A Labour Governments 1997-2010 record in power – lest we forget.

merrymouse …. One thing you have to know about me is I look at FACTS, and the UK election uncertainty is already affecting the cost of new government debt (see link below), or roll over costs of old maturing government bonds (known as Gilts) – in an already volatile global interest rate market.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-05-06/global-bond-selloff-adds-to-pressure-on-gilts-as-election-looms
”In the week of a general election that looks set to produce no clear winner, a global selloff in government bonds was the last thing U.K. bondholders needed.”

”Yields on benchmark 10-year gilts exceeded 2 percent for the first time this year on Wednesday before stabilizing, joining this month’s tumble in bonds from Europe to the U.S. With polls indicating neither Labour nor the Conservatives will win the overall majority of seats they need to govern alone after Thursday’s vote, traders are braced for more volatility.”

“Gilts have handed investors a 1.2 percent loss this year, the worst performance after Greece among 31 sovereign markets tracked by Bloomberg World Bond Indexes.”

If you don’t think a coalition of a Labour Party and their Scottish Brown ‘prudent’ record telling us ‘he’d ended booms and busts’ before giving up the biggest of both – and a Scottish SNP who with the Barnett Formula has never managed an open economy and if Independent, would have been in deep financial trouble by now – you and left wing BBC, are smoking something.

”UK’s jobs boom would not survive a Left-wing war on business”
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jobs/11546792/UKs-jobs-boom-would-not-survive-a-Left-wing-war-on-business.html

”By making the economy less competitive and discouraging firms from spending, job creation, Britain’s greatest economic achievement, would be dealt a devastating blow”

Merrymouse .... I see you didn't focus on the TRUE "millionaires tax" Capital Gains Tax under Labour, and chose to focus on their little 'the few' trap after 12 years 11 months in power - here is the Council Tax hike under the last Labour administration for a small property - what did inflation (and state pensions) rise by over 13-years?

Council Tax increases Band D from 1997/8 to 2009/10

North East……...£782 to £1,479 an increase of 89%
North West…......£798 to £1,441 an increase of 81%
East Midlands…..£705 to £1,454 an increase of 106%
West Midlands…..£701 to £1,388 an increase of 98%
Yorks/Humber…..£710 to £1,380 an increase of 99%
London………..…£651 to £1,308 an increase of 101%
East of England...£639 to £1,450 an increase of 127%
South East……...£641 to £1,437 an increase of 124%
South West……..£667 to £1,1462 an increase of 119%

LittleLionMansMummy ... the question for all economic scribblers deciding whether Labour's spending was excessive depends on several assumptions; like was Labour running a lean government, was welfare/benefits under control, were we paying off debt in the good times, was the private sector growing more than the public sector over 13-years, did the banks explosion of credit to anyone with a pulse sustainable etc etc etc.

The main problem is if economists look at Debt-to-GDP (and looking at what constitutes GDP), any profligate government and businesses/consumers gorging on debt, will BOOST GDP, the problem is it is NOT sustainable.

If you want a 'balanced' comment of Labour's record, I 'd suggest that you read this (below), especially the conclusions.

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

The FACT remains, the money WAS THERE build infrastructure, homes and a sustainable vibrant private sector to provide future SUSTAINABLE growth and it wasn't spent wisely at all, never mind help the poor.

And the constant tax rises e.g. Council Tax, drained everyone, funny enough other than the most wealthy i.e. 'only' a 40% top tax rate and a Capital Gains Tax low for the likes of private Equity companies, of 10% if held the assets for a few years.

merrymouse ... please think and do not believe all Labour recovery 'talk down' propaganda, the net 2 million of new jobs since 2010 is actually a lot more, a lot of 'fat' in Labour's non front line work force has been cut, that rose by around 1 million from 1997 to 2010 - so to say all these jobs are either part time, zero hours or MW disingenuous at best, as those and the figures of those in full time employment, just don't stack up.

Labour had no plan OTHER than to keep adding to public sector jobs, having lost 1 million private sector jobs PAYING for them - if Labour had cut the government fat from 2008 and used the money to stimulate businesses and give tax cuts to help those from 2008 seeing 'real' cuts in pay AS OTHER COUNTRIES DID - the recovery would have come faster, as the Conservative coalition had to start it in 2010.

BrillBrilloPads ... I have been following global markets/economies for decades, and this country will be in deep do-doos from Friday, if a Labour administration - as UK businesses KNOW that Labour will reverse the help they have received (as part of "the few") from the Coalition and will contract based on Labour's manifesto alone.

And those funding our current £1,500,000,000,000 (£1.5 tril) of National Debt have to get the jitter bugs, as our ability to repay that debt, reduces from that day on.

