Miliband; the cost of living and ‘choking on (stale) cornflakes’.

[Isitmebut]

When Cameron suggested to companies yesterday that based on the oil price fall they should look to pay better salaries, it didn’t sound right to my cereal bowl for several reasons; to begin with not every company benefits directly from cheaper oil, no company should increase fixed costs due to volatile commodity prices near recent price low, and as so close to a very uncertain election in May with god knows what tax rises after, I’d be currently considering how I could CUT fixed costs for the next 5-years.

But what really stuck in my porridge was the sheer hypocrisy of Mr Miliband criticising another leader, based on Labour’s record prior to 2010, and their abject failure since, TO TELL THE ELECTORATE EXACTLY HOW LABOUR WOULD GUARANTEE TO BOOST LIVING STANDARDS, apart from the tax cuts the Coalition have made so far.

For Miliband to accuse Cameron for not listen to ‘cost of living’ pressures, when he served in the last Labour administration and their financial/economic recession - and oversaw a 5% drop in ‘real’ earnings from 2007 to 2010, and answered that by TAKING AWAY the 10p income tax rate and RAISING National Insurance for workers and companies – is frankly dishonest, politics in the gutter.

Indeed for the past 5-years Labour’s two Ed’s have criticised the Coalitions economic plan from Day 1, initially scoffing at PMQT etc that Labour’s plan, similar to Mr Hollande’s in France, to pray the recovery comes soon and raise taxes to penal rates in the meantime – and the result are in, and France proves that for a UK with a far larger deficit than France, following the French plan, economically by now we would be in the merde, worse than the French.
www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/55561-141225-france-strikes-record-unemployment-high-again

Here is Labour’s 2010-205 economic plan,
“At-a-glance: Labour (2010) election manifesto”
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/election_2010/8615297.stm
• Secure the recovery by supporting the economy and halving the deficit by 2014 through growth, fair taxes and cuts to lower priority spending
• National Minimum Wage to rise in line with average earnings by the end of the next Parliament.
• Promise to keep business taxes "as low as possible"

In 2010 what did “fair taxes” actually mean when relative to Labour’s (then) £157 billion overspend, when their tax rises to the rich would raise what, £7 billion, £10 billion, what? Who gets hit next and sees their living standards reduced by the government?

In 2010 “keep business taxes as low as possible”, or other words, with businesses still reeling from the worst recession in over 80-years, a Labour government was going to RAISE the costs of them doing business, but also expecting them to hire a few million employees to replace those lost under them from 2008 and pay better salaries as well. What country has that incompetent economic planning ever worked?

How can anyone ever trust a Labour Party campaigning on the ‘cost of living crisis’, already falling under their watch, who’s last ‘help’ prior to the election was to PUT A TAX ON EMPLOYMENT, that cynically for damage limitation, was legislated to hit voters AFTER the general election they knew they’d lose?

“Labour’s plans to increase national insurance next year will cost jobs, Alistair Darling has said.”
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/7539343/Labours-planned-National-Insurance-increase-will-cost-jobs-Alistair-Darling-admits.html
“In his evidence, Mr Darling defended his plans to increase national insurance, saying it was necessary to raise extra money to reduce Government borrowing, which will be £167 billion this year.”

No published plans for the budget deficit in 2010 other than to raise taxes, and their 2015 manifesto has the same lack of detail, yet pretending you’ll be better off under Labour when all they know is to RAISE taxes for all.

I hear a lot about families being an average £1,600 worse off, does that include the wealthiest who by paying more tax under the Coalition than Labour, thereby INCREASING this figure – who has the breakdown?

In America, I think it was future President Ronald Reagan when facing an election that asked the voters (knowing they wasn’t) ‘are you better off now than 4 years ago’?

The difference between Reagan’s Republican’s back then and any Labour administration from 2010, is that Reagan was going to lower taxes, when the two Ed’s administration both caused the great recession and was going to RAISE taxes - so pretending the UK electorate would be currently better off under a Labour, is politically disingenuous AT BEST.

