Labour admits more mistakes.

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail....living-standards.html


Isn't that what most of us having been telling them for years?

But how come they find out their mistakes when they are no longer in office.

[Kromovaracun]

"s I understand it, it was Thatcher's deregulation of the City that led to the banking-induced recession we're now in"

There's some truth in this, but it's also something of a simplification. Certainly it's made the UK more vulnerable to this kind of recession, but the implication in your argument that UK deregulation caused 07/08 crisis and that we'd have been virtually impervious to it otherwise is pretty clearly wrong I think.

Regardless, there's a fairly strong consensus (or that's how it seems to me anyway) that the same deregulation you're talking about was responsible for both the long period of sustained growth we saw from the mid-90s referred to by Jake, and the 2007/8 recession. That's why Labour continued it and expanded upon it - because it was the most workable model for the UK economy to pursue.

[modeller]

jno I believe most MPs are a self serving bunch and many are crooks.
and your claim // Labour MPs in general seem to have been an honest lot.//
takes a bit of swallowing . The biggest jail terms were given to Labour MPs.
Eliot Morley 16 months, David Chaytor 18 months , Jim Devine 16 months ,
Eric Ilsley 12 months. We also have those not jailed, like Jaquie Smith and
crocodile tear shedding Margaret Moran . I know you can quote Tory MPs but I am disputing your claim about Labour honesty.

[BrainsTracy]

Hang on jno, labour MP's an honest lot! That was toungue in cheek, right? You mean they where no more dishonest than other shades of MP presumbly. I mean they do have a couple in Jail at the moment!

[youngmafbog]

Brown and Blair should have been prosectued for their criminal actions in bringing the country down.
They may not have caused the recession but they certainly spent all the cash on usless lefty projects and left us in a poor position to come out of it. Ontop of that there is Blairs pension plan AKA the HRA which his missus made a mint out of.

Honest ? yeah right.

[emmie]

Biggest crook was Mandelson, and where is he now, swanning around with his Billionaire pals.

[modeller]

jno I could also have mentioned those Labour Lords who were prepared to sell their votes to effect a change in the laws for money. What was the going rate £100k . Labour and honesty ?
http://www.timesonlin...cs/article5581547.ece







3100

[jno]

Kromovaracun, the element in Thatcher's Big Bang I was talking about was banking deregulation, which allowed them to strengthen their 'casino' operations (and also allowed building societies to turn themselves into banks, as I recall). As it prompted the USA to do the same, and as it was the US housing crisis that tipped the international economy over the edge, I think Thatcher can take a lot of the blame. Yes, it produced a long boom - and then it produced a huge bust. I don't think that's responsible economics.

As for Labour MPs: I don't think their activities over expenses, or indeed in offering to sell votes, were any worse than Tories' activities over the last 20+ years. And none of them, to the best of my knowledge, has been charged with perjury, which to my mind indicates a level of personal corruption beyond the ambitions of Labourites.

[Kromovaracun]

"Kromovaracun, the element in Thatcher's Big Bang I was talking about was banking deregulation, which allowed them to strengthen their 'casino' operations (and also allowed building societies to turn themselves into banks, as I recall). As it prompted the USA to do the same, and as it was the US housing crisis that tipped the international economy over the edge, I think Thatcher can take a lot of the blame."

This is pretty contrived and simplistic at best. I'd go so far as to say this argument starts with the assumption of Thatcher being to blame before considering anything else first - a kind of bloody-mindedness which I have to say I find exasperating. Especially the bald assertion that UK deregulation led directly to US deregulation (which, by the way, is what your argument needs to work - if that's not completely and unambiguously the case then I'm afraid your argument collapses). Please note that I don't deny influence one way or the other, I just find the summary of nearly 30 years' economic history and the emergence of a particular kind of economic model across the Western world being stamped with 'Thatcher dun it' quite galling.

"Yes, it produced a long boom - and then it produced a huge bust."

Here I have much less to disagree with - as I say, I'm not interested in party political point-scoring. I'm just trying to point that the very 'long boom' which Jake credited wholly to Labour goes back much further in time, is strongly linked to a much broader economic tendency in the West over the past few decades and, like anything of any importance (especially global), utterly transcends the movements of particular political parties in particular parts of the world. So I just find the idea that we resort instinctively to attributing praise or blame to them for this kind of thing a bit short-sighted.

[Note: I don't think they have no responsibilities - just that attributing it to them with things of this scale is inappropriate]

Hope that's all clear and I've laid out what I'm saying reasonably well :).

[jno]

Kromovaracun, my recollection is that the US banking industry did indeed go to the White House (in Clinton's day) and plead for deregulation, saying that they were now finding it impossible to compete with their UK rivals. Their plea was granted. I read a lengthy article on the subject in the FT a couple of years back, but can't now find it. (Searching for "deregulation" on the FT site gives you rather too many results.)

Of course this took part in the framework of a wider western economic model. But that didn't mean it was the right thing to do. The regulations served a purpose. Removing them was a gamble, and the results needed to be closely policed. They weren't. US banks were free to lend money to people who had little hope of repaying it if the economy tightened up. But somehow bankers spent 20 years convinced the laws of economics had been abolished. They hadn't.

You can still argue if you want that the pleasures of the boom years outweigh the pain of the current prolonged recession; that's a perfectly valid point of view. It may well be that many of the people complaining about tough times need reminding how much they enjoyed the preceding good times.

[Kromovaracun]

"Of course this took part in the framework of a wider western economic model. But that didn't mean it was the right thing to do."

Which isn't really what I was intending to argue.* To be completely honest with you, I'm not actually that interested in passing judgement on it. The only real point I'm trying to make is that when it comes to explaining these things, I find the tendency of (especially British) voters to simply blame or praise their favourite/least favourite party for these huge economic events quite childish. I find arguments like 'Labour are responsible for the years of growth' or 'Conservatives are responsible for the bust' annoying, lazy and not a little pig-headed.


*(I'm aware I did say 'it was the most workable model for the UK economy to pursue', which was poorly worded I realise and I think actually had in mind industrial change more than bank deregulation, largely because I tend to interpret everything in terms of the former for some reason).

[jno]

could be, Kromovaracun, but that's what the original post says, so I answered it on its own terms, as is only polite.