Do you think the Tories will get a majority in 2015?

agirlwithwings Part 2.

So lets keep this simple and I’ve tried to find a source that is fair (overly in my view) to the last Labour administration, that behaved like a drunken sailor throwing his cash around in a brothel - resulting in a UK economy built on government, banking and retail overspending/debt.

www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/

“During the years 2001-2007, there was a sharp rise in government spending. In real terms, government spending increased from just over £400bn (2009 prices) to £618bn in 2008-09."

"As a % of GDP Government spending also increased from 36% of GDP in 2000 to 46% of GDP by the end of 2008-09"

"This increase in government spending contributed to budget deficits and higher public sector debt."

"After a short period of budget surplus (due to spending restraint) in the late 1990s, the UK experienced a budget deficit of 2-3% of GDP between 2002-2007."

By historical standards, this is relatively low. It still met the Maastricht criteria of keeping budget deficits to less than 3% of GDP.

"However, the budget situation was also improved by impressive tax revenues from the housing and financial boom. When the credit crunch hit, tax revenues rapidly dwindled causing a marked deterioration in public finances.”

• If the (Labour) government had entered the credit crunch with a budget surplus and lower public sector debt, the government would have had much more room to pursue a real and sustained economic stimulus.
However, because there was already a deficit, the recession caused a rise in the cyclical deficit. The deficit of 2009-10 of 11% of GDP was primarily due to the deterioration in public finances, only a small part of this deficit was due to expansionary fiscal policy (VAT cut)

• A great failure of spending decisions of the 2000s, was to allow budget deficits during rapid economic expansion. A budget deficit of 3% of GDP may have sounded relatively low. But, in hindsight, this exaggerated the underlying deficit because tax revenues were boosted by tax revenues which evaporated during the credit crunch.

Agirlwithwings …. Re your request for some ‘meat’ on statements I made;

Firstly Manufacturing did halve from around 22% of our economy under the Conservatives to 11% under Labour, look it up yourself using those figure to find a source you like (or ask me again) – but in 2005, 2-years before the financial crash, the UK was already losing our manufacturing base.

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html

Next, the size of the Public Sector by 2010, that I remembered from somewhere, but happy to use the Daily Mail you mentioned, as their source is the OECD – so by all means come up with your own 2010 figure, but as the latest figure I believe I saw was still around 48% under Osborne, that 53% figure AND the 2001-8 spending figures I provide in the post below – should not give too much cause for (53%) doubt.

“The public sector has ballooned under Labour to make up more than half of the economy.”

“State spending now accounts for 53.4 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP) compared to 40 per cent when Labour came to power in 1997.”

“Britain's public sector is now bigger than the European Union average of 50.4 per cent, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development figures.”

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1259935/Public-sector-53-economy-record-6-09million-Britons-work-state.html

Iimb: Could you say where you got these statistics from: "It is not ‘in touch’ or sustainable to grow the tax funded Public Sector to 53% of our economy, whilst having the Private Sector that provides tax paying jobs that funds it shrink e.g. manufacturing as a percentage of our economy down 50% under Labour."

The public sector one seems to be quoted from a copy of the Daily Mail published in 2010?

They're both completely fallacious, imo, but I'd be interested to know the sources.

Ha! No denial I see. We have a couple of scenarios here. You are either officially doing this for the Tories, in which case they're even more stupid than I thought. Or you're actually doing this for Labour in order to put people off voting Tory, because you really are not doing the Tories any favours at all.

P.S. This board is called 'POLITICS', not 'Make up politics with Mother'.

The 'Un-Credible Shrinking Man' broadcast: proof that Labour has gone insane

blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/danhodges/100270502/the-un-credible-shrinking-man-broadcast-proof-that-labour-has-gone-insane/

"Labour’s latest party political broadcast has just been uploaded on YouTube. It is a real broadcast, produced at considerable expense by a political party that aspires to be the government of this country. And it proves the Labour Party is slowly but surely going clinically insane."

"It’s not just the ludicrous caricature of the Conservatives – including a gratuitous dig at the late Baroness Thatcher. Or the infantile portrayal of Nick Clegg. Or the fact it seeks to treat the electorate like they’re sniggering schoolchildren."