I hear a lot about “The Millionaire’s Tax” which appears to be Income Tax anything over 40%; as Labour in power from May 1997 to May 2010 only put it up in April 2010 to 50% - no 2010 election gimmick there then.

Capital Gains Tax, a UK tax on assets one presumes only the wealthiest in society pay, under Labour’s Brown you could pay 10%, under Labour’s Darling it was an 18% flat rate – and under the Coalition’s Osborne the wealthiest pay 28%.

Shouldn’t the Capital Gains Tax be more accurately called ‘the Millionaire’s Tax’, and why was the last Labour administration, even post Blair, when including the top rate of tax, such a millionaire kiss arse until their last month in power?

I heard yesterday at PMQ that the 2010 -2015 parliament is the first period since the 1920’s, that UK real (inflation adjusted) earnings fell.

Mr Miliband seems to forget that ‘real’ earning fell 5% from 2007 to 2010 due to the financial/economic crash under the Labour government where in 2008 the UK lost over 7% of (GDP) output that the UK has only recently been able to make up - resulting in the worst recession SINCE the 1920’s to 1930’s financial crash and Depression he talks about – so why the surprise on the consequences?

I wonder if in the 1920’s the UK unemployment rate was better than HALF that of the Eurozone as it was yesterday e.g. UK 5.8% versus the 11.5% of our neighbours?

I would say that Ed Miliband is not Tony Blair, and Labour appears to be moving back v slowly towards the left, away from the New Labour period you are talking about.

I hope so anyway.

Nor did Labour cause the 2008 crash. And I'm not convinced on the Tory's economic miracle, though consequences take time to show and I could be wrong. The people at the bottom are however suffering badly right now, so it is not wrong to point that out.

Does that cover everything?

LOSO ….. I agree with you (and clear to most) that Mr Milibands policies are moving left of centre, but where I disagree with you is that while Blair was the PM front man, he was not running the UK economy from 1997 to 2010, it was Chancellor Brown - following the Old Labour ‘tax high, spend badly’ policies from around 2001, having promised in 1997 to adopt (then) Conservative spending plans that was to WIPE OUT/BALANCE our annual spending by then.

Labour/Brown built an unbalanced economy on the tax receipts of excessive banking balance sheet growth and speculation, with record ‘real’ government spending that included a resumption of annual deficit spending, which was to come unstuck on the FIRST MAJOR RECESSION, and did, but please don’t take my word for it, please read the link below.
www.economicshelp.org/blog/5509/economics/government-spending-under-labour/

“If the 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.”

“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.”

So while higher taxes, regulations and red tape were stifling the tax paying Private Sector, huge amounts of money were being thrown at the Public Sector, unbalancing our annual finances, and rather than help the Private Sector after the recession hit, they spent the money maintaining a fat, inefficient State.

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

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1214001/The-cost-quango-Britain-hits-170bn--seven-fold-rise-Labour-came-power.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1358144/Labours-3m-town-hall-jobs-bonanza-employed-deliver-frontline-services.html

The financial crash may not have been Brown’s fault, but his light regulation made it far worse, as few countries needed to nationalise their banks.

“Gordon Brown: I made ‘big mistake’ on banks before financial crisis”
metro.co.uk/2011/04/11/gordon-brown-i-made-big-mistake-on-banks-before-financial-crisis-650630/

“Gordon Brown has admitted making a ‘big mistake’ in regulating Britain’s banks before the country was plunged into recession by the 2008 financial crisis, as current chancellor. George Osborne prepares to hand power back to the Bank of England.”

“Labour's lax regulation of the City contributed to RBS collapse – watchdog”
www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse
“FSA says Labour leadership had encouraged it to take a 'light touch' on banks and must take share of blame for financial crisis”

And as for “the poor”, I would argue that considering the economy they inherited and the huge Labour parliamentary majority to do what they wanted, during the best global economic decade in the last century I can think of - Labour’s immigration, education, welfare and housing policies, considerably set back the life options and living standards of the poor and increased inequality.

As to what Labour would have done financially to sustain the huge dependence on welfare they left the poor in, having found 2-3 million jobs for others that also squeezed pay rates, it depends how close we are to an election – and Blair had long gone when these policy statements were made.