TondelayoSchwarzkopf
Re your rather lame Labour clichés ” the conservatives have a visionary vision of economic growth.” AND ”They are all there to raid the cupboard and sell off the country to their mates”

Again looking at the facts, like a Labour government has never handed back an economy better than the one they inherited since around 1930, we can dismiss their short or long term plans as every being competent.

Next lets look at a few ‘sell offs’ as not always what they seem;
Take Gordon Brown’s brother Andrews appointment to EDF of France in 2005, Blair’s ‘rush for nuclear’ policy in 2005, Brown’s sell of Westinghouse (the UK’s only nuclear reactor builder) in 2006 and then Gordon Brown’s awarding/contracting of our entire nuclear programme to EDF – now that could easily be misunderstood as ‘matey’.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/mps-expenses/5293459/Who-is-Andrew-Brown-Profile-of-Gordon-Browns-brother-MPs-expenses.html

news.sky.com/story/405200/bnfl-sells-westinghouse-to-toshiba

www.nnl.co.uk/news-media-centre/news-archive/industry-news-edf-to-buy-british-energy.aspx

How about the Royal Mail as it appears the main reason Labour did not sell off any of the Royal Mail, was they didn’t want to ensure the pension rights of the postal workers – via a funding deficit that was getting worse annually, and wasn’t going to go away – and made Royal mails books at best, ‘insolvent’.

(Labour's) Peter Mandelson abandons plan for part-privatisation of Royal Mail
• Business secretary blames poor market conditions
• Trouble looms over £10bn pension deficit
www.theguardian.com/uk/2009/jul/01/royal-mail-mandelson-part-privatisation?guni=Article:in%20body%20link

“As part of the deal, the government had been planning to take on the £10bn pension fund deficit, as well as to change regulation.”

“But now Mandelson has put himself on a collision course with Royal Mail, its pension trustees and unions by refusing to bail out the postal company's estimated pension deficit.”

“The trustees are expected to revise their estimate of the shortfall from the current figure of £3.3bn to at least £10bn in the next few weeks. This would require Royal Mail to more than double its annual payments to plug the deficit, which would bankrupt the company.”

Therefore it was Osborne that by taking over those workers pension rights, as a result made the Royal Mail viable as a going concern.

Finally the Labour type ‘mates’ as told in a few paragraphs by the BBC’s Robert Peston, a sorry tale of a Blair/Brown suck up to Private Equity companies etc and watch for the overlap of those awarded contracts by Labour and the ‘cash for peerages’ malarkey - when the police were called into Downing Street to investigate a Labour Prime Minister. No 'the few' lectures there please.

'Who Runs (Labour's) Britain?' by Robert Peston
www.socialismtoday.org/122/peston.html

LittleLionMansMummy .... “Values”; as similar mantras when examining political speak, can only be trusted, when the words match the actions of political parties when in power.

Few can deny that in the UK the economic, financial and social situation (and problems) in 1997 were light years better to a Labour Party coming to power for the first time in 18-years (as possibly the best inheritance for several decades), to what they handed back to the Conservative administration in 2010.

So straight way we are not talking level playing fields here, where both of those governments are free to launch their own political agendas, or ‘values’ if you will.

The 1997 Labour Party with an economy already growing and the UK ‘books’ budgeted by the Conservatives to BALANCE by 2001/2, were free to both plan ahead and INCREASE government spending, as they did from £324 billion a year in 1997, to £686 billion by April 2008 – before the worst of the financial crash began.

The Conservative administration came to power in 2010 with the annually accumulating National Debt double at over £1 trillion and an annual budget deficit/overspend of £157 bil a year - a very different financial environment, needing to balance tax cuts to help businesses/consumers/growth and spending cuts to unreformed services for 13-years having money thrown at them.

My point is, look at Labours record in power with money coming out of their yazoo, and then look at what happened in my OP summary to the poorest and most vulnerable in society by 2010; the pensioners, the homeless, the jobless, those in low paid work already seeing their wages fall in ‘real’ terms (with less job security than now), everyone needing secure energy to light their homes – and then I ask you to confirm that Labour’s record shows those “values” to the needy in society that you are looking for?

And the lack of Labour ‘values’ goes on, as nearly 2-years after the crash, 13-years having managed the UK’s ‘books’ did THEY tell you or any other voter HOW they were going to halve that £157 billion annual overspend from 2010 to 2015 with the unbalanced economy they formed by their own policies?

Well through cynical electoral cunning to limit their MP lost, they never, so hardly a level playing field to judge WHAT Labour would have cut, in desperation, as their unbalanced economy stagnated like the rest of Europe as their annual deficit/overspend rocketed.

March 2010; ”Alistair Darling: we will cut deeper than Margaret Thatcher”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/mar/25/alistair-darling-cut-deeper-margaret-thatcher

”Alistair Darling admitted tonight that Labour's planned cuts in public spending will be "deeper and tougher" than Margaret Thatcher's in the 1980s, as the country's leading experts on tax and spending warned that Britain faces "two parliaments of pain" to repair the black hole in the state's finances.”

