon rat' between our goodselves. We need to stay focused on the issue at hand, namely how can we rebuild our economy, and I believe the best way to do this is to become a nation of producers again. This inevitably raises the question of sweatshop labour and how British business is able to compete against it?

Those who claim to support free-trade and insist on more consumer choice should actually welcome the end of sweatshop labour and the introduction of an even playing field for all trade.

"Those who claim to support free-trade and insist on more consumer choice should actually welcome the end of sweatshop labour and the introduction of an even playing field for all trade. "

You illustrate my point entirely. You have no understanding of economics or what free trade means. I have no wish for sweatshop conditions, and indeed make my purchasing decisions accordingly, but that does not mean the erosion of comparative advantage simply because we may not have that advantage. Low cost economies may not be operating sweatshop conditions to be able to have such advantage.


Tony, David,

I think you've both made your points! Hopefully other posters will want to contribute too and respond to the original post...

Editor, good to see a swift intervenion to stop this thread from wavering too far away from the point in hand.

To return to David Belchamber's earlier point about official figures, is there any way we can get a definitive statement from Theresa May on how a Conservative government will measure the level of unemployment?

Are we to only count those claiming JSA or should we include NEETs and others? I tend to agree with the figure of five million plus jobless rather than the dishonest claim of the government that we had full employment prior to the credit crunch.

Back to the original article, yes the conservative party have to tell the truth, the whole truth. An apology for the things they did wrong first would not go amiss either. They must first admit that they are prisoners of EU regulations that they are complicit in. Then start to talk about how we get out of this mess. Oh yes, and talking "green" ain't going to help, drop it first and get real.

Derek

Jonathan wrote 'It is certainly necessary that the electorate understand the scale of the economic mess'

Most people certainly do know we are in a very deep hole and Brown et al are still digging it. Most people have changed (often perforce dramatically) their spending. That much is out in the open.

Watching Newt Gingrich and Ron Paul addressing CPAC yesterday courtesy of ConservativeHome (thank you) I was struck by the constant reference to reducing tax, giving people the power to choose what businesses survive, countering welfarism etc.

How refreshing. Nary a word of this passes the lips of the present Conservative leadership.

And we have an even bigger elephant in the room - the EU costing us conservatively £60 billion a year and severely limiting our ability to govern ourselves - European socialism as the Americans call it.

Definitely Derek W Buxton, the "Green" Agenda must go in the (recycling) Bin, we simply cannot afford it in these times of economic melt-down. British Commerce and Industry has enough burdens at present without having to worry about " Off-setting Carbon Footprints" etc. If that upsets a well-heeled eco Plutocrat and his exotically named wife for example and they storm off to the Green Party, so mote it be!

You expect us to suffer for 10 years on top of the 18 we suffered under Thatcherism? You're having a laugh!

As in all projects, the more thinking and planning you do up front so that the project is aligned on clear and understood outcomes and principles, the more chance of success it has.
Labour has veered this way and that as the perceived electoral wind has blown on some occasions, on deeply embedded personal crusades on others, on a desire to knock cabinet colleagues on others. How many education reviews, how many health reviews, how many tear it up and start again "strategies"?
I sincerely hope the Tories have used the time already been given and to be given to stresstest a set of policies that are really joined up rather than just mouthed to be, and deliver rather than confuse.
One of the first things any next Govt is going to have to do is to get the electorate to believe that the Govt means what it says and understands in full what it wants its policies to achieve and is committed to holding steady until those objectives are reached.
Labour has so destroyed integrity that politicians are now seen as lottery-controllers rather than deliverers of services funded by the taxpayer. The longer the Tories continue to say nothing or to be seen to vacillate, the harder it will be to attract people to them with the conviction to wish to make those policies work, rather than have a disaffected uncommitted electorate who just want a change.

Let's, maybe, get into power first. That Brown and Labour have wrecked the economy is already understood by voters. Just wait and see. Focus on a positive and high profile campaign.