“Labour to substantially cut benefits bill if it wins power in 2015”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/aug/21/labour-to-cut-benefits-bill-2015

“Labour will cut the benefits bill "quite substantially" and more effectively than the Tories if it wins power in 2015, the shadow work and pensions secretary said on Tuesday”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/oct/12/labour-benefits-tories-labour-rachel-reeves-welfare

The Coalition’s “economic miracle” is nothing of the sort, it is just rebalancing it from the unsustainable shape Labour left it, who in 2010 were ideologically and practically unable to reweigh it from a top heavy Public Sector/ too light tax paying Private Sector.

So taxes would HAD to have gone up after 2010 (not fall) to fund their unsustainable economic model, so whether looking pre 2010 or post, any claim by Miliband that our cost of living would not deteriorate under Labour, is an outright lie.

This is an interesting article, as although it kinda states the obvious, that UK earning fall in a great recession (and anywhere else e.g. the Eurozone), it also confirms in my opinion, the unbalancing of the UK economy from 2001, from massive increases in government £££ departmental spending and growth in Public Sector employment, with little to show for it at the end.

Furthermore, it shows that while ‘real’ earning fell soon after the recession began to bite in 2008, Labour were in power for half the worst period of wage declines.

“Institute for Fiscal Studies claims almost all groups have seen real wages fall following financial crisis”
www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jan/30/british-wage-slump-post-financial-crisis-uk

“British workers are taking home less in real terms than when Tony Blair won his second general election victory in 2001, with men and young people hit hardest by the wage squeeze that followed the financial crisis, according to new research.”

“However, the study finds that women have been relatively cushioned from the worst of the wage cuts because they are more likely to be in public sector jobs, where wages fell less rapidly during the early years of the downturn.”

”During the 2009-11 period, when wage declines were most pronounced, the earnings of 22- to 29-year-olds fell by 10.6%, compared with just under 7% for older age groups. Average pay for the over-60s recovered to its pre-crisis level by 2014; but it remained 9% lower than in 2008 for those aged 22 to 29.”

“Private sector workers have so far experienced larger earnings falls than public sector workers, largely because of the period between the onset of recession and the beginning of the current period of public sector pay restraint in 2011.”

“A Treasury spokesman said: “We understand that the impact of the great recession is still being felt and so we’ve cut income tax for 26 million people, frozen fuel duty and frozen council tax.”

Cont’d.

So isn’t the following quote below sheer hypocrisy from the party that unbalanced our economy with growing budget deficits and National Debt when taking the UK into the recession, making it less resilient – and only plan to ‘help’ the low paid I could see prior to the 2010 General Election, was take away the 10p Income Tax rate and put up National Insurance to workers and companies alike?
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/7539343/Labours-planned-National-Insurance-increase-will-cost-jobs-Alistair-Darling-admits.html

“Rachel Reeves, the shadow work and pensions secretary, said: “This report shows David Cameron has overseen falling wages and rising insecurity in the labour market. Only Labour has a plan to tackle low pay and to earn our way to rising living standards for all.”

“According to the latest official figures, average weekly earnings rose at an annual rate of 1.7% and the IFS suggested real incomes should continue increasing over the next 12 months.”

So what is “the (Labour) plan” Rachel, set a Minimum Wage target level to rise over the next parliament, and ONCE AGAIN rebuild a top heavy State employment machine, full of quangos and ‘non jobs’ and call it ‘investment’ in our future?

If so, little wonder they will only waffle about our deficit and debts, saying they will get one of those round to-its to pay it down, some time in the distant future.

Knowing full well on a Minimum Wage target, that levels of Productivity (governments have little control over and currently confounding the Bank of England) WILL improve - and the Low Pay Commission already HAVE PLANS FOR BIGGER RISES as the economy gathers momentum - IF whoever is in power from 2015 don’t first shoot the economy down with higher taxes for everyone?
www.gov.uk/government/news/one-million-set-to-benefit-from-national-minimum-wage-rise-to-650

I keep hearing that ’markets don’t work for people’, but which government in the world has ever been successful controlling markets?

