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

Wookster

And Crash's name is starting to gain traction

ninky_2

Wookster wrote: »

1. The UK doesn't produce much stuff that other people want (hence the enormous trade deficit)
2. The pound is perceived to be one of the more risky currencies

surely these are both things that could be (and should have been) tackled nationally?

bo_drinker

Reaper wrote: »

This board seems incredibly negative towards Labour, with the vocal members putting all the blame at Brown's door for letting things get out of hand. Too much "light touch regulation" and all that.

But do you guys really think it would have been any different if the Conservatives had been in power? Let's see what the Tory view of the FSA was.

Well in 2004 the shadow chancellor announced they would scrap the FSA because it was concerned by "the intrusive regulatory regime".

The FSA proved to be not intrusive enough but think what things would have been like if the Tory's had been in power.

Since the crisis started the Tory solutions have been populist and ludicrous, like removing tax on savings.

My view is both parties would have made the same mistakes and got us into this mess but of the two Brown has come up with better solutions. Would those who endlessly recycle the same anti-Brown mantra please explain why you disagree.

(Incidentally I'm a floating voter who votes for the party I think best at each election, I'm not wedded to one or the other)

No.

tomterm8

ninky wrote: »

I do have one question. Why is the pound falling against other currencies in a global recession?

We have an absolutly huge financial sector (some estimate the third largest in the world) that is pretty much bankrupt without an economy to match it. There's a name for economies like ours. Iceland.

wigglebeena

I despise the bloody lot of 'em. I'd give the Lib Dems a chance in power, though - they've earned the right to prove themselves as incompetent as the other two.

eyeopener2

LauraW10 wrote: »

We'll never know but I don't believe for one minute that the Tories would have planned for the unthinkable (the credit crunch). The windfall from the banks would have just gone on tax cuts which would have just be spent by people on more imports - particulary of the Chinese variety and yet more cars and TVs. At least the Labour party spent on new schools, hospitals and jobs.

And the Tories would have gone into Iraq - for goodness sake they even managed to get into a war over the Falkland Islands.

Let's not forget either that the Tories spent what little money we had in the 80's buying bombs...."Jobs not Bombs" was how the 80's slogan went. The Tories had massive unemployment but they still kept buying those nuclear bombs.

I think you need to remember that we were in the middle of the Cold War. The Eastern Block was a massive threat so think your being rather naive here.

nickmason

agent_orange wrote: »

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?

This is one of those paradoxes. Despite all the chat that you get in the pub; "the worst thing that happened to the Tories was winning the 92 election", etc, it is hard-wired within the Tory party that however messed up the situation, or however strategically difficult it would be, we need to get into power asap to sort things out.

So while we "know" that the public seeing all this going wrong on Brown's watch is good for our chances to get into power and sort it out, we still resent every minute in which we see the country being destroyed by them. (And that's just fuelled further by the talk of scorched-earth policies, which I don't actually believe Labour is cynical enough to adopt, although many do).

I genuinely don't know whether the Labour party feels the same way. I suspect the New Labour element does, whereas the old labour bit still puts ideology above "sorting it".

nickmason

Reaper wrote: »

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.

I agree it was a good idea. It was one of the cornerstones of New Labour, wrestling the mantle of economic "sense" from the conservatives (who, although they'd made mistakes - we all do - were still seen by most to be aware of what you can and can't do with public spending).

The trouble is that the prudence wasn't about keeping a lid on spending; it still involved huge spending, but lots of off balance sheet work. And this attempt to get more for less got even more wrong when the costs kept going up on all the projects.

Labour have stopped talking about prudence now - they are all about investment (aka spending), with a nod to Keynesian economics to justify it in theoretical terms.

nickmason

ruggedtoast wrote: »

As the Tories in opposition (at Cameron's own admission) failed to raise so much as a squeak of protest during the worst part of the bubble, and still cant find a way to capitalise on Brown's failure to cope with the recession; I think we can conclude they wouldnt have done much different.

Actually they did raise many squeaks. Check out budget responses from 2003/4 onwards; John Redwood et al talking about government spending built on debt. The trouble is - and I've said it before, I'll say it again because it seems to take an eternity to sink in - the media didn't want to hear it. It didn't fit with their commentary. It's true that nobody wanted to call time on the great gold-rush, and the vested interests therefore were happy to keep it going.

Cable's genius is his timing.

nickmason

LauraW10 wrote: »

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.

I think you mean "instead of tax burdens for future generations".