Lindsay Jenkins:
”I was struck by the constant reference to reducing tax, giving people the power to choose what businesses survive, countering welfarism etc. How refreshing. Nary a word of this passes the lips of the present Conservative leadership. “
Exactly so, agreed. I really think it’s that simple – or at least, there’s no alternative. The people of this country (and Scotland, Wales etc too) do, I think it’s safe to say without being absurdly chauvinistic or conceited, still punch above their weight in inventiveness, entrepreneurial spirit, creativity; amidst the doom & gloom engendered by the overcrowded, hugely expensive, bureaucratic, incipient police state that is Britain, one should remember that outward investment is as strong a feature of our economy as the inward variety, so that while foreigners might appear to own great swathes of our economy we own subtantial chunks of the world’s various economies in return; and as an isolated but I think representative example, I believe in recent times the design heads of both Citroen and BMW were/are Britons – we might not have a motor industry but it’s not for want of the skills, and I believe also that Nissan’s Sunderland plant has proved one of their most productive in the world, not excluding Japan itself.
But rather than take Tony Makara’s corporate-state route (just so wildly implausible for a centrailsed state to start rebuilding the Britain that used to be, 5 year plans, etc) in fact we need to hack away at the State, liberate our people from the shackles of a top-heavy State confiscating a huge proportion of their wealth and throwing it down the drain.
There is a great deal of succesful private enterprise in this country, which flourishes not because of but in spite of the State: improbably, very many people persist in the face of an the daunting welter of intrusive, impertinent, punitive bureaucracy designed seemingly to throttle enterprise at birth. Cutting back the Civil Service, bureaucracy and taxation would have such a liberating effect on people that far more of them would be motivated to create wealth by creating businesses that prosper and grow. It’s no accident that the USA remains the world’s biggest economy and the greatest magnet for immigration: it might now be intimidatingly bureaucratic in some ways but that was not always the case, and it is still far cheaper to do business in America than it is here – and Americans who do business keep more of their hard-earned money…
Not easy to emulate, but the principles are simple. I’m just concerned that current Toryism doesn’t seem to get it, indeed has forgotten some home truths in its rush to wrestle with Nu-Lab in the centreground.
As for “jailhouselawyer” I assume he/she is joking: the only people who suffered under Thatcherism were those who thought they had jobs for life in State-subsidised industries, and born losers.

We are only going to get through this by cutting the public services and reducing government debt. We are only going to survive that politically by defining an agreed smaller role for government- eliminating whole areas of government concern, including most of the Quangos and EU regulatory bodies. This must be announced not before the election except in the most general terms but immediately after it. There must be just one wholesale devastation of the public services within the first year with no second bites allowing it to appear a pattern of concern and not an emergency response to disaster. That means the thinking and research behind the cuts and the intellectual case for them must be made this year (and if Brown goes early substantially within the next six months).

We will have one chance to save ourselves from this scenario but we have to act quickly and with courage.

I would favour "Not Wasting Money" first. There have been reviews, both by the Tories and then nicked by Labour. Attack the Labour review and prove how words to cut waste were really not matched by deeds, in fact quite the contrary. Let that sink in first. Humane cuts.
Then any future cuts will
(a) Probably be less as you should no longer be wasting money at anywhere near the same scale:
(b) Any cuts you do make will be believed in as necessary and grudgingly supported rather than providing fodder for "social justice against the nasty party".

Malcolm Stevas @14.16 - I agree entirely!

For our response to the economic situation, all Conservative MPs should watch Ron Paul's address to CPAC and take heed.

"We are only going to get through this by cutting the public services and reducing government debt. We are only going to survive that politically by defining an agreed smaller role for government- eliminating whole areas of government concern, including most of the Quangos and EU regulatory bodies."


Posted by: Opinicus | March 01, 2009 at 14:43

The big point is surviving politically. Since 1997 there have been vast and expensive increases in legislation. By pointing out how Labour have messed things up people would buy into a line that we have to go backwards, by eliminating this legislation, to a time more economically viable before we can move forward again. Minority interests would be unhappy but people generally would accept a need to go back to before the bubble started. While some Shadow Cabinet members have the nerve to stick this out, few have the "caring" communication abilities needed and most have neither the nerves or communication abilities.


Tony, economies with larger manufacturing sectors than ours (eg Japan, Germany, Taiwan, South Korea) would appear to be having an even worse recession than our one.

There are two issues here one is the economic and the other is political.
The economic issue is clear you have to try to get the public finance straight again. This can be done with a careful managed reduction in public spending by cutting out waste, bringing our servicemen home from wars they should not be involved in and scraping unnecessary expenditure like new aircraft carriers and a trident nuclear system. We have to realise we are not the British Empire but a small island now and we should act accordingly.There must also of course be tax cuts for the well off.
Secondly the political message.Oppositions will not win elections by saying things will only get worse. Lets get real people will not vote for a party promising them tax increases and spending cuts. The message should be realistic but not specific and you must project a message of a new beginning and a promising future. You have to inspire people to vote for you not do your upmost to depress them!!!

There is no doubt that left leaning journalists and economists who are currently pronouncing the right wing's views on tax and deregulation both as discredited and defunct need rebutting.

We also need some ideas that can address the macroeconomic situation and provide the intellectual framework for restructuring the economy.

I'm not convinced that Paul Krugman and co have got the answers. But I have to hear the likes of Krugman effectively rebutted.

We need some lateral thinking about the state we're in, or we are consigning ourselves to a new social democratic consensus of big government and high taxes? We know how that ended last time.

The Labour Government has overspent to the tune of £33,000 per person in the UK. All 61million of us. This is unsustainable.

The debt must be reduced, to do that means that we must reduce the amount that government spends. The status quo is simply not an option.

Increasing taxes wont achieve the result this will simply cripple the economy, putting it into further reverse, reducing the tax take and increasing the debt.

Difficult decisions have to be made. Severe reductions in government expenditure must happen. The two biggest areas of expenditure are Social security and Health. I think that it is inevitable that both areas must reduce.

If we do not do this the problems will only get worse. As to what gets cut, I cannot answer, but you are not telling me that all the expenditure in the NHS is absolutely vital. Just look at the number of hospital managers... Look at the amounts paid out in litigation. Look at the costs of the building and refurbishment projects.

Look at the costs of senior salaries....

The argument between Tony and David is the classic Protectionist vs Free Trade row.

You can't argue that 'unfettered free trade will solve everything' because we just don't know. Such a situation has never come close to existing.

Protectionism is always cited as a bad idea, yet every country in the world does some of it.

This is no doubt because what is really going on is a dabble in 'free trade' with protectionism from all sides as they jostle to gain a clever advantage. Probably, this is the way it will always be.

The free trade arguments are very, very clever. Must more persuasive than the Protectionist ones. Anybody with any ability in maths must surely see that free trade makes the most clear and obvious sense.

However, when you look at something from a purely mathematical and economic perspective you are not taking into account the human condition. In much the same way socialism sounds like a pretty theory until you see the horror that is created when it meets humanity's actual motivations.

If we aren't going to be in favour of Tony's 'equal wage tariffs' (and I'm in full agreement that its a patently bad idea) then we have to consider how we can *ever* compete again with the big developing nations.

Fact is... we can't. We've legislated ourselves out of the vast majority of the game.

Developing nations (in many cases) have lower taxation than us, lower wages than us, lower land prices than us, no minimum wage, no holiday pay, no maternity leave, no paternity leave, no 'one sickday a month is acceptable', no overbearing health and safety, no yearly expected rises, no overpowering unions, no 'stress' leave, no draconion Planning laws, no redundancy payments, expensive pension pots, no heavy-handed employment contracts. I could go on.

In every respect we are utterly crippled when trying to compete. The common cry is: "What a monster... don't you think Maternity leave is vital?" or "If not for the minimum wage employers would make staff work for peanuts."

Maybe.

But I'm not trying to justify removing any of these things. They were put there with the best of intentions. The only question I want to ask is.... when there is no money to pay for them, because business is dead... what next?

It would be nice to give everybody their heart's desire too. But when you've got a few brass farthings to rub together, you sometimes have to realise the gap between dreams and reality.

We can't rebuild manfuacturing, industry and agriculture here. It's vital we do. But it can't happen. Until a way is found to allow us to compete, we don't have a hope in hell.

I see this week that Geert Wilders film 'Fitna' was shown in the US Senate,introduced by a US Senator and with Wilders in attendance. This followed his visit to Italy the previous week. Today Wilders party is now the most favoured party in Holland according to a Radio Nederland poll.
How does this leave our great Home Secretary? What an open goal missed by the Tories who weasily supported the Home Secretary in banning Wilders because of the thuggish threats of the now jailed Lord Ahmed.

The metropolitan elite has lost its moooring and is now being buffeted by tides and storms it never thought would intrude on their fantasy consensus.
But still we must have a debate about Derek Draper!

