Do we no longer live in a democracy?

Lily:
'On 14 November 2008, in an intervention described by the BBC's Nick Robinson as "pretty extraordinary", Osborne spoke out warning that the more the government borrows the less attractive sterling becomes. He said: "We are in danger, if the government is not careful, of having a proper sterling collapse, a run on the pound." Labelling Gordon Brown's tactic as a "scorched-earth policy", which a future Conservative government would have to clear up, Osborne continued: "His view is he probably won't win the next election. The Tories can clear this mess up after I've gone."'

I think Clegg is a nonentity and a makeweight until he can be ditched. Cameron has worked in the private sector, and Osborne has a business background, given his family firm.

The coalition is practising the art of the possible as far as I can see within the economic constraints handed down by the last govt. They are attempting to dig us out of a very deep hole, whilst keeping the markets on side and the IMF at bay. A difficult balancing act I think.

Moving out of your comfort zone is hard, and that is what the Coalition is asking us all to do, to get the debt down. It needs to be done.

I would think they said it because they didn't know how bad the situation was, and when they found out; they reversed that. I think they need to publish just how bad it really is, but they won't do that because it is so scary and they are trying not to frighten the horses. They need to retain some degree of public confidence to get through this, otherwise you get demonstrations like we have seen in Athens and Spain.

That youtube clip is from 2007; the situation had changed somewhat by 2010.

What 'experience of the real world' do Cameron, Osborne and Clegg have, exactly?

Those 140-character soundbites contain links, you know :) Unfortunately, our ruling numpties seem to have absorbed the importance of soundbites without noticing they only carry weight when backed up by in-depth, hard data.

Garlic - I think the rates started to drop substantially after black Wednesday, which iirc (and I do) was under a Tory govt. Before then rates had been as high as 13-15%; they dropped to a low from then on.

I would have thought that had Brown been reelected then the IMF would have been called in by now. I think you are unfair calling the current govt 'supremacists' considering the last lot were ideologically driven with tunnel vision and no experience of the real world.

As for Twitter; how does that 'offer up the true facts and offer solutions?' Running a country and getting it back on track takes more than a series of 140 character soundbites. There are other avenues to find out what the electorate thinks than by social media.

The govt knows we are in a crisis - that's why they are cutting expenditure; allowing QE and artificially low interest rates to make sure it doesn't worsen. You want a dictatorial oligarchy - go to Greece, or come to Brussels, that's where they are.

Yes, people were criticising the Labour spending plans Lily, and holding our heads in our hands. The evidence was there in the explosion of the tax credit system; in the PFI contracts that were not advantageous for the govt; in the expansion of the 'non jobs'; in the expansion of higher education; in fighting a war in Afghanistan without adequate kit; in the GP contracts; in the caving to Europe on our rebate for the non reform of the CAP; the expenses fiddling; councillors being able to make a living out of being a local councillor, whereas before it counted as your community service and small expenses only were refundable.

You only had to look at the raid on the pension funds; the selling off the gold and the claim to have broken the cycle of boom and bust to work out that something was going on.

I think all three parties are 'at fault' mainly because they've been in the pockets of banks and big businesses since Thatcher's regime. In a nutshell, she broke the unions' hold and replaced it with the City's.

Major oversaw a period of plenty: even then it was looking like an over-inflated bubble and Blair also took advantage of it. The banking crisis could have been anticipated - and was - but nobody had the nerve to tell the money boys to back down. We were already locked into a debt-driven economy that could only be altered by deeply unpopular reforms. In the end, of course, the country had to suffer pain for the banks' greed anyway. Brown managed to get our national interest rates down, improve NHS results against all the odds and it looks possible that he could have steered us through this better than an inexperienced crowd of supremacists. We'll never know that now.

But it really, really upsets me that Twitter does a better job of observing the true facts and offering solutions than the fucking government! I don't care what colour is in parliament because none of them are up to the job. I just want them to listen to the electorate (on social media) and responsible experts (in the Lords, of all places.) The fact that they're too arrogant/greedy to do so - or even to admit that we are in crisis - makes me feel we're living in more of a dictatorial oligarchy than a capitalist democracy.

And it frightens me. A lot. Sonia Poulton wasn't wrong to compare it with pre-war Germany.

Lily, I don't think this should be about which party is better than the other. I think it defeats the point of this debate tbh.

Both main parties are guilty of mistakes with the benefit of hindsight. The responsibility must lie primary with the party in power not the opposition who say they would do the same thing.

But if you really want to get into a debate on spending extra, then perhaps you should think about why, when John Major left power the country was in the best financial state ever, having pretty much paid off the national debt. We then had one of the longest periods of economic boom in history, and we still end up with this situation. Regardless of how much money was used to bail out the banks, there was serious financial mismanagement going on.

Australia on the other hand, has done very well in the last couple of years by 'planning for rainy day'.

Perhaps a Tory government would have done exactly the same thing. I don't have a crystal ball... Its pure speculation.

The fact what happened did, is something that the Labour party needs to face up to and take responsibility for, before they get back into power. And actually I think we do too in our demands of what we expect from politicians and how our taxes are spent.