On energy, apparently we need more than the 6 main (rather than a few new entrants provider) in 2010 we still have now, to provide price competition.

But in 1997 didn’t we have close to 19 providers, and government policy was then relying on the energy companies, in particular the one owned by the French State (EDF), to fund from their own pockets the dire need of the UK for several Nuclear Power Stations – yet did not break ground on ONE by 2010?

If we want to try control the energy markets, who from here on will fund all our nuclear power stations and expensive Green alternatives, if governments try to control profits, and company shareholders tell governments to F>R>O?

Globalised free markets are not working for people at all, no. More localised ones, directly owned and influenced by local people, have more chance of flexibily responding to local needs.

Energy is a good example. We don't need more private entrants into a market. We need it renationalised, or at least taken back under public control. You may not be aware that this has been happening in Germany, on a municipal level, and is largely responsible for its increased use of green energy, in fact that's what's driving it. Green alternatives are not that expensive once you actually count in the environmental cost of using fossil fuels, which the IPCC has said needs to stop if we are to avoid catastrophic global warming, or the long-term storage of waste currently required by nuclear power. Green energy has not yet been subsidised to anything like the levels that all other energy sources have been at the same stage of development.

The fact that company shareholders, a few rich elites, currently have the power to tell democratically-elected (in theory anyway) and democratically-representative (also in theory) national governments to f.r.o should send shivers down your spine. It does mine.

LighteningOnly StrikesOnce …. Re ”Globalised free markets are not working for people at all, no. More localised ones, directly owned and influenced by local people, have more chance of flexibily responding to local needs.”

Oh dear, more soundbites of a failed insular ideology and a complete ignorance of the dire energy needs of the UK that I’m afraid even our last Labour Energy Minister (a certain Mr Ed Miliband) secretly knows is beyond ‘localism’ and piles of energy releasing chicken shit in our back gardens, Chairman Mao style. lol

May I suggest you read the start of the following link; its of a UK having closed nuclear and other plants and taking 10-years to build nuclear, in 2004 going on ‘a rush for nuclear’, relying on EDF (where Brown’s brother Andrew worked and owned by the French State) to PAY for nuclear at around £10 billion each, who refused to pay for them – and in 2010, with a £157 billion budget deficit and no financing in place, left the UK needing a huge national pile of your chicken shit, to keep our lights on.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/1983467-UK-Energy-Policy-Price-scandal-outages-due

So do we REALLY NOW want a UK with a honking great £90 odd billion deficits now to “renationalise” anything, especially the industries (loss making or not) faces disaster, with the UK taxpayer on the hook? Are you Greek perchance?

The fact (of all people) Ed Miliband is well aware of THE ENERGY STATE OF THE STATE HE LEFT; in attacking the energy companies who need to MAKE A PROFIT to build UK nuclear power stations Labour left the UK relying on – just proves just how much he’d put the UK in chicken shit, just to get elected Prime Minister.

'Chicken shit'? You are aware that the UK is an island and has one of the biggest potential reserves of both wind and wave power in the world? The trouble has been how to store it, and that is steadily coming round.

Not quite sure what the point of this thread was or why I keep letting myself get sucked into it, or into your twisted outdated point-scoring. You show up everything that is wrong with current party politicking, do you know that? But anyway, the point where green energy is concerned is that we have to go that way. It's sustainable: no other source including nuclear currently is. If people weren't so damn greedy we could lower energy needs back to not-much above 1970 levels easily. The technology is there now, we could do it, we need to desperately (I've seen research saying that we have at most 2 years to avert >2 degrees warming), it's just that it doesn't fit the elite's and elitist neoliberal agenda.

And on nationalising: if we have such deficits it hardly makes sense to privatise everything that makes a profit eg royal mail, east coast mainline -go look that story up - and keep paying out huge subsidies and bailouts to private groups does it? That's all the disastrous privatization experiment has ever given us - private profit, public debt.

it's not the deficit per se that's the problem anyway it's the current account deficit, and that is again not going to be improved by selling off national assets to foreign owners. Incidentally right now it is worse than it has ever been. No improvement under Osbourne.

ps - your emphasis on nuclear. I don't like the nuclear solution, for the risk and the conveniently-forgotten waste storage problem. It may have been a short-term interim solution: it may not have been, I was never convinced. Either way that is also now irrelevant. We don't have your ten years' lead-in time, whoever is arguing about paying for what. Germany and other states are forging ahead with green energy, we could and should be doing the same.

