Is the recession really Brown's fault?

mbga9pgf

What he said. +1.

plus, he was partly at fault as he allowed the fsa to permit lax lending regulations. No credit crunch if you dont have a nation addicted to credit for survival.

Old_Slaphead

Dithering_Dad wrote: »

The recession is Global and would have happened anyway, but the UK would have been in a much better position to survive it if Brown hadn't given away all our Gold reserves at knock-down prices (after he announced he was going to sell it all, the price crashed, he sold it anyway against the advice of everyone), had he taken hold of the housing market and deflated it in a controlled way - or indeed not let it balloon out of control in the first place, had he not bloated the civil service and public sector with thousands of staff, had he not spent all of the tax money gleaned during the good times instead of putting a bit by for a rainy day, had he not carried out a raid on peoples pensions making them worth even less after the stock market crash and providing a disincentive for people to invest for their old age, had he not helped take us into two wars that have cost us billions of pounds, If he had put in better banking regulations we would not have had a debt boom, etc. etc.

No, the recession is not his fault. The fact that the UK was knackered before we even got into a recession is his fault.

Succinctly put. Aptly disabuses the myth that Mr Brown was a good Chancellor.

JayScottGreenspan

We appear to have a consensus!:T

Wonder what the man on the street thinks?

Generali

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

We appear to have a consensus!:T

Wonder what the man on the street thinks?

Bloody greedy bankers.

Wookster

Generali wrote: »

Bloody greedy bankers.

Sadly true - most people don't see that credit has masked the UK's non productiveness, and you don't see the media actively campaigning this.

Rochdale_Pioneers

No of course its not Brown's fault. The system blinded everyone to its faults, which is why you have ended up with a system here which demanded vast growth from public companies regardless of the sustainability consequences. The few businesses that didn't follow the herd had their share price murdered. And not just here - our banks have been rescued. And America, Ireland, Iceland, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark have had to rescue their banks (I'm sure I have missed others off that list)

There is debate about the state of borrowing which is fair comment - Brown did borrow to invest during the boom with a clear plan to pay it back with the cycle. That we never made it to the end of the cycle shows that such a policy had flaws - then again our infrastructure was crumbling and needed cash throwing at it. What we have done is dump the lie that our government is the most indebted on earth - far from it.

So would things have been different had the Tories won in 01 or 05? Now they are all over the lax regulation pinning the blame firmly on Gordon Brown. The truth is though that the Tories have consistently argued against Brown's over-regulation of the market in favour of further deregulation:

Cameron in 2005: ""Everyone knows that business need deregulation to compete with China and India. Who's standing in the way? The great regulator and controller, Gordon Brown. How are we going to stop him?"

John Redwood in 2007: "We see no need to continue to regulate the provision of mortgage finance, as it is the lending institutions rather than the client taking the risk."

Phillip Hammond in 2008: to the Party conference he stated that the US may respond to the crisis by "over-regulating the economy". Which means that "There's a real possibility, if we get this right, that it will allow London to become the preferred place for international business if the US goes into over-regulatory mode."

Generali

Wookster wrote: »

Sadly true - most people don't see that credit has masked the UK's non productiveness, and you don't see the media actively campaigning this.

The only mainstream publication I can think of which has consistently said, "British people are spending too much money as is the British Government and it'll be a problem" is The Economist.

cogito

Just as Brown claimed all the credit when things seemed to be going well, it is only right that he should take the blame when things are going badly. But he won't because he hasn't an ounce of humility in him.

He has consistently lied since 1997 to big himself up and I,for one, will be very happy when he gets his comeuppance. It won't be long but unfortunately he still has the capacity to inflict immeasurable damage on the country.

Radiantsoul

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

I'll second that.

It's important to make the distinction that Gordon Brown didn't trigger the recession, but he did prime the country to be particularly vulnerable to one.

If Brown had done all the right things (regulate lending, balance budgets, manage the economic cycle) then we'd be probably still be in recession, but a very shallow one.

As it happens he ran huge deficits at the height of the boom, let the banks run riot, and generally kept his foot on the gas blowing up the house price bubble. Which is why we will have a very deep destructive recession, amongst the worst of all developed nations.

I am not sure it would have made much difference. Conceivable he could have raised tax rates(or cut spending) by 1% of GDP from 2002-2007. But it would have made a minor difference to the current situation, probably reducing total government debt by 6-7%. I suppose it would have given more remove to manoever in terms of a fiscal stimulus now, but not a great deal.

I am not sure that if Brown had sought to raise interest rates, reduce credit and increase taxes in order to slow economic growth he would have been highly regarded and would have lost the election in 2005 to a Conservative government that would have promised lower taxes and less regulation.

StevieJ

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

No of course its not Brown's fault. The system blinded everyone to its faults, which is why you have ended up with a system here which demanded vast growth from public companies regardless of the sustainability consequences. The few businesses that didn't follow the herd had their share price murdered. And not just here - our banks have been rescued. And America, Ireland, Iceland, France, Belgium, Germany, Denmark have had to rescue their banks (I'm sure I have missed others off that list)

There is debate about the state of borrowing which is fair comment - Brown did borrow to invest during the boom with a clear plan to pay it back with the cycle. That we never made it to the end of the cycle shows that such a policy had flaws - then again our infrastructure was crumbling and needed cash throwing at it. What we have done is dump the lie that our government is the most indebted on earth - far from it.

So would things have been different had the Tories won in 01 or 05? Now they are all over the lax regulation pinning the blame firmly on Gordon Brown. The truth is though that the Tories have consistently argued against Brown's over-regulation of the market in favour of further deregulation:

Cameron in 2005: ""Everyone knows that business need deregulation to compete with China and India. Who's standing in the way? The great regulator and controller, Gordon Brown. How are we going to stop him?"

John Redwood in 2007: "We see no need to continue to regulate the provision of mortgage finance, as it is the lending institutions rather than the client taking the risk."

Phillip Hammond in 2008: to the Party conference he stated that the US may respond to the crisis by "over-regulating the economy". Which means that "There's a real possibility, if we get this right, that it will allow London to become the preferred place for international business if the US goes into over-regulatory mode."

John Redwood in 2007: "We see no need to continue to regulate the provision of mortgage finance, as it is the lending institutions rather than the client taking the risk."

Never fails to crack me up that one :rotfl: