Saturday, Aug 30, 2008
....but Labour simply doesn't have a mission or message - that's the problem!
Guardian: Labour
Open revolt?
''Britain is facing "arguably the worst" economic downturn in 60 years which will be "more profound and long-lasting" than people had expected, Alistair Darling, the chancellor, has told the Guardian today.
In the government's gravest assessment of the economy, which follows a warning from a Bank of England policymaker that 2 million people could be unemployed by Christmas, Darling admits he had no idea how serious the credit crunch would become''
Posted by hpwatcher @ 10:06 PM (1628 views) Add Comment
19 Comments
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1. wiltshire said...
FINALLY! Someone is prepared to stop the endless spinning and just tell it like it is. The government have got to start making people understand that the **** is hitting the fan, as we speak, and they're going to have to get used to it.
Whatever is going on I hope this is the start of some in the Labour party taking this matter a whole lot more seriously than they seem to have so far. At least it's a change from the constant mantra of 'employment is low', 'interest rates are low', 'we're best placed to ride this period out' etc etc.
2. Dead Money said...
Power struggle at the top of Nu Labour, and I thought all the wheels had already fallen off the wagon! Should be an interesting Autumn to come, sit back, relax and enjoy the final implosion of Nu Labour.
As confused76 would say:
mwah aha aha aha hah hah ahh ahh ahh ahha ah aaha, or something similar!
3. mark wadsworth said...
Where does The Badger get "worst economic downturn in 60 years" from?
1948 was just about when the post-war house price spike eased off, we'd got rid of rationing, seen off the coldest winter ever and began a golden era of low stable house prices that lasted nigh on twenty years.
4. enuii said...
Mark, it looks like a badly calculated sound bite, I would have said 75 years or so.
Taxed and skint with the economy nowhere to go.
5. dude said...
Hmm, so where should we go from here? (New) Labour's third way seems not to be working, and the Tory's cut taxes mantra is what has created the serious social problems we are now experiencing. So vote for another Labour term and get more of the same, or let the Tory's get in and make things even worse.
No wonder so many want to leave the country -- something to do with a creek and no paddle.
6. Letsgetreadytotumble said...
NuLabour telling the truth? That bothers me, whats really going on in his head? This is quite a big U turn from the usual, 'everything is alright' spin. Is this some ploy to reduce interest rates. I do hope not. Everytime NuLabour says something, you have to drill down a layer and think how is their latest bit of nonsense going to gain them votes (well, that's their plan, usually).
"he had no idea how serious the credit crunch would become''. He should do, he's the frigging chancer, I mean, chancellor.
7. Renting2 said...
So, with all those clever ministers, clever civil servant mandarins and clever government advisers no-one saw this coming. Or if they did they were either purposely hiding it from people or too frightened to tell it how they saw it. Whatever; root and branch reform of how we govern ourselves is needed.
8. magnifico said...
It makes me smile that until 6 months ago GB could still speak of "sound fundamentals" without giggling.
9. alan said...
IMHO, this article just shows the lack of leadership in the Labour Party.
Clearly they have messed up - but there is no plan to correct this or replace the leader.
As my lecturer wouold say" If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got" It's time for change in the Labour Party, but it hasn't got the will. Bad leadership, I say.
Expect the pound to slide further on Monday....
10. justwatching said...
If only they had watched 'Joseph and the amazing technicolour dreamcoat'
(seven fat cows......)
Dude @5, only the staunchest Liebour voter would even consider giving these fookwits another go. Someone needs to trim the fat and waste of glubberment. Unfortunately the colour is blue.
Gold, tax credits, retrospective taxing of cars, getting rid of the 10p tax rate, any more absolute pearlers?
11. nooneo said...
How about "no more boom and bust" justwatching !
12. Madashell said...
Can't bear this any longer. Anyone got any ideas on which country to go to? I can see the country slipping down the tubes and want out.
Where in the world can we find low inflation, reasonable returns on deposits, safety, a health service, energy security. Oh, and allow in older people. Can think of many places that don't fit like US, Canada, Europe, NZ, Aus, RSA.