So in ‘values’ or even value for money, WHERE did it all the money go from 2000 to 2008, if it did not get to help the poorest in society?

merrymouse .... I get your point, but look at the title and I'd suggest that Black Wednesday around the early 1990's (the previous UK and European recession to the 2008/9 one) was not Labour's record, it was a Conservative screw up, trying to keep the Pound within the (then) European Monetary System (with Italy Lire) at too high a rate - I believe was called the 'snake'.

Furthermore, your suggestion that 24 ish quarters of continually growth, beating Europe by 1997 is a consequence of 'what goes down, must come up', if true over so long a period, explains why Labour with all the money, stimulus, and jobs in the public sector - was still showing Ballsian 'growf' by May 2010 - only Labour NEVER recovered the near 7% they LOST from 2008 to early 2009.

As to the rest of the world, if the UK was the fastest growing of all major economies in 2014, created more jobs than the whole of Europe in 5-years and the Eurozone STILL has nearly double our unemployed - I guess we are doing something right.

In 2010 Labour passing over a £157 bil annual overspend, said the Conservatives were irresponsible ‘ring fencing’ the then NHS Budget – and the Conservatives not only did that, they increased spending by £7 billion a year.

And based on their proven ability to keep the Business/Investment grow going, far stronger than the rest of Europe, the Conservatives have said they’ll add a further £8 billion a year, as requested by the current NHS boss Simon Stevens, to also help implement HIS overall care reforms

Yet next Fridays Prime Minister, nay World Statesman, is still spreading Conservative/NHS lies like cheap peanut butter.

Ed Miliband: “£2billion NHS black hole means nurses face axe at 66% of hospitals under Tories”
www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/ed-miliband-2billion-nhs-black-5637119

Apparently despite Labour/Burnham passing over in 2010 a huge influx of demand from the previous 5-years to a Conservative administration without the capacity to treat them, there are few excuses to that inheritance , even when a new government hog-tied by unprecedented debt, still fails to meet our NHS waiting time commitments.

But what possible excuse can a soon to be Labour government have to spread those lies, when they screwed up when MONEY WAS NO OBJECT?

“Blair's legacy: Health”
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4555344.stm

“No government has ever invested more in the health service than Labour under Blair and yet the NHS is mired in deficits with patients taking to the streets to prevent the closure of their local hospitals.”

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9356942/Blair-defends-PFI-as-NHS-trusts-face-bankruptcy.html

March 2007: “Doctors' training system 'a shambles'”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1544307/Doctors-training-system-a-shambles.html

“As much as £2 billion has been spent on the training of up to 8,000 doctors who find themselves without a new job under a Government initiative.”

'Disastrous' £11.4bn NHS IT programme to be abandoned
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/8780566/Disastrous-11.4bn-NHS-IT-programme-to-be-abandoned.html

”A multi-billion pound IT project started by Labour to link all parts of the NHS is to be abandoned.”

Labour had 13-years, clearly in times of £££ plenty to get the NHS to that state, so ‘we can do better’, as can’t do worse - so why don’t we see what another party can achieve after 10-years?

As on Labour’s NHS and Economic record, combined with a current inability to work with nation wide small, medium and large businesses currently paying our public services and welfare bills – it can easily get a lot worse under Miliband, as the money/borrowing REALLY runs out.

Iflyaway ... Labour's record, but I'm the troll showing it, rather than the gangs trying to shut me up?

Priceless.

Claig .... you spend so much time spouting anti Tory policies (UKIP are so close to e.g. an EU Referendum), yet also sound like an old Soviet Union anti class warrior - but supporting to the hilt an ex City Commodities dealer leader in Farage. Hmmm

You and every UKIP voter needs to stop worrying about Peter Hichens rollocks and worry which political ideology and party record looks best for this country from May 8th - as UKIP votes just ensure the pro EU etc Labour/SNP will run the country for the next 5-years.

For years you have talked a political earthquake due to UKIP, well they will cause just that, and no one will thank Farage selfishly looking to get a Westminster seat at the 7th(?) time of trying, for causing that constitutional crisis - with policies so far removed from UKIPs.

I repeat a quote from the 'Conservative - UKIP coalition, how?' link on the News page;

UKIP currently polling 12% to 15%, inflicted huge electoral damage on the Conservatives in 2010, with just 3% on the General Election votes, with post election analysis showing that around 26,000 UKIP votes across around 20 odd key marginals, made the difference between a Conservative government and a Coalition, each fighting their own political corner.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/7693877/General-Election-2010-Ukip-challenge-cost-Tories-a-Commons-majority.html