LighteningOnlyStrikesOnce …. I can so relate to the toilet paper bear, “you people”, long on anti neo liberal ideological chicken shit, short of practical facts.

Not a national problem amongst the masses, but a potential national disaster when a senior politician who DOES KNOW BETTER, chooses not to adopt joined-up-policy-thinking, for electoral gain.

For the moment, forget the budget deficit and National Debt (Mr Miliband frequently does) that limits what we can afford, what you should have at least got from my Mumsnet link further above was that when I wrote it over a year ago, was that due to past government incompetence, the UK could have power outages AT THE FIRST SEVERE WINTER, and the HIGHER COST PRICE per therm (whatever) of the current alternatives to nuclear.

Again forgetting that dire need for energy and WHO was meant to finance it now in whatever form (again, Mr Miliband has), if a future Prime Minister is standing on a platform week after week guaranteeing the electorate CHEAPER ENERGY, how on Dave’s green earth can Miliband promise that for a year, never mind a 5-year parliament when thanks to him and his party, we seem to have a choice of NO energy or EXPENSIVE energy????

THAT, as you have asked, is what this thread is all about, Miliband’s one promise after another to the electorate, that has no more real ‘energy’ than chicken shit - in fact I'd personally rather try to harness the methane from a thousands cows arse’s (using a funnel and the bears toilet paper after) than trust Miliband to provide ANY energy, never mind cheap energy to the UK.

On English energy provisions, I have no interest in getting down to the practical/ethical ‘balance’ needed for secure and cost effective energy to this country.

But countries like Germany and France ALREADY HAVE THE ENERGY & PRICE SECURITY of nuclear reactors, France many years ago was around 90% nuclear if memory serves, so as THEY have the luxury of ‘rebalancing’ their energy provision mix to green or priced blue, they are chicken shit examples - while we in the UK were run by cows arse’s who did not do enough when in power to sort it, DO NOT.

It’s all a case of ‘soundbite’ policies meant to appeal to school children and above who don’t know better vs joined-up-policy-thinking to REALLY make a political difference. IMO.

P.S. The Royal Mail sale is a bad example, it was technically insolvent.

David Cameron speaking before the British Chamber of Commerce today, will plead with businesses to give the nation a pay rise, and while no more effective than Miliband’s ‘all mouth, sandwich and trouser’ approach, those larger businesses that CAN increase pay, need to know whoever is in power post 2015 General Election, this is an issue that will not go away.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31328228

But a major problem since the 2008 recession has been the levels of UK Productivity, which history shows needs to be a higher for sustainable jobs, pay rises and national economy (as explained in the link below) – BUT levels of Productivity are now rising and as long as jobs are safe, pay rises should follow.

“UK Labour (work force, not party lol) Productivity”
www.economicshelp.org/blog/5887/economics/uk-labour-productivity/

”Labour productivity measures the output per worker in a period of time. Labour productivity is an important factor in determining the productive potential of the economy. Countries with strong labour productivity growth tend to benefit from high rates of growth, strong export demand and low inflation. Increased labour productivity can enable a higher long run trend rate of growth.”

”Since the start of the great recession in early 2008, UK labour productivity growth has remained very low – well below the historical average. in Q2 2014 output per hour was some 16% lower than would have been the case had the pre-downturn trend continued.”

”This is a problem for long term economic growth and is one factor explaining the weak growth of real wages in the UK.”

However in answer to Cameron’s call, the British Chamber of Commerce not exactly offering £££QUIDS pro quo want the government to end the EU uncertainty - whether staying IN and being assimilated into an EU superstate, or potentially COMING OUT via a EU Referendum on our continual membership – as soon as possible.