13. justwatching said...
noonneo, good shout.
14. dude said...
@10, justwatching
I lived through the 80s. For more pearlers see:
* Privatisation of everything (so investment in public works is now done by private companies, not out of general taxation -- so the poor contribute more),
* The taking of education away from local authorities (those Socialist strongholds) so now we have competition in schools, and those problem kids are pushed away from the better schools (to make them look better), and onto the we don't care pile. They are now growing up, and some are causing the social problems we see today.
* Cutting taxation, and then, when they find they need to raise it again because there's nothing left to sell, using indirect methods (you pay tax on insurance premiums because of the Tories). No one has the bottle to raise income tax (and raise the threshold so its fairer to the bottom groups). So both Labour and the Tories skirt around the problem.
* Oh yes, selling off council houses, and then not allowing councils to rebuild them (because their plan was again to break the Socialist strongholds, and the Socialist dogma). Well they certainly won, because everyone talks about the competitive society and how only privatisation produces quality. Labour tried to mix and match, and we are coming to the end of that experiment. To get the Tories back in would make the current situation much worse. Unfortunately the Labour model has not been strong enough. For example, the planning laws that stop new builds on 'green belt' land should have been changed earlier, and developers should have been told to build affordable housing, rather than the slums of the next decade. Doing this as Government works would mean you get what you need, rather than using the market, which tries to get the developers the quickest return at the expense of the communities.
I could go on. The Tories were in for 18 years or so, and that's a long time to do a lot of damage. I for one would never like to see the Tories back in power.
Ever.
15. nooneo said...
dude @ 14
"I for one would never like to see the Tories back in power. Ever." - A agree with that part certainly
"Unfortunately the Labour model has not been strong enough. For example, the planning laws that stop new builds on 'green belt' land should have been changed earlier, and developers should have been told to build affordable housing, rather than the slums of the next decade. " - It was the labour reliance on tory thinking that is the real problem. Letting the housing market bubble, not building any social housing. The green belt is an unfortunate necessity. We need to be able to save at least the relatively little unspoilt countryside we have left. Too much immigration and the emergence of the underclass, combined with growing middle class bourgeois attitudes that have let this country become a sad interpretation of what it should be.
I for one hope that we never have a tory or labour government again. Perty politics got us into this mess, it certainly won't get us out of it.
16. dude said...
@15, nooneo,
I think we are in violent agreement. The longer this mess is allowed to go on the sooner we will have the revolution. And that is really frightening.
Where's my boarding pass...?
:-(
17. Caramba said...
Dude
What a load of crap. !8 yrs of a conservative government were far better than the last 11 years of this useless labout government. Thank goodness the last conservative government save us from the wreckage of the previous labour government. Remember who was called the sick man of Europe, and we had the likes of Red Robbo calling strikes every week. I guess you are too young to remember those times.
18. nooneo said...
Caramba ...
In my opinion BOTH the parties that have led this country since the second world war have let us down. Without the Labour party we may have no effective welfare state (whatever you think about it we needed some support for poor people), no NHS (I can't remember the time when people worried about the price of a doctor, let alone needing costly treatment but I'm sure others can) because the conservatives were (still are most probably) only interested in people with money, full stop. The labour party then preceeded to think it could run industry and turn this place into a mini-marxist state. The tories, if the labour party hadn't become as powerful, would have simply continued with their nepitism (remember how many of McMillans relatives were given jobs in government) and we would all still be touching our caps when the boss walked by! We wouldn't have the "property owning democracy crap that has driven this sh!thole for the last 30 years. Remember they both have effectively created the underclass and the environment where no-one gives a hoot about each other because BRITAIN is the expert and world leader at: DIVIDE & RULE !
They are both EXTREMIST parties with (sometimes) extreme agendas that really do us no good at all. Party politics is dead, the trouble is no-ones taking it's pulse to check if it's still alive.
Don't vote for them, it only encourages them.
19. Jeremy said...
It doesn't matter who you vote for - the government always gets into power