Do you think we could have avoided recession if the Tories were in power?

angrypirate

Had the tories been in power, the gold bullion wouldnt have been sold at record low prices, national debt would have been a lot lower and the tri-partite agreement would never had happened. FSA would never have been set up, BoE would have remained in charge of regulation.

Yes the recession is global and yes we would be in a recession, but talk to anyone who serious understands the fundamentals with what went wrong (not gordon or the media) and they will explain truely what happened and that it WOULD NOT have been as bad under a tory government.

mrstinchcombe

If Tories were in for the last decade there would have been a recession but it wouldn't have been anywhere near so bad.

This isn't a glowing reference for the Tories. Essentially the bigger the boom, the bigger the bust and the Tories wouldn't have achieved the boom of the Blair years with Brown as chancellor. The problem with labour doing so "well" (I don't consider such a boom to be a good thing, when FTBs cant afford a property, it is achieved by taxing everyone to the hilt, increasing national debt and the country is heading towards an innevitable bust this isnt good) is that the bad times really are bad!

I've said this before but the best Government will be a slightly incompetent one. If the Government can't achieve very good growth in the economy then there wont be a recession!

Wookster

Generali wrote: »

I doubt that the Tories would have expanded public sector employment and spending in the way Labour have.

This raises an interesting point, if public spending had been at lower levels then surely GDP growth wouldn't have been as high and the 'boom' would have been less?

agent_orange_2

Would it be fair to say, the Tories are pleased Brown didn't call a General Election in Oct 07? Surely, the tories were aware of how things were going to pan-out?

Reaper

Some have mentioned national debt and I have to agree on that one. Brown had an idea about being "prudent". The idea was that during the economic cycle he would save up in the good years so he could spend in the bad ones.

It was a good idea. Unfortunately the economic cycle he was looking at was a ripple on a tsunami so he had nothing left when it struck.

Mind you even if he had it wouldn't have began to cover all the emergency spending.

LauraW10

bendix wrote: »

The recession is nothing to do with Labour or the Tories. We live in a global environment and it is a global recession - the idea of either party in a tiny country like ours making any fundamental difference is akin to Canute believing he could stop the tide coming in.

No parties messed up to get us in this mess. No party can solve it. They can tinker around the edges and either worsen or alleviate local conditions, but domestic politics has been irrelevant for decades.

So true:T We're not coming out of this recession until America does - full stop. End of story.

LauraW10

JayScottGreenspan wrote: »

but I guess the public coffers would be in better shape leaving more room for tax cuts and other economic stimuli.

There would have been no more (and possibly less) in the public coffers as it would have gone on tax cuts for the rich, instead of new schools, hospitals,etc for future generations.

LauraW10

Generali wrote: »

I doubt that the Tories would have expanded public sector employment and spending in the way Labour have.

Instead, they would have given large tax cuts to the rich ....

sandiep

I think we'd have headed into it earlier, because the Conservative would have been manipulating the interest rates for political purposes for the last 11.5 years.

Don't forget that during the last conservative government (who also had 12 years, i think), we had 2 recessions.

LauraW10

Wookster wrote: »

Its a real pity Vince Cable won't ever be Chancellor - he is one of the only people, with enhanced credibility.

The man has no balls. - he's happy carping from the sidelines. Furthermore it's easy to say anything when you don't want power and you belong to a party that doesn't want to be in power either.