Politicians need to suffer too.

My best opening suggestion is that MPs don't take foreign holidays until the national debt is cleared (or is back to previous levels).

We can't make them suffer professionally because that would inflict suffering on their constituents (wouldn't it?). So they have to suffer personally.

Anyone who doesn't like it need not apply for the job...

Just seen Clark on 'hard talk' - he is a great resource (just like a library - loads of info, but you have to make your own judgement on the quality/validity of any particular book), but he is not front bench material - he has experience and knowledge but no judgement.

Anyone talking about toxic debt 'Insurance' is brain dead - Ken Clark included - Insurance is about sharing risk, so the premiums of the many cover the costs of the few -- if a bank pays enough premium to cover its debts, then it is a pointless as it pays exactly what it receives!!

Clark must Go - he has found opposition pretty comfortable, so has had no reason to reform, so has learnt nothing and has nothing to lose what ever happens to the poor British public.

Clark must Go.

I really don't think we have any choice but to reduce public expenditure. We cannot do this by raising taxes they are already too high. We cannot do this by cutting core services or we will go straight back to 1994 politically. Anyone who thinks we can close the gap by cutting waste (even in the DSS budget which by definition is entirely wasted) is living with their fantasies. We have one alternative and that is to de-regulate the economy and withdraw the government from whole sectors of public life. Something like:

"Although this is important protection and would in an ideal world be a valuable activity the current economic emergency means that it is simply too expensive and indeed unaffordable for us to continue with it. I am not suggesting abandoning it entirely but will bring in an act postponing this regulation for the duration of the emergency, when we will look at its affordability again. Regrettably, in the meantime, the office of regulators will obviously have to be made redundant. By the way did you see how much pension the CEO would have got, if we hadn't sacked him"

It is not only what you do, it is how you do it. In cutting expenditure, if you stand this out by itself as the goal in of itself, you risk the charge of cut and be damned. And quite often there is enough of the truth in the charge to make it stick (enough can be 20%)
Be seen to cut waste first, ie to look, think and then act will better serve to achieve the aim we all want which is getting nearer efficient delivery for efficient cost. At this moment in time we have poor delivery for high cost. If you cannot achieve better results with the current resources then you don't deserve to be in Govt. Any fool can can deliver cheaper services, only thing is how good are they?

The staggering thing to me is that one man was responsible for overseeing the economy from 1998-to date - as Chancellor then as PM.
He inherited a 'good set of books' from Mr Clarke but then:

He allowed the biggest bubble in our history to inflate.
He built the useless Banking Regulatory framework.
He ran up massive Government borrowings in a period of growth, so we were unprepared for the downturn.
Now he's just printing more money!

And we are facing financial Armageddon. Does anyone really know how much we owe?

He accepts NO responsibility, is still PM and his Party still in Government. In fact, around 30% of the electorate are still planning to vote for him at the next election!

I guess this is why we are, where we are.

So what do we tell the electorate? Does it matter? I think the horse bolted a long time ago...

Spot the deliberate mistake? He became Chancellor in 1997.

How in the name of all that is holy has he got away with it?
With the help from his friends at the BBC, he has been able to convince everyone that it's a Global problem.

But the UK was one of if not THE biggest financial centres. And our economy was more dependent on Finance. And YOU were responsible.
Now loom at it.
And why are we worse affected than almost anyone else?

Certainly no quick fix, but more importantly the tried old ways will not work.

The electorate will demand more.

We need to reduce the Welfare/Benefits system radically and to take those who are on low earnings ( below £15000) out of tax.

Only a party that will have the courage to think differently will succeed, indeed it is the only way our Country will overcome this financial mess that we now find ourselves in.

I recall being told that 60% of the worlds trade went through "the city" because, although the regulation was light touch, it did not break down often, thus the financial institutions could carry on their business cheaply and in a relatively unrestricted fashion.

Then came along Culpability Brown, Tony and the Cronies who all got into the trough together. Result one trashed business sector.

on a seperate point, the violent confiscation of wealth through taxation slows the economy down. Dabasement of the currency is another way of theiving from those who have savings. When the British Electorate continue to vote into office ignorant and mendacious politicians like Brown, who has no belief in private property, and who is quite happy to loot those savings to hand over to his troughing mates, then there is no point in working or saving.

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