Using the Darling Plan as an example amuses me.

Darling has come out and said that with the benefit of hindsight, he actually would not have followed his own plan and would have done many, many thing that the current government have since done. Much to the annoyance of Ed Balls.

I have respect for him for admitting that, and admitting to mistakes. It does help to restore a level of credibility for me. I think its helpful to everyone to try and get out of the mess we are in. Its also good for politicians to be willing to admit to being wrong rather than keep insisting they were right in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

After Dinner speaks a lot of sense. It was clear the coalition, particularly the LibDems, had no real idea quite how shocking a financial state Labour had left the country in. If I were an MP I would howl back "you spent all the money" every time a Labour politician stood up and dared to criticise any of the austerity package at all. The truth is the actual reduction in the growth of public sector spending is far less than it would have been under an all-tory government, and in fact is currently slightly less than Labour proposed. The "cuts" are currently running at £81bn. Labour proposed £82bn. And this is why people like Darling are so frustrated, and why politicians like Denham are working on cross party initiatives.

I am not a fan of the current NHS changes but the vast majority of these could have been brought in without any changes to primary legislation at all. Because they followed on directly from Labour's plans. I don't like them, and have campaigned against several aspects of them, but I've been following it long enough to be fed up of being patronised by the Labour party. I'd sack Lansley if I had the chance. I'd have sacked him during the "pause" myself.

Labour's approach to Parliamentary democracy and Cabinet government was shocking. At least the coalition brings in far more checks and balances.

And please, please, do not compare dodgy changes to a crap NHS which fails thousands of people every year with an illegal war which killed hundreds of thousands. The stupidy of the war in Iraq is mind blowing, and the effects on our daily life terrifying.

Yes, our democracy is flawed, but there is a massive difference between disliking a government and its policy and saying they are undemocratic.

The NHS one, I think you have a point to a degree with - though they did say urgent reform needed to be made. However the VAT one I don't. I think they definitely were caught between the devil and the deep blue sea on that one.

The coalition clearly had no idea about the state of the public finances until AFTER they got into power. It was written all over the facts of the LDs who had more integrity when it became clear. Again the infamous "there is no money left" letter is disgraceful. The fact that coalition have made moves to make public finances more transparent in future says a lot. It was something that probably isn't perhaps in their interests to do. Its a move that was one that unlike a lot of others was done with the long term best interests of the country in mind.

Having seen the books I expect they had to change a number of plans don't you? Labour promised not to raise tax, but increased NI - specious logic, much?

LilyBolero, you have enough time to sit on Mumsnet and get involved in discussions like this.

You COULD use the time to get involved in local or national campaigns on subjects you feel strongly about.

A simple letter to a newspaper or your MP may not get a reply or response, but it highlights a subject. The old adage that a letter of complaint represents a hundred people is taken seriously by political parties. They want your vote. They want to know which issues will make you vote for them.

The idea that we are powerless is just wrong. Your voice will be ignored a lot, but not all the time. Apathy is democracy's biggest enemy, not the system.

There is no point coming into power without a plan though is there? If you hadn't got plans in place and fleshed them out, then you'd sit with your thumb up your bum for quite a lot of your time in office. You come in with plans and then refine them over the course of a parliament, or test the water and stop what you had planned, or carry on with it if you think you can get it through.

Politicians speak in their own language - what the late great Alan Clark called being economical with the actualité. You are a tad naive if you think otherwise.

The voice of the public should count for something without status IMO.

It should count for something, but I would hesitate before saying it should count for everything. I like and agree with the Churchill quote. The average person has limited knowledge on the vast majority of subjects even if they are well educated. They can have an opinion based on little fact (and heavily influenced by the media), but is that enough? I don't think it treats the electorate as children to let people who spend all their time working in one area and are privy to information that the public does not know make better informed decisions on our behalf. I don't think that lets them off the hook of not explaining the reasons behind those decisions adequately - they are still accountable. As much as we'd all like to be, we are not experts on everything.

It would be better still if we had more people from related careers in politics for that reason. There isn't enough expertise in any party really. Constantly changing departments and special interest, might be good for career progression, but not necessarily knowing what you are talking about.

I DO have a lot of time and respect for Andy Burnham's passion and knowledge on the NHS, and the fact he asked to go back to Health rather than stay in Education. I wish we had more politicians like him. I think he's a great example of how you can not have a background in the subject but learn it and really get involved in it but he is a rarity. I don't agree with him on everything but he really is a credit to the Labour Party and politics in general. He would have been a far better labour leader than Miliband the Muppet. But when it comes to other subjects in particular business, crucial in an economic crisis, the Labour party score poorly on the fact they haven't got a single member in the shadow cabinet who has experience in business nor seems to have the same passion/knowledge as Andy Burnham. The coalition are guilty of the same failings, but I don't think to the same degree and do have better business experience.

We are never going to have a perfect system imho. We are never going to have our views heard as much as we want and perhaps should. But there are other ways in which we can improve our representation, involvement and the decisions made on our behalf when we can't be heard.