Businesses needing to 'splash the cash' on higher wages unfortunately see huge political risks to their businesses in early May, and until the EU question is resolved thereafter, even if we stay IN via a Labour, SNP, Lib Dem, Plaid Cymru socialist controlled parliament.

P.S. Ed Balls said at that BCC conference that he strongly believed that for the UK, our best interests was by not giving the people a Referendum on the EU, it was for a Labour government negotiating with the EU on ‘reforms’ holding back EU prosperity & growth, if not too apparent before the crash, certainly so after - and up to now.

The problem with that looking at the last Labour administration, is that a big government, bureaucratic, highly regulated, red tape EU, with uncompetitive employment laws holding back EU job and pay growth, is what every socialist in a 2015 hung UK parliament, ASPIRES TO.

So how can a parliamentary majority, or minority Labour Party Prime Minister Miliband, have any credibility in Europe, fellow socialist coalition parliamentarians, or within the UK Trade Union movement whose votes were crucial in elected him as Labour’s leader - if trying to lecture the EU on reformed employment laws (the Conservative government brought in from 1979 to 1997), when offering new government ‘controls’ on UK businesses within the SAME 5-year UK parliament?

Is Labour’s plan to provide economic ‘growf’, employment and higher wages via ‘a big society’ of companies, non profit making, and ultimately the responsibility of the State and taxpayers, to keep afloat when they can’t cope??

There is nothing like Labour joined-up-job-policy-thinking, and this is NOTHING like it.

Yesterday Milibands 80,000 new apprenticeships from private sector companies shit scared of investing under a Labour government will mainly come as a government stipulation to the Private Sector BIDDING on Public Sector contracts, that the Labour Party keeps saying that it won’t offer - as never mind their own abysmal ‘value for money’ PFI record – apparently as having listened to Labour rhetoric for years, it is ONLY the Conservative who will Privatize government services.

As confirmed by Labours Jon Cruddas, a policy guru, in his new book, who no doubt with the public sector trade unions currently paying for their election campaign, who would rather fatten the public sector pay roll (again), or offer jobs to card carrying apparatchiks outside in quasi quangos, knowing that ALL PRIVATE COMPANIES worth using, would have shareholders e.g. pension funds, who CANNOT work without commercially/market driven rates to justify any investment they make.

“Government contracts with “profit”-driven firms must end, says Labour policy chief”
www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/news/government-contracts-“profit”-driven-firms-must-end-says-labour-policy-chief

”Private sector companies driven by “corporate profit” should not be given government contracts, the Labour policy coordinator Jon Cruddas has said in a new book.”

“It is quite staggering that some £10bn of public contracts – of taxpayers’ money – are allocated to some 20 private companies.”

“He adds: “Rather, we need to forge cooperative ties with ethical enterprise – such as cooperatives, mutuals, and social businesses.”

No doubt just like the Co-op Bank, with no real international lending exposure, donating annually to the Labour Party, but still nearly went boobs up – are these the companies to entrust the apprenticeship and careers of our young?

Both ‘shaken & stirred’ Martini man Miliband is so ready for the Leader debates, that after 5- years of criticising the current government’s record in the post recession fall in ‘real’ UK earnings that started in 2008, Miliband is NOW ready to put on his detail wonky table;

HOW LABOUR will guarantee increase to every poor to middle class citizens earnings from May 2015, detailing all post May tax rises as well.

He can come on this tell board ‘any time, from any place’ and tell us, right?

Otherwise, why have we had to listen to this low earnings bluster after the worst recession in 80-years on his watch for 5-years, and therefore WHAT will he debate with, as the Labour leader without a REAL Labour wages policy, in their locker - other than a Minimum Wage (with other earnings) that will go up anyway?

You're not going to be taken seriously by anyone if you blame the global financial crisis on New Labour.

blacksunday … “blame” in talking about the growth in wages since the recession, surely the blame game, or hypocrisy more like, is Miliband going on for 5-years blaming the Coalition for the lack of wage rises, when the worst fall in ‘real’ earnings began in 2009 (to 2011) – *and Labour’s response was an increase in employer and employee rise in National Insurance to come in after the 2010 General Election.