It proves conclusively that Labour is no longer serious about winning the next election. It has no serious strategy, or serious policy, or any intention of convincing the nation it is serious about governing.

"Instead the people who run it – or pretend to run it – are playing a game. They are living out a self-indulgent student fantasy in which they get to strike poses, and shout slogans, and scream “Toff!” at every passing Tory they see."

Not asking for touchy feely, thanks. I hope they pay you well for this.

Hey Bob, whussup…I’m not looking for a Pulitzer Prize, just adding factual balance to a boards strangely lacking in “thoughts and feelings” reflecting the governments achievements – I wonder why that is.

Niceguy made a statement I personally thought was rather stupid based on the past four-years, but I thought of his “feelings” and instead of saying that, gave him some facts, which I thought was more ‘humane’.

You see my problem is, I fully understand the rats-arse of a job Labour did in 13-years, 10 of them without any pressure and a honking great majority and a few £trillion to do it with.

Furthermore I don’t have my head so far up my bottom to think that one EU policy Ukip has any use OTHER than to put Labour back in power again in 2015 – which will make all our long term problems far worse, guaranteed.

Looking at polls some expect the two main parties in 2015 will be neck and neck around 36%.

Did you know that in 2005 a 35% share gave Labour a 64-seat majority, but In 2010 the Tories won 36% of votes but were 20 seats short of a majority?

So unless other posters start taking into account some facts on the board rather than regurgitating their MISTRUTHS, they will see my regurgitated facts, so please pass it around – as the price of a Labour government in 2015 if far more expensive to this country, than you seeing my ‘touchie-feelie’ side. x

Ugh, you should just change your name to Isitmebot and have done with it. Or actually make a vague attempt to write like a real human with thoughts and feelings, instead of this regurgitated, repetitive, turgid crap.

Niceguy … Frankly it is obvious to anyone who follows politics that Cameron and Osborne have CORE Conservative values, diametrically opposite Labour’s, as proved by the Conservative legacy in 1997 and their policies from 2010 trying to reverse the damage – and you can’t buy popularity having inherited an £157 billion deficit, so have to face of negative politics from political parties with nothing to offer themselves, with words.

But even “rich boys” who may not know the price of a pint of milk or loaf of bread understand that;

It is NOT ‘in touch’ to have a homes and jobs shortage in the 2000’s and allow in 2.5 million economic migrants, the majority being NO EU citizens.

It is not ‘in touch’ or sustainable to grow the tax funded Public Sector to 53% of our economy, whilst having the Private Sector that provides tax paying jobs that funds it shrink e.g. manufacturing as a percentage of our economy down 50% under Labour.

_It is not ‘in touch’ to nearly double government spending nearly 50% from 2001 to 2008 on unreformed public services for little discernable results reaching the front line as most money will go on public sector salaries and final salary pensions, called Brown-Ballsian economic ‘growf’.*

It is not ‘in touch’ to encourage welfare/benefits dependency by subbing out our jobs to the rest of the world with high domestic multiethnic unemployment and/or throwing money at Quangos rather than cut taxes for the lowest paid to encourage self reliance and personal pride in doing so.

It is not ‘in touch’ to screw State pensions and Private Pensions whilst growing a fat government full of £100k apparatchiks in Quango sinecures.

It is not ‘in touch’ to raise taxes to all in order to pay for fat government incompetence, rather than trim fat inefficient and allow the people to keep more of their salaries.

It is not ‘in touch’ to facilitate through a loose banking regulatory tripartite, over leveraged banking/credit booms, rather than encourage saving, that in 1997 had the best funded private individual and company pensions in Europe, but now decimated.

It is not ‘in touch’ to pretend to have answers to below inflation salaries, high energy costs and a large private sector rental market, when your own policies caused it through times of economic plenty.

And the choice in 2015 will be the ‘in touch’ political party that handed over economic and social basket cases in 1979 and 1997 that didn’t have a clue how to fix them, or the Conservative ‘rich boys’, who’s core Conservative beliefs appear to have the only sustainable way of maintaining a relatively prosperous Britain – and offer the UK a referendum that NO OTHER political party can, or will, offer the voters.

