The best election outcome for the economy?

robin61

I must say I am a lot more confident about the economic prospects for the UK than I was 24 hours ago when a left wing alliance looked to be the most likely outcome, undoing the progress which had been made towards sorting out Labour's mess.
There is still much to do of course but I am looking forward to what they could achieve this time around with an overall majority even if it is a slim one.

lawriejones1

The fact that you consider a global recession as 'Labour's mess', and seemingly don't recognise we're in a worse economic situation, rather than a better one illustrates just how successful Tory propaganda was.

Generali

lawriejones1 wrote: »

The fact that you consider a global recession as 'Labour's mess', and seemingly don't recognise we're in a worse economic situation, rather than a better one illustrates just how successful Tory propaganda was.

That notwithstanding, free markets generally deliver better financial outcomes to more people than centralised decision-making.

The Tories are more likely to deliver the former, Labour the latter.

Let us not forget that the median income of everyone in China is less than the median income (before benefits) of the bottom 10% of earners in the UK. The best thing we can do for poor people is to make the country richer and Tory policies are generally better at doing that.

Fella

Generali wrote: »

That notwithstanding, free markets generally deliver better financial outcomes to more people than centralised decision-making.

The Tories are more likely to deliver the former, Labour the latter.

Exactly. There are basically two aspects to running an economy: Influencing how big the cake is & deciding how to cut it up.

Labour completely ignored and ignore the first aspect; their policies revolve around how to carve up the cake & do nothing to address how you increase the size of it.

But the reality is, if you do a good job of increasing the size of the cake (or facilitating an environment that does so) it almost doesn't matter how you carve it up as most people will benefit.

Miliband didn't even try to hide his contempt for "big business". He misread the political climate as having made a fundamental shift to the left, based his whole strategy on that, and lost resoundingly as a result.

Blair, of all people, has summed it up pretty well. "A traditional Labour Party fought a traditional Conservative Party, ending in the traditional result."

robin61

lawriejones1 wrote: »

The fact that you consider a global recession as 'Labour's mess', and seemingly don't recognise we're in a worse economic situation, rather than a better one illustrates just how successful Tory propaganda was.

Of course the global recession was not Labour's fault but they had previously built up a huge deficit which certainly was there fault, which meant that when the recession did come the country was in a far worse position than it should have been to deal with it.

We are lucky that the left still cannot bring themselves to admit they got it so wrong. They would have undoubtedly repeated the same mistakes. Luckily the English people have seen them for what they are.

Thrugelmir

lawriejones1 wrote: »

The fact that you consider a global recession as 'Labour's mess',

Many of the UK's problems were a direct result of the policies followed. Hardly surprising that one of the key architects lost his seat at this election.

kabayiri

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Many of the UK's problems were a direct result of the policies followed. Hardly surprising that one of the key architects lost his seat at this election.

The good thing is that people now recognise it. It would have been all too easy for hard pressed voters to go for "jam today" Labour policies.

But they didn't. I find that impressive to be honest.

Linton

robin61 wrote: »

Of course the global recession was not Labour's fault but they had previously built up a huge deficit which certainly was there fault, which meant that when the recession did come the country was in a far worse position than it should have been to deal with it.

We are lucky that the left still cannot bring themselves to admit they got it so wrong. They would have undoubtedly repeated the same mistakes. Luckily the English people have seen them for what they are.

Labour didnt "build up a huge deficit". Until the global crash the net debt as a % of GDP was lower than when they came into power in 1997. The average annual deficit during the pre-crash labour years was significantly lower than the average annual deficit during Major's time. Here is a helpful diagram from the torygraph.

Generali

Linton wrote: »

Labour didnt "build up a huge deficit". Until the global crash the net debt as a % of GDP was lower than when they came into power in 1997. The average annual deficit during the pre-crash labour years was significantly lower than the average annual deficit during Major's time. Here is a helpful diagram from the torygraph.

So you compare a period when the UK is coming out of recession with a boom and expect to come up with a valid or reasonable result.

Hmmmm.

robin61

Linton wrote: »

Labour didnt "build up a huge deficit". Until the global crash the net debt as a % of GDP was lower than when they came into power in 1997. The average annual deficit during the pre-crash labour years was significantly lower than the average annual deficit during Major's time. Here is a helpful diagram from the torygraph.

They were the years when they should have been reducing the deficit. Labour chose not to do that and went on an unfunded spending spree instead and increased public spending between 2000 and 2007. Really you should only be running a deficit during recession years when tax receipts fall. Certainly not what the country should be doing during more prosperous times otherwise when a recession does happen how can you possibly hope to deal with it.

What makes it worse is that since then they have opposed every attempt to clear up the mess they left us in and would have repeated the same mistakes. We are fortunate that they will not be getting the chance.