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‘Cost of Living’; a cunning plan?

39 replies

Isitmebut · 04/04/2014 13:54

Mr Miliband has said ‘that the cost of living will define the NEXT General Election in 2015’.

Prior to the 2010 General Election when we were 2-year into what was to be called the ‘great recession’, I do not remember measures to address the cost of living other than a temporary cut in VAT by a few percent, which apparently was also meant to turn around the economy, boost Private Sector confidence/jobs, and help reduce the national debt.

And I cannot recall within the Labour 2010 manifesto plans to improve the cost of living within a general economic view of ‘cutting less, spending more, & raising taxes’, which clearly meant more government spending and imposing more business/personal taxation including the annual rise in Council Tax.

“Ed Balls says that the average British family is £974 worse off than in 2010”

www.theguardian.com/politics/2014/apr/03/ed-balls-average-family-worse-off-2010

“Ed Balls tried on Thursday night to spike the coalition's guns on the eve of the increase in the personal tax allowance to £10,000 by releasing figures showing that the average family will be worse off by £974 a year by the time of next year's election.”

“As David Cameron hailed Britain's recovery from a "long, deep and difficult recession", the shadow chancellor accused the coalition of compounding the financial pressure on people with tax changes which have involved "giving with one hand but taking away much more with the other"

So when Mr Balls talks of how worse people are off in an average of the population, I’m unclear to what he would have done about the ‘cost of living crisis’ post May 2010, or what a Labour government would do post May 2015.

But lets remind ourselves of what a recession usually means, and try and work out why ‘the great recession’ that began sharply in 2007/8 wiping close to 7% of our national output (more than virtually any other country at the time), could have negatively impacted our cost of living situation up until now.

“Period of general economic decline, defined usually as a contraction in the GDP for six months (two consecutive quarters) or longer. Marked by high unemployment, stagnant wages, and fall in retail sales, a recession generally does not last longer than one year and is much milder than a depression"

www.businessdictionary.com/definition/recession.html

So my question is, without any cunning plan I could see back in 2010 - and the freezing energy prices since – how would a Labour government have REDUCED our cost of living pressures from 2010 to 2015, when they told us they would tax more than the other parties, who were ‘to cut’ more instead?

Isitmebut does anyone else know?

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ohmymimi · 04/04/2014 15:43

Who cares what they would have done. Party political shin-kicking is a big bore and turn-off for most of the electorate. Brown's bottom and the Mail sale tit for tat accusations acheive nothing other than confirming partisan prejudices. Policies for the future and how they can be achieved are what matters to me. And, as importantly, whether manifesto commitments can be trusted. No one can deliver on those in a truly convincing way. Farage is a mirage; Clegg is a busted flush; Cameron is as slippery as an eel; Miliband is worthy, but not No 10 material. Utterly depressing.

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Isitmebut · 04/04/2014 16:18

Ohmymimi….you say “policies for the future and how they can be achieved matters to me”, but isn’t that my point here, as the “worthy” leader (of a bad ugly bunch) keeps on and on about this ‘cost of living’ policy – and will do so up until the next election “shin-kicking” the coalition for not doing something about it, OTHER than freeze and reduce taxes they were going to raise – BUT HOW WAS IT POSSIBLE?

Doesn’t this go to the “trust” issues, especially as the 2010 manifesto commitments that were to increase the size/cost of the State, no plan at all to stop the decline in the Private Sector and its jobs and raise taxes more than both the Lib Dems and Conservatives a manifesto to economic failure?

If a Miliband government in power for 13-years, with no real clue how to fix our economic/social mess in 2010, have only ‘opposed’ virtually every coalition policy since - and if the KEY cost of living plan plan of their own is unachievable – how does that make someone worthy of anything political?


This really is a simple question to anyone in the Labour Party who surely will get this question asked sooner that later; how do you maintain cost of living increases in the middle of a great recession?

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Isitmebut · 04/04/2014 16:32

Btw…this isn’t party political, I just worry for me and my family that an economically illiterate muppet or two will be running this country in 2015, still with a substantially annual budget deficit and a cumulative National Debt of £1,500,000,000,000 – has more policy solutions to our national problems, than opportunistic mantras.

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ohmymimi · 04/04/2014 17:07

I know what your point is, isit, I'm just not interested in fruitless debate. You need to catch some Kippers for that. Smile. No doubt someone will be along soon.