Thus showing they were clueless what to do about the fall in earnings themselves, were political cowards, and cynically wanted the (expected) 2010 Conservative government to take the blame for it.

BTW the western financial crash was caused by the U.S. Sub Prime crisis, causing the global inter bank market to fail and causing a global liquidity squeeze, so who could blame Labour for that?

The blame on Labour was taking sole responsibility away from the BoE, forming a regulatory tripartite in 1997 to include the new FSA who were TOLD to relax UK banking regulations by Brown - and the resulting UK banks over leveraging up their balance sheets made our financial crash worse (as history shows via the links below and further above) hence it was only UK banks around 2008 that had to be rescued by virtual nationalization.
metro.co.uk/2011/04/11/gordon-brown-i-made-big-mistake-on-banks-before-financial-crisis-650630/

www.theguardian.com/business/2011/dec/12/labour-regulations-city-rbs-collapse

And what as Miliband just promised in Scotland today, more interference in banks to LEND MORE - has he really not realised Labour's past mistake, in that a financial crash that CAUSES a recession, then prolongs the recovery time, like the Great Depression in the 1930's?

That is why they call this last recession the Great Recession, and the worst one for 80 odd years.

Of course real earnings started to fall after the crisis - when Labour were in power. You would expect earnings to drop after the most sever depression/recession since the Great Depression.

Financial deregulation began in the 1980s during the Reagan/Thatcher era. It has been a long ongoing process which has been going on for almost thirty years - and the financial sector still hasn't been 'fixed'. We're almost certainly headed for another crash within the next decade.

Here is an article discussing how financial deregulation has affected the world economy pre and post crash:

socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/financial-deregulation-and-origin-of.html

And another one:

The systematic dismantling of those same regulations by greedy bankers began in earnest in 1980, peaked in 1999, and finally climaxed with an insane Securities and Exchange Commission ruling in April 2004, a final decision that paved the way for the implosion of everything regulation was designed to protect.

www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article8210.html

It may be a useful campaign tool to try to blame Labour for the financial crisis, but it's also dishonest.

Not only are Labour not any more responsible for the financial crisis than any of the other parties who were in party since the 1980s, but the Tories actively campaigned for even further deregulation:

Article from 2007 Torygraph:

The Conservatives have drawn up a radical programme of cuts in red tape and regulation aimed at saving British businesses £14 billion a year, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.

Other key plans include:

....

A vast range of regulations on the financial services industry should either be abolished or watered down, including money-laundering restrictions affecting banks and building societies. Mr Redwood's group also sees "no need to continue" to regulate mortgage provision, saying it is the lender, not the client, who takes the risk.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1560100/Tories-plan-14bn-cuts-to-red-tape.html

So, precisely the thing that you highlighted as the cause of the beginnings of the financial crisis is precisely the thing the Tories were calling for more deregulation.

blacksunday ….. in reading your posts I see that you are trying to turn around the ‘real’ earnings political hypocrisy and both blurring several events and the ‘cause and effect’ of the Labour administration from 1997, that made the effects of the western financial crash, worse here than it needed to be – and I’m not sure if you are just mistaken, or trying to spread misinformation.

To summarise in your view it was the Conservative Thatcher’s ‘big bang’ around 30-years ago, and an opposition Conservative idea around 30-days BEFORE the financial crash, that ‘made Labour do it’ – how very lame and in total keeping with socialist anti Conservative misinformation for over 35-years – in total denial of their own policies, prior to a Conservative administration needing to fix the problems.

So please let me take your politically rather pathetic accusations one by one.

It was Gordon Brown, advised by Ed Balls back then, who was very close to the 1987 -2006 U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan who bought into American banking deregulation, by finally repealing the last safeguards of th Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 brought in to protect consumers after the LAST major financial crash.

Hence Brown formed the now known to be politically manipulated Financial Services Authority (FSA), within a new regulatory tripartite that now including the UK Treasury, also under Labour Brown’s political control.

