I hate all politicians, but I flipping hate Labour with an unrelenting passion. They bring their lovely fluffy caring theories about making the world a better place and then they stuff everything up - because they are nowhere in touch with reality. The last lot should in in jail IMO, from their military moronics, spiteful uncontrolled immigration that has seriously hurt the working classes, to their idiot bankrupting of this nation.
From Thomas Pascoe (far more measured!):
Balls has been more irresponsible than any other Labour frontbencher.
It is the record of both man and party that must be placed before the electorate in 2015. The Conservatives need to force voters to confront the idiocy of Labour?s economic strategy, particularly the belief that economic stimulus can return Britain to growth. The country is forecast to run a net deficit of 6.9 per cent of GDP this financial year (excluding the Royal Mail pension transfer). That is one of the largest stimulus spending programmes in the world. What has it delivered? In all probability, a triple-dip recession.
Even more damagingly, Balls represents two immensely harmful ideas, both of which must be discredited if Britain is to return from the brink financially.
The first is the idea that economics is an immeasurably complex subject that submits only to the finest minds. At present, actions and ideas are presented in a way that deliberately obscures their purpose and effect. Finance thus becomes less of a discipline and more of an alchemist?s trick. Balls has a track record in this nonsense-speak which ranges from the introduction of ?neo-classical endogenous growth theory? in a speech he wrote for Gordon Brown, to last year?s talk of ?predistribution?. The effect and the intention are identical: these phrases make the nation?s finances more remote, forcing us to acknowledge Balls?s role as an expert and concede our own. From these seeds grew the debt binge that left us with a 10.1 per cent annual budget deficit in 2010/11, masked with inane words about ?smoothing out? over the cycle.
Of all the disciplines of state, economics is the most easily mastered. Every individual, household and corporation familiarises themselves with the basic rules early in their life -[what did Mrs Thatcher say? Was anyone listening?]. In the quest to maintain that governments are not bound to the law of balance that catches up with every other economic entity, the system itself has been debased. Money has been created from thin air to the extent that the next crash will itself be a result of attempting to stave off this present crash. What might have been a three-year cleansing process could now be a 20-year stagnation, largely thanks to men too clever to admit their mistakes.
Moreover, it is the attitude that Labour brought to public finances under Gordon ?n? Ed that continues to poison the well. Labour has deliberately created a client state in this country, which recognises only the right to draw on the resources of others. With rhetoric about the rich, and a dozen years of rising payments to those who would not work, Balls has helped engender in this country a spiteful, petty-minded entitlement culture. Again, the connection between money and production has been severed. Again, the damage to our prospects as a nation is incalculable.
- Have I ever told you how much I loathe and despise the mindset of the Labour Party...?
[fade rant...]