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TheHammaconda · 04/04/2014 18:29

What do you call Osborne if not an economically illiterate muppet? Who's the person with hands up his bottom then?

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Isitmebut · 04/04/2014 20:16

Ohmymimi…talk about fruity debate, TheHammacondas come along, and last time we had a debate he dropped the ‘c-bomb’ on my head, I do hope he gets a bit more technical on this one - even though the starter-for-ten (and title of this thread) was the quality of Miliband’s partial degree in economics


TheHamm…by all means explain why you think Osbourne is economically illiterate in his attempt to solve this nations growth, jobs, tax cuts and debt reduction problems, and if I can extract my hand, I’ll give it a crack answering you.

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TheHammaconda · 05/04/2014 08:12

Well, I've heard him speak and answer questions, I was not filled with confidence.

From the 2010 Budget "The Government has set out its plan to more than halve the deficit over 4 years, from 11.8% in 2009-10 to 5.2% by 2013-14. Part of this reduction in borrowing will come from growth in the economy and a return to business as usual"

So, on inheriting a growing economy he says that he's going to reduce the deficit from £149bn to £60bn by 2013. What is the current deficit? Is it £60bn? No. Is it close to £60bn? No. Is it less than it was in 2010? Yes, it's expected to be £108bn. So, we've had years of austerity all justified by eliminating the deficit.

What economically literate person attempts to encourage economic growth by reducing consumption? Someone who doesn't understand very, very basic economics. That's who.

The economy is still smaller than it was before the recession hit, it's not growing as fast as the OBR has predicted, there's still a negative output gap (and that's forecast to continue until past 2018), debt is rising, unemployment is higher than expected, AAA gone, low private sector investment, falling labour productivity, the economic recovery is totally unbalanced both sectorally and geographically. Private sector earnings growth is weaker than expected. The BoP deficit has worsened, the trade position has worsened. Private debt has increased. Businesses are sitting on cash rather than investing - that's not a sign of a healthy, confident private sector.

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TheHammaconda · 05/04/2014 08:37

I do hope he gets a bit more technical on this one - even though the starter-for-ten (and title of this thread) was the quality of Miliband’s partial degree in economics

You've not mentioned anything anywhere about the quality of Milliband or Ball's degrees. You've not mentioned anything anywhere about the quality of Osborne's history degree either.

TheHamm…by all means explain why you think Osbourne is economically illiterate in his attempt to solve this nations growth, jobs, tax cuts and debt reduction problems, and if I can extract my hand, I’ll give it a crack answering you.

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Isitmebut · 06/04/2014 03:03

The Hammaconda…You don’t think I’m questioning a Miliband (and Balls) P.P.E degrees when it appears a person can find out more about the characteristics of a BASIC recession from the Business Dictionary e.g. “stagnant wages”, than from studying economics at Oxbridge?

Looking at your points one by one – feel free to quote the numbers for a reference rather than repeat the whole quote, I can keep up with my own points, I don’t need to see them again .


!. Osbourne’s 2010 Budget had to make forward economic assumptions re our economic growth, employment rates, our tax receipts, the ability of the economies within our main trading partner Europe to growth and how to a get a £157 annual deficit back to a balanced economy. Osbourne was providing significant pro private sector/jobs policies, reversed darling’s pre election Fuel Duty and National Insurance hikes (for growf, Labour style), as Europe went deeper into recession.

Therefore Osbourne cannot be held directly responsible for the time it took for his measures to feed through, that our manufacturing output had halved under Labour mostly before the crash, or the ever deeper European recession only showing signs of turning around now.

  1. The £157 billion 2009/10 Labour budget deficit Osbourne inherited is around £108 billion now, but without Osbourne’s projected economic growth (mentioned above) THEREFORE did not fall as fast as he projected in 2010, but have we actually had austerity, rather than mild cuts that without the annual ‘real’ increases for 4-years, feels like austerity?


  1. The pre 2010 Labour so called economic ‘growf’ and resulting consumption WAS A MAJOR PART OF THE UK’s PROBLEM, have you and the Labour Party still not realised that yet???? Government spending is a major component of GDP, so sustaining UK GDP ‘growf’ facilitated by an annual budget deficit that was £30 billion ish pre crash to £157 billion, was unsustainable, so for starters as Osbourne cuts the deficit back, it is growth negative.