Voting for the ex city speculator 'in touch man down the pub' caused the massive initial uncertainly of a coalition in 2010 and will probably produce a pro EU/immigration socialist coalition of Labour and Lib Dems.

niceguy - put it a different way though, if David Cameron couldn't win a majority in 2010, after the biggest financial crash in history and a deeply unpopular PM (Gordon Brown), plus the whole Gillian Duffy type mess ups, then when can he?

Agreed on the state of the parties, niceguy2.

It's a tough one and I think too close to call. If the economy keeps improving then I think maybe....MAYBE....the Tories may win a razor thin majority.

Right now, all mainstream parties are crap to me. Labour are useless. I mean come on! In five years of the worst recession in living memory and Labour are barely leading the polls!?! Seriously? If you can't triumph in that situation I'd hate to see their success in govt!

The Lib Dems are a political dodo now. They'll be lucky if Nick Clegg retains his seat.

So that leaves the Tories.....run by a couple of rich boys who don't understand in the slightest what the average person goes through. I don't know what either of them (The PM & Chancellor) stand for. I mean personally...what are their values & beliefs? Often I think they'll just say anything they think is popular.

I guess that's why UKIP is becoming so popular which is frightening for other reasons. I really hope that these UKIP voters will desert them next year.

IF the Tories win next year then it won't be because we think they're the best party to lead us. But in reality they would be the least worst choice.

If I wasn't a vehement anti-gambler, I'd put money on the Cons winning a majority this time. You can all remind me of this if I'm wrong come 2015

Personally I'd say that with that budget you're shopping in the wrong store and you've overdone it on the carrots; is there a point other than than Farage and/or Miliband could 'feed the 5,000' with £100, but Cameron couldn't??

IIMB: Say I have a weekly shopping budget of 100 pounds. I go to Sainbury's and save fifty pence on carrots and a pound on meat and the total bill comes to 110 pounds. Would you say I've saved money or overspent?

Agirlwithwings …. Dear me, what Conservative/Cameron “image”, the similar countrywide positive one that Thatcher ‘enjoyed’ for cutting back unsustainable government debt and fixing a broken economy – that many Labour supporters STILL blame her for their own incompetence for an overly leveraged bank crisis and Brown spending a few £trillion very badly.

A largest party Conservative administration MIGHT be possible, but a Labour Lib Dem socialist 'dream team' is the more likely as don't forget, Blair's 140(?) seat landslide majority in 1997 was from a Conservative Party that had the fastest growing economy in Europe - not a typical Labour economic basket case legacy.

The Cameron (and to be fair, Clegg) “substance” began in 2010 leading a coalition just basically UNDERSTANDING the problems that those lists of Labour policies above were causing and hitting the ground running countering/reversing them – and if you understood how economies worked e.g. like changing direction of a supertanker, you would not dismiss their important damage limitation and new initiatives i.e. alleviate damage to pensioners, take the lowest paid out of tax and to create over 1.5 million new jobs since 2010, with a bit of policy triv on school holidays.

Let me tell you what a REAL ‘shortage of substance’ is;

Farage telling voters Ukip can bring the UK out of the EU and/or control immigration when they can’t (as unable to change British Law).

Or

Miliband pretending that Labour could have helped ‘the cost of living’ through their Great Recession when they could not have, especially when they planned more tax RISES for all, than cuts.

I suggest you review who has the main PR 'smoke and mirrors' problem, the team that brought the UK back on track, or the 'oppose everything' opposition parties, but have nothing of substance to offer themselves.

The Tories are still capable of winning a majority because if there is nothing else to David Cameron he is, undeniably, PR smart; when he keeps it simple, that is.

DC's recent remarks on the cost of going away during school holiday periods are a good example. Apparently, he feels the same frustration as everyone else, seeing Ryanair flight fairs take off during holiday periods. So far, so good. But DC's advice on how to solve the problem is extraordinary: he suggests that schools could help by having different holidays. Eh?

If all the schools in Britain started having different holidays it would be chaos. Leaving aside the fact that most school holidays are loosely based around the Christian calendar, there is also the small problem of parents who have children at different schools. What for them? The cost of higher Ryanair fairs over a single week would surely be better than trying to go away on two occasions with different children and all the money and inconvenience that it would cause, not to mention the small issue of being able to get enough time off work.

The Tories are still trying to rely on image but are short on substance. Whether they win a majority or not will depend on whether people see through them.