“Repeal of U.S. Glass-Steagall Act (1933) Caused the (2008) Financial Crisis”
www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/08/27/repeal-of-glass-steagall-caused-the-financial-crisis

”In fact, the financial crisis might not have happened at all but for the 1999 repeal of the Glass-Steagall law that separated commercial and investment banking for seven decades. If there is any hope of avoiding another meltdown, it's critical to understand why Glass-Steagall repeal helped to cause the crisis.”

blacksunday …… Next your “Tories plan £14 bil of red tape cuts” link dated 12 August 2007, disingenuously trying to show a current 2015 financial deregulation Conservative policy from an opposition (John Redwood) idea PRIOR to the financial crash, that was about repealing Labour’s INDUSTRY WIDE regulation, that together with Labour’s numerous tax rises, was KILLING many types of businesses e.g. cited in the link below, to why Labour lost 1 million manufacturing jobs 2-years before the financial crash began, in a global consumption boom.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-389284/The-80-tax-rises-Labour.html
www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/million-factory-jobs-lost-under-labour-6150418.html

But Labour already knew that its constant increasing to businesses of the cost of doing business was causing problems, especially from the 1997 formed Brown brainchild, the FSA, with far too wide a mandate, to regulate everything from a City Investment Bank, down to Car Warranties on the high street.

Indeed the British Chamber of Commerce cited in this link a £40 billion of extra costs figure, and Blair was concerned that the party of new laws and red tape was stifling the private sector, too bad Blair was unable to save all those manufacturing jobs..
www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/2918368/What-Blair-really-thinks-about-the-FSA.html

“Tony Blair is gripped by a desire to slash red tape - or so he claimed in a speech last month. That address attracted notice principally for Tony Blair's surprising and controversial statement that the Financial Services Authority is "seen as hugely inhibiting of efficient business" - but his assertions roamed wider than that.”

“No one in any business - be it vast or tiny - needs to be told that the burden of regulation has increased since Labour came to power in 1997. The British Chambers of Commerce estimates that the cost for business of coping with red tape from Whitehall and Brussels will be £39bn this year - four times as much as in 1997.”

“Of course the bureaucrats of Brussels are only half of the problem. At the end of May the prime minister delivered an embarrassing rebuke to the City watchdog, the FSA, which was set up by the new Labour Government in 1997.”

Blacksunday …. Finally and in Summary;

It was Brown and his close advisors (not a Conservative) that ‘bought in’ to legendary ex U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman’s belief that finally repealing bank regulation SEPERATING investment banking from high street banking would among other things, would cut banking costs – which happened in 1999.

It was Brown (not a Conservative)) that formed the FSA to regulate the City and all things financial, but on instructions the FSA chose NOT to regulate the huge growth in UK bank balance sheets/lending, but OVER REGULATE every other business.

Consequently;

It was under Brown (not any Conservative) that UK allowed Mortgage Lending to rise from £21 billion in 1997, to £115 billion a year by the end 2007 financial crash.

It was under Brown (not any Conservative) in the UK allowing Household Debt as a percentage of income, to rise from 97% in 1997, to 168% early in 2008.

It was under Brown (not any Conservative) in the UK allowing the Average Home Price to rise from £73,000 in 1997, to £232,000 early in 2008 – as a result of that extras lending/debt and inexplicably building half the homes they were advised to, by the Brown commissioned Barker Report of 2004, the year Labour built a total of 103 new social homes.

So at a time when U.S and U.K. (and Europe’s) interest rates were falling and forming an upward asset price/debt ‘bubble’, the Labour administration/authorities should have been INCREASING banking supervision, not turning a blind eye to its lending growth – and those are the FACTS, without a single Conservative in government at the time to blame.

Financially over extended banks, businesses and consumers over more time than in previous recessions would need to rebuild their ‘balance sheets’, making the 2008 recession deeper and longer than any other since the financial crash of the 1920’s/30’s (as most of the Eurozone is still finding out).

Hence Miliband’s ‘not better off over this parliaments’ severe case of hypocrisy, especially as in addition to ‘real’ earnings falls that started on their watch, Labour planned post election tax RISES not falls – and still do, as even if El Presidenti Miliband put every rich person up against the wall and confiscated everything, it would not make a serious dent in the National Debt with their non detailed "borrow to invest" spending plans.