That was the problem with Labours unbalanced economy, where government spending had increased around an unprecedented 50% from 2000/1 to 2007/8, but was heavily reliant on around £100 billion a year of City related taxes, Housing Stamp Tax and consumer debt, rather than the rest of the Private Sector i.e Business Investment & Exports. Labour were STILL increasing the size of the Public Sector to an unprecedented 53% of our economy and still hiring, as private sector taxes fell and private sector unemployment soared.

Labour’s economic model that they (and you) were so proud of WAS NOT SUSTAINABLE GROWTH, especially if the Private Sector is shrinking further and Labour were putting up their costs e.g. National Insurance, a ‘tax on jobs’. It was therefore economic illiteracy by Labour to go into the 2010 General Election promising ‘more of the same’ ,resulting in significantly higher budget deficits/national debt and the higher taxes they already promised us.

  1. Our GDP has not yet recovered the approximate 7% output Labour lost in 2008, it is not growing as fast as the OBR predicted for reasons mentioned above, but is growing faster than Europe and other G7 countries.


  1. Our national debt is rising as we still have a budget deficit fool, if ‘the people’ want Osbourne to cut another £108 billion from next years government spending and bring our revenue/spending into balance, TELL HIM and experience real austerity.


  1. Unemployment is lower than expected, especially by Labour and their failed economic model, who said Private Sector unemployment would RISE over 1 million by cutting spending and the fat State, rather than fall 1.4 million.


  1. The UK’s AAA rating went by 2 out of 3 rating agencies, along with the U.S., France and other countries, was due to the economy/recession, not due to Osbourne and under Osbournes economic plan we are likely to get it back before other countries. Socialist France who had a more balanced economy than the UK and followed ‘the big expensive state’ and penal taxes Labour were still offer the electorate in 2010, has been cut TWICE and I believe on ‘watch’ for another credit rating cut.


  1. The Private Sector is still sitting on cash after a FINANCIAL/ECONOMIC recession that has lasted several years, not the usual 1-2 year economic (only) recession and are starting to invest, especially construction. Much of the private sector was financed by government (over) spending like the Private Finance Initiative. Our trade figures won’t be helped by Labour halving our Export capacity (1 million jobs lost in 8-years to 2005) from around 22% of our economy from 1980 to 1997 under the Conservatives, to 11% in 2010 passed on by Labour.


Now back to the original question, how was Labour going to protect the people from the fall in living standards during EVERY recession, never mind ‘the great recession’ where the crash in the financial markets also affected the private sectors ability to bounce back?
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TheHammaconda · 06/04/2014 09:06

IsItMeBut

I'm afraid I'm off on my hols. We don't have wifi in our holiday home. I will reply to your post in more detail when I'm back.

When I looked at PPE at Oxford I found it to be a very broad church. Bear in mind this was me looking as an A-level student in 1996. My memory may be incorrect and things may have changed. A student studies politics, philosophy and economics in their first year and can then specialise in their second or third years and take the other subjects as subsidiaries. In short, you could have one student coming out of the course with a good understanding of Economics another with an excellent understanding of Philosophy. I met two PPE students on my Master's, both felt that their Economics needed a boost.

I read an article in the Telegraph the other week about Osborne's advisor. he gave up the PPE course because he felt he needed a more in depth study of eco.

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Isitmebut · 07/04/2014 11:40

TheHammaconda ….have fun with the family and I’m sure when back, if you have any further thoughts on my “indecipherable drivel” to date, I’ll try to explain myself better.

Further to your possible doubt on Milibands education on basic economic (theory) e.g. the characteristics of a bolt standard recession, I think we can dismiss it – as it appears that he not only ditched the ‘Philosophy’ subject of the 3-part P.P.E. degree, but he then went on to the London School of Economics._

Wikipedia; Edward Samuel Miliband.
“In 1989, Miliband gained four A Levels (A in maths, an A in English, and Bs in further maths and physics) and entered Corpus Christi College, Oxford, to read Philosophy, Politics and Economics. In his second year he dropped philosophy, and was awarded an upper second class Bachelor of Arts degree. He went on to graduate from the London School of Economics with an Master of Science in Economics."

So now lets take your second doubt, on the ability of Osbourne with a History degree to steer this country out of a financial crisis in 2010 and the results so far – with a little help from the same friends Labour had when in office, the career civil servants at the Treasury.