LiliyBolero….why would anyone hate Cameron when he inherited a complete economic and social pigs-ear, via policies Labour planned and implemented with over 100 parliamentary seat majorities – AND THEN WANT LABOUR BACK IN BEFORE THE DAMAGE WAS FIXED?????

Bearing in mind Labour’s record in power, the salient features shown below, having inherited the best decade in 100-years to make important social changes, like making future provisions for an aging population, build enough homes and implement a sustainable economic model – what use is their failed ideology in 2015 just when confidence and private sector investment is returning and we are the fasted growing G7 economy??

Facts; Labour were the most spun media controlled and corrupt administration in living memory with ‘Blairs Labour cash for Lordships’ investigated by the police, Brown’s lowering of Capital Gains Tax to as low as 10% to attract party money from the City and MP expenses totally out of hand on THEIR watch and Labour’s Parliament Speaker Michael Martin running the show, now a peer for his ‘services’ to MP’s expenses.

Pro EU without trusting the people to vote… pro open door immigration from 2004 for political gain AND without increasing home building to make room ..…with 580,000 under 25-year olds here already unemployed.... pro flat lining State Education rather than raise standards.…pro needless laws/police State with more legislation (4,289 laws) passed in their 13-years than the previous 100-years…. pro Human Rights Act in 1998 causing so many ‘rights’ for criminals/terrorists problems.

Pro MRSA/C.Diff killer germ infested NHS hospitals hiring more managers than nurses.. pro saddling hospitals and schools with 25-year plus Private Finance Initiative debts…..pro 24-hour drinking, gambling and declassifying drugs…..pro the sevenfold increase in expensive quangos costing over £70 bil a year to run.. pro expensive to run local government (with non jobs) leading to Council Tax hikes up 110% on their watch..

Pro raiding Private Personal Pensions from 1998 bringing in £118 bil but on an interest accrual basis costing pensioners over £200 bil, and therefore taxing private sector companies to near final salary extinction....pro screwing state pensioners with derisory annual State pension e.g. 75p in 2000.….pro raising the lower band tax rate to screw the poor in 2007…pro sale of 40% of UK gold reserves under $300 an ounce versus $1.900 high…...pro relaxation of banking regulation to dangerous levels pre financial crash...…pro sending 1 million of our manufacturing jobs elsewhere by 2005 BEFORE the crash

Pro lying to go to war and without equipping soldiers with basic kit and helicopters... ….pro nuclear energy to stop lights going off in 2015, but didn’t get around to building any.…pro defence/Trident, who knows, let someone else get around to it….and leaving us less domestic food production secure than in 1997.

With a balanced budget by 2002 having adopted 1997 Tory spending plans, increased Government spending by around 50% from 2001 to 2007/8, so pro unbalanced economy = ANNUAL budget deficit of £157 bil a year in 2010 and national debt of £1.5 trillion by 2015 needing unpopular budget cuts that Labour blames on Cameron and the coalition.

Pro equality but left power in 2010 with more inequality than in 1997…and finally as mentioned in their 2010 manifesto, were planning MORE fat government, MORE national debt, LESS inefficiency cuts and INCREASED taxes to all to pay for their incompetence (that would kill the current economic growth), they cynically never got around to DETAILING in any detail to fool the 2010 voters, but would have announced them straight after e.g. as in 1997.

Cameron could not have fixed 13-year of incompetence in 5-years, but if anyone thinks that list above was a Labour record of success and want Miliband back in 2015 to 'finish' the job, they need to get head-out-of-bum and see SOME light.

Ukip have no domestic policy SOLUTIONS to anything, their popularity IS DUE to Labour's EU bottom kissing and EU and non EU immigration policies, so Ukip are both the product and part of the PROBLEM, especially if stand in the way of a 2015 Conservative majority Referendum in 2017.

Isitmebut - you keep on about this, but the choice if you are a Tory voter is not that simple. Because if you REALLY hate Cameron (as many of them do), then actually the choice is;

Vote Tory - keep Cameron
Vote Ukip - get Labour, but get rid of Cameron

And I Think for many, 5 years of Labour is a price worth paying to get shot of Cameron.

