Brown would have had greatness thrust upon him...

housesitter

I see it as Blair's fault more than Brown's. He's just the patsy.

The lack of deregulation or brakes leads Tony to end up working for a bank as soon as he leaves politics and gives everything over to Brown so he takes the fall.
Smooth operator.

The reason why this happened is because the political system is flawed. Just look at the USA where you can have such a drastic change in attitude and outlook toward steering a country due solely to the change of one man at the top.

I fail to see how it is in our best interests to have one person making decisions that affect the lives of many millions of people, have no accountability what so ever and pretty much do what they please.
Even outside of the law.

Blair operated on the principle of greed throughout his tenture. He wanted to setup a legacy to be remembered by and a private life to retire into. Running the country for the benefit of it's population was not on the agenda.
I don't think any politician has our best interests in mind except for some rare examples.
Unfortunately, scum floats to the top.

handful

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

It didn't push debt up significantly though did it? You can't get away from the fact that government debt went into this crisis lower than it was when Ken Clarke stopped being Chancellor.

But OK, less money spent by government. Would that extra revenue saved have been offset against chunky tax cuts? We have seen pronouncements on stuff like IHT that would have cost billions, similarly on fuel tax. Would the state have been better off?

If what you preach is correct and good old GB TB et al have done such a great job, then why is it that the IFS and the IMF have both stated publicly in the last day or so that we are worst placed to come out of the recession than any other civilised nation??? I am realistic enough to realise that any goverment will make mistakes when in power and make promises (some false) about what they will do if they get into office. Forget the rhetoric and look at the evidence of history. Labour governments (however far right they have lurched) have an appalling record when it comes to balancing the books and Tory goverments (however far left they have lurched) have an excellent record in this regard. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what we need a dose of right now.

Rochdale_Pioneers

handful wrote: »

If what you preach is correct and good old GB TB et al have done such a great job, then why is it that the IFS and the IMF have both stated publicly in the last day or so that we are worst placed to come out of the recession than any other civilised nation??? I am realistic enough to realise that any goverment will make mistakes when in power and make promises (some false) about what they will do if they get into office. Forget the rhetoric and look at the evidence of history. Labour governments (however far right they have lurched) have an appalling record when it comes to balancing the books and Tory goverments (however far left they have lurched) have an excellent record in this regard. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to work out what we need a dose of right now.

Its not about perceptions of good job or bad job, its about facts. The facts are that debt is NOT higher now than it was under the Tories, nor is it as high as it is in germany or France or Italy or America. All that does is remove those from the basis of an argument that Brown did a bad job. It doesn't mean that Brown did a good job - surely there enough things to bash him for without having to make up statistics and lie.

And the IMF? Is this the same IMF who in April forecasted 1.3% growth for the UK in both 2008 and 2009? They - along with the rest of the world's economists - managed to completely miss the fact that the banking world was about to go tits up. With respect to your argument, why is this IMF forecast any more likely than the last IMF forecast? Do they have the slightest idea whats going on?