In my opinion it is Osbourne following the basic Conservative economic model that worked fairly well between 1979 and 1997 of a country object to try to live within its means, with additional policies for problems of this decade. This is always done by reducing debt, inflation and taxes, the latter when the economy has a vibrant Private Sector and is heading in the right direction. And the reduction of what the State takes from a persons earnings, will boost their living standards and personal choices of consumption/savings growth.

Conclusion; Miliband knows full well that during the worst recession in 80-years a Labour government could not have guaranteed a cost of living income OVER inflation unless they made substantial increases in taxes they did promise prior to the 2010 election for all (self defeating) - and/or substantially penalized the Private sector with tax rises on top of NICS and ‘price controls’ that never worked in the 1970’s, that together with the near hyper over 20% upward wages/prices/inflation spiral, ruined British industry e.g. mass produced cars.


Mr Miliband ideological political control rhetoric to homes builders, energy companies etc is typical of a Old Labour government and will lead to the same results as the 1970’s, companies downsizing in investment/staff until they either go out of business or if they can, leave this country – note the SSE energy companies initial response when feeling political heat to freeze prices.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/2036752-SSE-fixed-energy-prices-to-Jan-2016


In fairness I don’t think Labour’s base ideology is actually ANTI business, I believe that they just have no idea on what it takes to run a vibrant Private Sector. As how else can Miliband think that ‘price freezes’ (or forced above inflation salary rises for all at the expense of the shareholders) would end well - and as a recent example, when increasing country spending by 50% from 2001 to 2008, heavily ‘investing’ into a fat Public Sector Quangocracy, they didn’t do anything about the 1 million manufacturing jobs the UK lost from 1997 to 2005, if they understood?
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html


So I reiterate, not as a political whimsy, but serious concern over this country’s future; how Labour would have guaranteed a cost of living above inflation, without destroying much of the Private Sector, including the jobs etc Osbourne has helped create due to business friendly policies since 2010?

For anyone who thinks this is a scare story, maybe they can tell me the last time Labour left power and unemployment wasn’t higher than they come into office.

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Isitmebut · 11/04/2014 13:19

As in the real world there ARE NO government magic wands to wave at a national cost of living earnings to inflation lag during any recession, never mind the deepest and longest in the western economies in over 80-years - when are their light at the end of the economic tunnel?


Uk inflation for decades always seems stubbornly highly, but it is now below 2% and if Europe is anything to go by, will fall further over the months ahead.


As I mentioned further above, an improving economy and tighter employment market always raises pay rates, and although that may not affect everyone, this is starting to happen and will feed through to national statistics over the quarters to come.


“(Reuters) - British employers are raising the salaries they offer to new permanent staff at the fastest rate in nearly seven years as they struggle to fill vacancies, a survey showed on Tuesday.”
uk.reuters.com/article/2014/04/08/uk-britain-economy-employment-idUKBREA361ZQ20140408

“The figures from the Recruitment and Employment Confederation suggest Britain's strong economic recovery last year is finally translating into higher pay.”

“The REC said its monthly survey showed that average salaries for permanent staff were up by the biggest amount since July 2007, though wage growth for temporary staff slowed slightly.”

"Worsening candidate shortages mean that the number of people available to fill both temporary and permanent jobs is falling at the sharpest rate in nearly a decade," he added.”

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ttosca · 12/04/2014 14:33

If Osborne’s critics are wrong, why did the economy do exactly what we said?

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George Osborne is flailing.

He’s a desperate man, trying vainly to convince us that the current state of the British economy was his plan all along when anybody with half a brain can see it wasn’t.

Yesterday he was in Washington, trying to convince Americans that he knows what he is doing, but US economists are far too canny to accept anything he says at face value.

His principal claim was that critics of what he and the ConDem inner circle still laughably call “the government’s long-term economic plan” have been proved “comprehensively wrong”. Some of us would like to see his proof of that.

Back in 2010, when Osborne took over at the Treasury, trashed a perfectly good Labour-stimulated recovery and sent the economy into freefall, those of us with any sense said the situation would worsen until it hit the point at which the economy would stabilise of its own accord, without any interference from politicians. Then it would start to improve because demand would start to rise again.

We reached the lowest point possible in the British economic cycle; from there, the only way was up. That is why there is a recovery – and a mean, meagre little thing it is, too. We should be 20-25 percentage points above where we are. Instead, we’re 1.4 per cent behind our pre-recession peak and the money is going to the wrong people.

