Panorama- tonight BBC 1 10-15 pm

FaTB

This may be worth watching.

Gordon Brown's "miracle" economy seems to be over.

It must be bad if the BBC are prepared to show the Labour government in a bad light !!

This may not be directly to do with the property market, but with possible recession, rising inflation, Interest rates, unemployment, and taxes, it will surely have an effect on property as well.

michaels

Don't worry tho - it is nothing to do with over-taxation, over regulation and general economic mismanagement - any downturn I am sure will be the fault of 'the global economy' and 'oil prices'

FaTB

Well of course, Gordon has been far to "prudent" for it to be his fault !!

jb478914

and as surely as day turns to night, the mood in the tabloids shall change

then the man in the pub will be complaining about banks lending irresponsibly!!

theGrinch

of course its not bad news, I mean why would gordon brown break bad news on the uk economy over the weekend, when parliament isnt sitting and do it in washington?

FaTB

Having now seen it, I think this was meant to be a very gentle wake up call for Joe Public.

Gordon's miracle economy is not only over, it never actually existed at all.

The economy is currently built on massive personal and government debt, public sector "non" job creation, and a housing bubble.

Its gonna start getting messy soon !!

deemy2004

LOL...

Stop whinging youve all had a good 10 year run.... its obviously time for a correction... and by all comparisons that correction looks likely to be pretty mild !

The programme was very, very biased ! Could have been Ken Clarkes election broadcast !

What it failed to do was to compare Britains performance against that of other major western economies, you know such as France, Germany, Japan, USA etc...

Like for like, stat for stat with an overview view based on GDP per capita. If they did then you will find that Britian has moved from the bottom of Europe to the top!

Virtually everything negative they said about Britian could be said twice more for other developed countries...

Debt and Borrowing ? ask the americans, french and germans how much they borrow ? Don't bother asking the italians cos they have completly gone barmy !

Gorden Brown has worked a miracle, in that something that has never happened ! That the much of the rest of the developed world has a recession, Including America ! But Britian does NOT ! Unprecidented !

No wonder the Tories are envious of Gorden Browns record for they could not have done any better ! Its highly likely if the tories had been in, we would have had a recession in 2001/2002 and more than likely have unemployment at double what it is today.

Ian_W

Abso - bloody -lutley spot on, Deemy!!

I'm certainly no supporter of New Labour :mad: but the one thing you can't knock them for so far [though the media always try] is the economy. Luck or good judgement? I don't know but it's the longest period I can remember, in my adult life, of sustained growth without a recession.

It's probably one of the few reasons why they're still in power, as Clinton said, "it's the economy, stupid!". So maybe a recession is coming, then again maybe it ain't. The stakes are mega high for Brown, TB's leads NL to a historic 3rd term, with a recession GB is likely to lead them out of power - so I think we can assume he'll be trying his best to avoid one.

Their one hope, if there is a recession, is that the Tories still aren't credible - like Labour wasn't in the 80's. Chis Patten on BBC this morning suggested Ken Clarke as their saviour!! Only if enough voters don't remember him at health, education, home office, treasury. He certainly wasn't a "man of the people" then, more a man of his cronies in BIG business like BAT.

So IF there's a recession, and IF Ken Clarke is Tory leader, my vote's squeezed to the Lib/Dems. Now they really are Barking!! _pale_

michaels

Debt and Borrowing ? ask the americans, french and germans how much they borrow ? Don't bother asking the italians cos they have completly gone barmy !

Are you talking about the debt and borrowing that has been deliberately taken 'off-balance sheet', Network Rail as but one example and the huge unfunded liabilities in public sector pensions, that balloon with the Public Sector headcount and wage increases. The public sector has never had it so good, job security, a culture of doing as little as possible, huge amounts of sick leave, early retirement with copper bottomed pensions...how long can the productive part of the ecenomy continue to support this?

meanmachine_2

I thought it was an excellent programme.

It was never going to be an attack on the govt - the BBC was declawed long ago - but the overall verdict of it was a correct one.

In the early years Brown made some excellent choices - ie giving the Bank or England what appeared to be independence, and keeping spending and taxes fairly balanced.

But it also made clear that Labour has enjoyed a number of lucky coincidences - such as the rise of dirt cheap imports.

Without those, we'd be in a massively inflationary economy.

And it also gave the strong impression that Labour are going back to their bad old ways and that, yes, after 10 years of successfully walking the tightrope, Brown is heading for a fall.

But then we all knew that. It's been a 10 year boom, not "stability", and now we're possibly heading for a 10 year bust.

Just be prepared for it and then don't complain if it does happen.

The last thing you want to be in that scenario is maxed out on mortgage or personal debt. At least, that's what I took from it.

deemy2004

michaels wrote:

Debt and Borrowing ? ask the americans, french and germans how much they borrow ? Don't bother asking the italians cos they have completly gone barmy !

Are you talking about the debt and borrowing that has been deliberately taken 'off-balance sheet', Network Rail as but one example and the huge unfunded liabilities in public sector pensions, that balloon with the Public Sector headcount and wage increases. The public sector has never had it so good, job security, a culture of doing as little as possible, huge amounts of sick leave, early retirement with copper bottomed pensions...how long can the productive part of the ecenomy continue to support this?

The measurements of debt are standardised across the EU, and in that respect no britain is not borrowing more - France AND Germany are also conducting budget busting borrowing, but that from a posiiton of weakness.

Offcourse there are problems as there always have been... but I would rather have our problems then say the problems of France wiht 10% unemployment or the problems of the USA who really, really are on a spend and borrowing spree !

Though the programme did highlight one 'REAL' problem and that is in lack of productivity in the UK economy.. which could bite us in the future ! I.e. in terms of wages or ratehr inflation to deflate the purchasing power of our wages internationally.. This is already happening as the £ is weakening due to the lack of productivity.. Perhaps this is something that Gorden needs to pay closer attention to !