I'm not devoid of morality, David Cameron tells church leaders - lol

[blacksunday]

Tory leader’s Easter message in Christian magazine urges Church of England not to assume coalition’s austerity policies have been amoral

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David Cameron has used an Easter message to hit back at criticism of the coalition’s policies from church leaders, urging them not to dismiss him as “devoid of morality”.

The prime minister, whose government has clashed with the Church of England over the direction and severity of policy, said the changes it had made since the last election should likewise not be seen as “amoral”.

Writing in the magazine Premier Christianity he said that the economy had been the area of government most in need of political leadership in the past five years, and was proud of having made “clear choices to help the poorest paid and most vulnerable in society”.

In a swipe at his ecclesiastical critics, he wrote: “I know that some disagree with those policies – including a number within the Church of England. But I would urge those individuals not to dismiss the people who proposed those policies as devoid of morality – or assume those policies are somehow amoral themselves.

“As Winston Churchill said after the death of his opponent, Neville Chamberlain, in the end we are all guided by the lights of our own reason. ‘The only guide to a man is his own conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions.’”

The church has recently voiced its disquiet over government reforms to the economy and welfare. In an unprecedented intervention in February the House of Bishops published a joint open letter warning that “our democracy is failing” and attacking the “growing appetite to exploit grievances” and “find scapegoats” in society.

The letter outlined its hopes for political parties to discern “a fresh moral vision of the kind of country we want to be” before next month’s general election.

The prime minister’s Easter message may quote Winston Churchill, but the piece does not mention Jesus once.

In it Cameron admits he is “hardly a model church-going, God-fearing Christian” and that he is “a bit hazy on the finer points of our faith”. But he added that his faith had helped him in tough times and reminded him “about what really matters and how to be a better person, father and citizen”.

He added that Christian values “are the values on which our nation was built” and describes himself as an “unapologetic supporter of the role of faith in this country”.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/apr/02/im-not-devoid-of-morality-david-cameron-tells-church-leaders

Why do you assume that we have a bi-party system here, eh?

PMSL @ Daily Mail links.

VoyageOfDad ..... people on this planet really have to question what they are being told by slippery politicians, especially by those in political party's trying to blame the coalition's emergency policy reactions, to their policy actions when it government.

Our cost of bailing out the banks was in the shares bought and we will get it back back relatively soon when all those shares are sold back into the market.

We would have got it back far sooner if politicians of both parties didn't make a political football out of them e.g. with RBS, having paid an Investment Bank price premium when bailing them out, we are turning it into a less shareholder value High Street only provider.

As to "saving capitalism", could you tell me any other country that needed to 'save' their banks by virtually nationalizing them?

I agree with you that the problem was global (mainly in the west to be correct), but Mr Brown went around Europe lecturing them to lighten banking regulation as he had, having taken sole supervision away from the Bank of England and formed a new regulatory tripartite that included the newly formed FSA.

Our banks were thus free to lend far too much money to anything with a pulse.

In a global money/asset price boom, if anything, there should have been TIGHTER (but unpopular) bank supervision to take away the lending party punch bowl - a BIG mistake, the big man has even admitted to;

“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”

expatinscotland .... please feel free to challenge any of those Daily Mail 'facts', especially the named government entities, or even how much money was wasted - especially those named in local government, as the Council Tax under Labour rose a 105% average to help pay for it.

Apparently in the UK we still have this inaccurate perception that governments can be 100% trusted with our tax money, and that all money spent on the Public Sector goes to the 'front line' - as it clear doesn't.

Wake up, cutting a honking great annual financial deficit is not "austerity", when so much was public sector money being wasted, and much of that 13-years of waste build up, still needs to be cut.

Don't take my word for it, I keep hearing Labour (in their 2015-20 budget deficit reduction plans) saying there is STILL loads to be cut from local government budgets - hopefully not from those that have been closing libraries and other services in the meantime.

Icimoi ..... firstly, wouldn't it have been nice if by 2010, over 2-years after the crash, Labour would have sorted out welfare, as they always TALK a good game

What are you talking about, IsitmeBut? Are you seriously contending that the crash was well and truly over by 2008? How did the Conservatives manage to go into double dip recession then? And please don't come up with that ridiculous mantra about what they inherited from Labour. The massive increase in the budget deficit has nothing whatsoever to do with Labour.

Loving the fact that anyone cites a Daily Mail article as proof of anything.

Also enjoying the fact that Isitmebut is blatantly engaged in a massive "Look over there" argument in a frantic effort to distract attention from what the Conservatives are doing and have done. If ever anything demonstrated the weakness of the Conservative case, that does.

VoyageOfDad .... As I gave you a Metro link with Brown's admission that HE fucked up (as virtually everything YOU list the banks did was under a Labour government) and a Guardian link explaining why Brown's regulatory fuck up via the FSA he formed to be his regulation lite poodle, was instrumental in why OUR banks were more exposed to a banking crisis - I am amused at both your Daily Mail deflection and rather pathetic denial of the facts.