The only question you should be asking is why this Tory illiterate has held us back.

Osborne told America that the British economy was growing faster than any other in the G7 – which means nothing. When an economy has shrunk more than any other, it is easier for it to grow. It doesn’t mean that our economy will be bigger than the others, although that is certainly the impression that Osborne wants to convey.

He said the growth was “despite warnings from some that our determined pursuit of our economic plan made that [economic growth] impossible”. This was a lie.

Osborne knows perfectly well that nobody said growth was impossible. They said Osborne’s policy would delay any recovery, causing misery for millions of medium- and low-waged people and providing a spurious justification for his colleague Iain Duncan Smith’s purges of benefit claimants – actions that have caused many thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Apparently, to quote members of a previous Tory government, that is “a price worth paying”. For what?

He said: “Fiscal consolidation [austerity] and economic recovery go together, and [the economic turnaround in the UK] undermines the pessimistic prognosis that only further fiscal stimulus can drive sustainable growth.” This is not what the data shows. It shows, as already stated, that the British economy hit rock-bottom under Osborne’s guidance and has now started the long climb upward of its own accord. That is not an endorsement of his policy; fiscal stimulus along Keynesian lines would have arrested the decline and boosted the economy back into growth – as evidenced four years ago, when Osborne inherited an economy that had been growing for five consecutive quarters and sent it right back into decline.

Osborne claimed, yet again, that a Keynesian scheme would create more debt – denying the simple economic fact that the boost it would have provided would have put more money into the Treasury and cancelled the debt far more quickly than his cuts.

It’s obvious, really. Any growth is despite austerity, not because of it. If you take money out of a system, it’s harder for anybody to make a profit on which tax can be paid. Economics 101, George. But you studied history, didn’t you? And towel-folding.

We should also remember that in Osborne’s first Budget he promised – promised – a “steady and sustained” economic recovery. Instead, we had three years in which the economy flatlined. Then he brought in ‘Help to Buy’ – a very crude fiscal stimulus scheme that has created a housing price bubble that is hugely damaging for low earners while putting money into the pockets of people who don’t need it. The economy picked up, because housing relies on other industries, but the crash that is to come might create a worse situation than before.

Osborne wants us to believe that wages will start to rise above inflation, even though the experience of the Americans to whom he delivered his speech is that 95 per cent of post-recession growth went to the richest one per cent of the population. He wants us to believe living standards will improve, but there is no evidence for this at all.

It’s all just another big lie.

Just take a look around you and you’ll see the facts. Osborne was charged with keeping the economy on its knees because that is what the Tories needed, in order to suck the cash from the middle-class, working-class and unemployed people of the UK.

Tories need mass unemployment to maintain the UK as a low-wage economy, creating more profit for bosses while keeping the workers under the cosh.

They need stagnation in much of the economy in order to ensure that the deficit does not go away and the national debt rises, thereby making it possible from them to continue selling off the National Health Service and dismantling the welfare state.

They need a housing bubble in places like London, to ensure that it is too expensive for undesirable poor and middle-income people, ship them out to other towns that have suffered the planned decimation of their economic bases (in order to ensure that they could not make a better living there), and make the capital city a playground for the rich.

And they have done it all by manipulating the media into telling you the worst lies about your own well-being – lies like those in George Osborne’s speech yesterday.

The last 40 years of British history represent the worst decline in living standards for the British people in the entire history of our nation. Never before did we have as much as when the Conservatives came to office in 1979; never before did we have so much to lose.

And we gave it away to liars like George Osborne, just because they had honey on their forked tongues.

mikesivier.wordpress.com/2014/04/12/if-osbornes-critics-are-wrong-why-did-the-economy-do-exactly-what-we-said/

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Isitmebut · 14/04/2014 12:45

ttosca….was that last post meant to be a serious analysis of the UK economy, or a not-so-grown-up telling a non fiction story about a failed Labour ideology, with an ending of his own choice – a financial Jackanory if you will?

I’ll scan through your inaccurate rant and answer AGAIN some of the Labour economic lies perpetuated since 2010, I mostly covered above, numbering the facts AGAIN, so if you find some truth/facts of your own to your unqualified ‘points’, just quote the number so we can go for quality of post rather than quantity.