*If half his vote was worried about the few things you mentioned earlier rather than the key ideology from 1979 to 1997 - that resulted in the SUSTAINABLE prosperity of this country that Labour reversed over 13-years - then there weren't "core"."

The choice in 2015 is simple; Cameron who is fixing the problems, or Miliband's current parliamentary party that were the cause of our economic and social problems; from Brown's banking crisis where his tripartite regulatory experiment failed and some our over leveraged banks had to be part nationalized (but didn't anywhere else), to immigration, lack of housing builds and general unbalancing of the economy - thinking a big fat expensive State with 1 million new employees, was sustainable 'growf'.

_Labour will get back in power in 2015 due to 'fixed' boundaries that only need 36% of the vote, while Cameron got 35% of the vote in 2010 but was over 20 seats short.

I do agree that if Cameron couldn't get a majority in 2010, with that set of circumstances, he will never get one, especially having alienated half of his core vote.

The Tories will not get in with a majority. The Tories have lost half of its members. Cameron's not a Tory and the those who did vote for him last time know this now.
UKIP polled 950.000 votes at the last election and will do better in the next general election, taking many votes from the Tories.

Cameron's been a disaster for the Conservatives, not even being able to get a majority in the last election, despite the labour party creating mass
immigration, and making a complete mess of the economy.

A majority? Not a hope!

Isitmebut:

Thanks for your response and apologies for taking so long to reply.

I agree that the economic climate determines how easy it is for a government to budget. However, there is a measure of government budgeting which takes this into account: the structural budget balance. This says, basically, that you can measure how well a government
has done in balancing the books, irrespective of how well the economy has done.

The Conservative Party clearly prefers this measures as they set a target for it in their 2010 manifesto. They said that they would reduce 'the bulk' of the structural deficit before the next election (2015).

Unfortunately, this hasn't happened. The strutural deficit has hardly been reduced over the last four years and it is unlikely that it will be reduced further before the next election because of the
pre-election tax reduction/spending hike that the Coalition government is about to deliver (hardly original),
and the fact that the economy is expanding.
www.bbc.com/news/business-25944653

I would say more but a Conservative MP has already said it: www.douglascarswell.com/downloads/after-osbrown.pdf.
The Conservative led government has not improved
public finances over their term. Far from it, they've got worse in terms of the debt the government owes
and the annual overspend. The growth we have now has been paid for on the government's credit card. We all know how this works and ends up.

None of this is that surprising. What grates is the governmment's constant statements that they have done the opposite.
If you're going to tell a lie, make sure it's a big one because no one will believe you would have the audacity to make it up.

The government already has the invoices for the growth we see in the economy; the problem is that British people will have to pay for it
in future with higher taxes. Buying peoples' votes before elections is the oldest trick in the book in politics.

On the wider economic front, the current coalition has been a disaster by their own standards. In their manifesto the Conservatives talked
about rebalancing the economy, boosting exports, rebuidling industry. None of these things have happened.

Don't take it from me.
I invite you to read the first section of the paper written by the Conservative MP.

agirlwithwings .... I am a big believer in a fairly simple measurements; the economy and social structure when they came in, and then when they leave - with the sustainability of their policies - weighed up with the financial and political recourses they had whilst in power.

As an example of this, from 1997 Labour had inherited an economy from the Conservatives, growing albeit slowly for around 26 conseq quarters from the previous western recession. Labour also had the best global decade of global growth and low inflation/interest rates in probably a century - and a huge parliamentary majority of 140 seats ish to implement their visions on our economy and social structure - and they SCREWED EVERYTHING UP, prior to the crash, that their policies had made worse.

The Conservatives in 2010 got back from Labour a economic and social train crash unrecognizable from 1997, a £157 billion annual deficit, an economy that had LOSt around 7% of national output in 2007/8 AND had to FIRST form the first UK coalition in several decades with a leftie political party.

In other words, you may silly financial numbers that prove something or other about Labour's fitness to have another crack at running the country with a huge deficit (when they couldn't do it with a few £trillion to spend), but we could look at anything else re Labour's record in power, and with qualified facts, shoot you down conclusively.

So please go for it.

Isitmebut: Which standard indicator do you think is the best to measure a government's performance on public finances: the debt, the annual balance, the annual structural balance, or maybe you prefer another one?