How many fucking confessions and smoking guns do socialists need to STOP blaming the fucking Conservatives/Cameron for everything???? lol

_Why not answer my question, if Brown 'saved' the capitalist world by privatizing UK banks, why didn't any other global fucker do the same - as to me it proves that our banks were in a worse financially leveraged balance sheet state than the others - thanks to the fucking FSA following Brown's 'lite touch' instructions.

Re your "UK tax payer payed around 500p for shares in RBS. Those shares are currently at 350p. That doesn't sound great to me."

Well if you got your nose out of the Daily Mirror, you would firstly take on board my earlier comment that successive administrations have destroyed £££billions of shareholder value by driving out the revenue earning Investment Banking side.

Moreover, the fucking American Banks largely responsible for the financial crash via the Sub Prime lending, paid back every fucking cent of bailout to their government (and then some), fucking years ago.

This was because from early 2009 at the height of the financial crash, with huge capital market/asset price distortions and fund managers keeping their cash on deposit, while we were worried about £1 million RBS market making employee bonuses (making ten times that and more in revenue for the RBS taxpayer/shareholders) - American and other investment banks from other countries were taking advantage of those historic price anomalies, and making hundreds of £££billions.

P.S. I used the language of fuck here, as based on the posts on this thread, it seems it may be the thing some people understand and use it to open THEIR eyes - but as it adds nothing, I'll give it a miss in future.

P.P.S. It makes ME feel so ill that such a financial and economic incompetent Labour Party will be running this country again from next month, 'helped' by parties that don't have ANY record running a sustainable economy, never mind a rubbish one.

Am I deranged, or do I just look beneath the ignorant propaganda I’m being fed by those that wish to deceive, divert blame, or blindly regurgitate what they have been told?

The fact you can’t answer the basic question why 'our capitalist saviour' HAD to nationalise our banks and no one else at the time did?

or

Have no reply to how the U.S. banks left alone by government has paid their government back (and their share prices have rocketed up from the time we bought RBS stock) while the fat hand of government here, keeps the RBS price lower than in 2008 when we bought it, at a (then) share price lower than asset value?

or

Have no answer to all the ‘immoral’ bank activities you cite, all happened on Labour’s watch.

Would all suggest the problem isn’t mine. IMHO.

Jesus would be working at a food bank. Not in banking.

Meglet ... And he would have forgiven Mr Miliband, who can only confess "we made mistakes with the banks" and as Labour didn't have the first clue how to kickstart the economy in 2010 and therefore had far more government debt to HELP people via tax cuts by now - he would have been busier AT those Food Banks.

Yet Mr Miliband NOW says that he wants to "FIX THE BANKS", by somehow have new home builds funded on their balance sheets - not having learned a thing from a banking crisis that started with Sub Prime Mortgages/homes.

And there is the problem with 'denial', as if you still haven't worked out what you did wrong, how can you NOT repeat a party's mistakes?

...AND "we made mistakes on immigration" ..... "we made mistakes on new home builds for our citizens", despite having the money to spend on social projects etc etc etc.

So mistakes on banks, immigration and homes ..... THANK GOD it was nothing serious. Hmmm.

Icimoi …. Re my “ridiculous mantras” and you and your party’s perpetual deficit/debt denial

Look I know you and the whole Labour movement HAVE to be in denial on your 13-year record in office with all that money wasted, otherwise you couldn’t face getting up in the morning to have the cheek to say that Labour is “change” and that there is “a better way” to solve THE PROBLEMS OF YOUR OWN MAKING – as if you had a clue, why did Labour DO NOTHING, or give 2015-20 budgets while IN GOVERNMENT, having had the ‘UK’s books’ for those uninterrupted 13-years?

It also helps YOUR case that you are either being disingenuous with the truth, or making up your own facts to deflect;

1. There was NOT a double dip recession under the Conservatives, and Labour got little back of the approx 7% of GDP/output they LOST from 2008 to early 2009. Please do check your facts if you are going to make accusations.

1. “The massive increase in the budget deficit had nothing whatsoever to do with Labour”, really whose fault was it, Thatchers? lol

In a nutshell, Labour massively increased government spending and increasing the governments FIXED COSTS, by running an annual budget deficit (when they should have paid off national debt) and using the proceeds of a financial bubble economy

So lets keep this simple as I’ve tried to find a source that is fair to Labour ( overly in my view) so try wasting your breath defending Labour by challenging the following link – with graphs and charts, but with the salient points below;.

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.”

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

”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 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.”

• “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.”

More

contd

And there you have the majority of the 2010 Labour £157 billion UK budget deficit, admittedly boosted by the government spending ‘automatic stabilizers’ when in any recession.