  1. Firstly the Osbourne “trashed a perfectly good Labour stimulated economy” up to May 2010, made up of a £157 annual largest Budget Deficit in Europe, a big fat inefficient State Labour were going to throw more money at, and not much else – only a Labour apparatchik would call this sustainable growth. I have answered this more fully in my 6 April post to TheHammaconda, number 1 and 3.


Moreover look at what happened to socialist France below, who followed Labour's economic strategy of 2010, when Miliband said the Uk would LOSE 1 million jobs, instead of GAINING 1.4 million.

  1. The accusation that Osbourne held the economy back on purpose to help big businesses benefit from the cheap labour, after the Labour Party with massive unemployment of our own brought in 2.5 million new citizens and chose to spend £170 bil on new Quangos rather than reduce taxes for the poor and other measures to take them off ‘welfare dependency’, is frankly pathetic denial.


  1. Re Osbourne’s statement on lost GDP, SHRINKING around 7% under Labour in 2008, that in your ignorance you say should easily bounce back, how, based on Labour 13-year unbalanced economy, relying on City/bank/personal speculation and debt and a record 54% of our output being spent on the Public Sector?


We could hardly EXPORT our way out of trouble, as Manufacturing at around 23% of our economy for around 18-years under the Conservatives, was passed back a manufacturing base at 11%. Tell me, how did Labour lose 1 million manufacturing jobs between 1997 and 2005 (and the production capacity) during a global BOOM?

“Real wages to rise for first time in six years, EY says”
www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-27010326

“IMF:UK economic growth to reach 2.9% in 2014”

“Meanwhile, the growing demand for labour should push up wages and could also see the UK overtake Germany as the country with the highest employment in the G7 group of leading economies, the group claims.”

“It predicts the UK unemployment rate, currently at 7.2%, will fall to 6.5% by the end of the year and 6% by the end of 2015.”

“The EY ITEM Club, also expects business investment to grow by 9.1% this year in another boost to productivity and wages.”

www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26935148
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says the UK economy will be the fastest-growing in the G7 this year.”

What would have happened with a Labour government re-elected in 2010, with an economic policy similar to France and ‘less cuts, more spending and higher taxes’?

Well France with a more balanced economy and much smaller Budget Deficit that the UK from 2007/8, followed Labour’s ‘spend more on big fat inefficient State’ and neglect/screw the private sector with higher taxes – now has RECORD unemployment at 11% (3.3 million claiming) having gone UP substantially in 2013 as the money was running out – and they finally worked our the socialist economic model is shite.

France had 0.3% GDP in 2013 and expect 1.0% in 2014, whereas the UK had 1.3% GDP growth in 2013 and expect over 2.7% growth in 2014.

“Sinking French economy ‘afloat’: Finance Minister”
www.cnbc.com/id/101579249

"Michel Sapin, who took over from Pierre Moscovici following a recent reshuffle of President Francois Hollande's cabinet, said for two years France had been "filling the breaches".

"Without those measures, "the (French economic) ship would have sunk", he said. Sapin has said France will stick to its targets for deficit reduction; Hollande has promised 50 billion euros in savings over the next three years."

"France saw sluggish growth of just 0.3 percent in 2013. In 2012 it recorded no growth."

There we have it, that is where the UK would have been under a Labour Miliband government in 2010, IF WE WERE LUCKY, as France had a much better balanced economy than Labours pre 2007/8 crash.
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Isitmebut · 17/04/2014 22:47

ttosca...re your post you didn't answer my question.

HOW WOULD LABOUR have increased everyones wages OVER inflation, when unemployment under them would have gone higher and so would interest rates and the National Debt - so no room for tax cuts to take the lower paid out of tax by increasing the tax start threshold to £10,500??

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Isitmebut · 17/04/2014 22:54

BTW This was Labours key policy, how comes it seems that no one in the Labour Party, their apparatchiks, or their apologists (like you) who keep repeating the electoral opportunist lie, KNOWS THE ACTUAL ANSWER?

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Custardo · 17/04/2014 23:07

look, i doubt whether either asshat party could do anything really.

what is objectionable is all parties taking advantage of the expenses system
buying champers on my money whilst there is another rise in foodbanks in the country

and then keep on telling us that 'we're all in this together' and it is utter bullshit

what is objectionable is jobs for the boys and jobs for my mates from uni, paying wives, sisters, brother to be a pretend 'secretary' on taxpayers money whilst people go hungry or are charged extra for something fictionally called a spare room, brought about by successive governments inability to invest in social housing for the poor - not caused becuae poor people suddenly have big fucking houses.

it's unjust. It's unfair. it's disgraceful that people are committing suicide becuase they can no longer cope

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Custardo · 17/04/2014 23:10

and policy decisions specifically specifically to line the pockets of those who contribute to the conservative party

look at the fucking bullshit acadamies named after and run by people who donate to the tories

bankers getting away with everything

EVERYTHING, big fucking bonuses for those who fail - what the ACT~ UAL fuck?

we are all in this together are we

are we fuck

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Custardo · 17/04/2014 23:13

lets introduce workfare so my chums who own multibationals (and donate to my party) can get workers and not pay them haa ha haa haa haa haaaaa, oh lets make it better than that, if you take one of those umemployed bollockses, not only will you not pay THEM anything, we ( cough i mean the taxpayer) will pay YOU for being so generous to my party so willing

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Custardo · 17/04/2014 23:28

Adrian Beecroft has donated over half a million pounds to the Tories since 2005. Beecroft is the head of the private equity group that administers Wonga

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Custardo · 17/04/2014 23:28

Philip Harris is the founder of Carpetright and has an estimated fortune of £285 million. He has donated nearly half an million pounds to the Tories.

Harris has been handed the property deeds of millions of pounds worth of state schools, for free. Harris Academies

Once these state schools are converted into academies, they are still taxpayer funded, but this funding is now topsliced by Harris directors who award themselves ridiculously inflated salaries.

The director of the Harris Federation £317,000 plus pension contributions in 2012, with a further five individuals at the pseudo-charity earning in excess of £140,000.

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Isitmebut · 18/04/2014 03:40

Custardo…I have no idea what the above has to do with the subject of the post, but if there is an ethics angle, I list all Labour’s doners e.g Private Equity managers and wonder why Brown lowered Capital gains tax to a tapered low of 10% if not for City folk - and why other got government contracts or a peerage for cash, investigated by the police.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/2055494-DWP-Block-Report-To-Cover-Up-Work-Programme-Shambles

But back to the question, how was Labour going to ensure everyone was paid salaries over inflation, that’s all he has talked about and is Milibands main policy, someone must have an answer – get Mr Balls or the bright Mr ttosca on the case.

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JassyRadlett · 18/04/2014 04:34

As ever, your ideas of economic causation/correlation are interesting and I do always enjoy your analysis of what is down to global influence/events and what is directly attributable to UK government policy. I've mentioned to you before how mentally lazy it is to respond to any criticism of political decisions or affiliations you support with 'but Labour were worse' without being willing to argue the issues on their own merits.

So all I have to add is that your credibility would be enhanced if you were to spell the Chancellor's name corectly.

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Isitmebut · 18/04/2014 15:44

JassyRadlett…”mentally lazy”, “willing to argue the issue”,” your credibility”, “spelling”. Hmmm.

With respect, may I suggest that you worry about your own subject input rather than mine, as I wasn’t aware that spelling is a condition of this board - but I find often used as a cheap shot by posters who don’t like what you are saying, but have no answers of their own to put forward.

Furthermore I am willing to argue/debate my the accuracy points with anyone, especially as often qualified with links – I find it beats mindless opinions that would be labelled political propaganda if not for it’s ‘colour’.

And on that subject may I suggest you remind yourself of the subject of the thread, as the ‘cost of living’ crisis has been mentioned time and time again by Ed Miliband and he says that it will continue up until the 2015 General Election and I have a questioning mind.

So as Mr Miliband appears to have a solution to ‘the cost of living crisis’, is it so unreasonable to ask what Labour would have done differently for a problem that has continually lasted at least 6-years and a few years before that e.g. 5% UK inflation around the financial crash???

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JassyRadlett · 19/04/2014 00:33

I'm simply suggesting that, since you are setting yourself up as an expert over and above all other views, and refusing to engage with other ideas about economics and politics including from those who think both political parties have made economic errors (which is frankly more credible and likely), then there are ways you can improve your own credibility as an expert.

I've seen this pattern of behaviour from you on numerous threads so I see little merit in trying to debate issues with you as you have no real interest in actually debating the root causes and effects of issues rather than Labour-bashing, which is tedious.

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