But the question is WHY in 2010 did the UK have an annual budget deficit around THREE TIMES that of high state spending France, with unemployment much higher than ours, who soooo historically pride themselves on the numbers of administrators; they invented a name for them beginning with ‘b’ - and most school leavers aspire to pushing a well paid pen? lol

And that is where the Daily Mail articles come in detailing the huge and expensive growth of UK Government Quangos and non jobs under Labour.

Are you seriously saying that the Daily Mail has made up the quangos Labour formed/expanded, and the local government non job descriptions/adverts with the name of the local authority that posted it? LOL

First step is to understand how inaccurate your statement is that the deficit had nothing to do with Labour, as it had EVERYTHING to do with Labour.

Second step is understand how the 2001 to 2007 Labour government unbalanced the UK economy by over bloating the State with non ‘front line’ job creation and borrowing/increasing national debt to do it.

Third step is ask yourself why trying to correct this obscene government overspend to get somewhere near ‘balancing the books’ is called ‘austerity’.

Forth step is tell us why Labour (and the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and to some extent the Lib Dems) want to keep increasing our national debt beyond 2020, especially when their loose coalition WILL INCREASE THE INTEREST RATES the taxpayer will be asked to FUND a National Debt of at least £1.8 trillion by 2020, for the Conservatives to again sort on behalf of our grandchildren.

And finally wonder why, as I do, a party leader that has to sort this debacle out had his morals questioned on this thread, while those that not only caused the problem, but want to REPEAT it, ensuring BIGGER spending cuts and BIGGER tax rises and REAL austerity is guaranteed for the next generation and beyond.

I agree with what expat said about them being cunts. Sorry, 'CUNTS'. I'd underline it but I don't know how to.

In 1997 Labour inherited a debt of 42% of GDP. By the start of the global banking crises in 2008 the debt had fallen to 35% - a reduction of almost 22%. The much proclaimed 2010 deficit of over 11% is false. This is the PSNB (total borrowings) and not the actual budget deficit which was -7.7% (OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook March 2012). In 1997 Labour inherited a deficit of 3.9% of GDP (not a balanced budget) and by 2008 it had fallen to 2.1%, i.e. almost a 50% reduction. The IMF concluded that the UK experienced an increase in the deficit as result of a large loss in output/GDP caused by the global banking crisis and not as result of the bank bailouts, fiscal stimulus and bringing forward of capital spending. It's basic economics: when output falls the deficit increases.

And yes, the Daily Mail did make up all that non-job bollocks.

It would make a nice change, Isitmebut, if you could move away from 2010 and concentrate on what this thread is actually about. Your reluctance to do so speaks volumes.

What this thread is about is the moral issue of blaming Cameron for Labour's mistakes when there were so many of them - and the legacy they left him to sort it all out which MEANT making difficult choices Labour more worried about the 2010 election results, REFUSED to make.

In 1997 Labour had inherited an economy that had grown slowly for 20 odd conseq quarters from a early 1990's recession and was the fastest growing economy in Europe with manufacturing around 23% of our economy - the Conservative inherited an an unbalanced economy that had LOST around 7% of GDP, up to its ying yangs in debt, in deficit denial, and manufacturing at 12% of our economy.

WAKE UP, Labour's economy/debt can not be judged on ratios of debt to GDP, when that GDP was based on unsustainable government spending from the tax proceeds (READ MY LAST LINK) of a 1997 to 2010 financial/debt bubble economy -and a Labour government 'creating' government jobs at a faster percentage to private sector employment - spraying those government jobs around the country and calling that Brown/Ball-sian style GDP 'growf' and demi god like, "the end of boom and bust".

*So as you pathetically call all those NAMES quangos and non jobs "bollocks", as you are so creative with figures, then tell me from 1997 to 2010 what cost/numbers YOU have on the Labour growth of non front line jobs and we can work off that.

Icimoi …. You want to talk “morals”, so lets look at confessions, deeds and dishonesty, using a non Daily Mail article, by possibly using your ‘bible’.

”Ex-Treasury (Labour) secretary Liam Byrne's note to his successor: there's no money left”
www.theguardian.com/politics/2010/may/17/liam-byrne-note-successor

”The former chief secretary to the Treasury, Liam Byrne, has reignited criticism of Labour's stewardship of the economy with a note for his successor which said "there's no money left".

”It is a convention for outgoing ministers to leave a note for their successors with advice on how to settle into the job.”

”Laws told reporters: "When I arrived at my desk on the very first day as chief secretary, I found a letter from the previous chief secretary to give me some advice, I assumed, on how I conduct myself over the months ahead.”

"Unfortunately, when I opened it, it was a one-sentence letter which simply said: 'Dear chief secretary, I'm afraid to tell you there's no money left,' which was honest but slightly less helpful advice than I had been expecting."

Which was kinda an understatement, as the Conservatives in 1997 left a national debt of £403 billion and had budgeted to turn a budget deficit into a surplus by 2001, when Mr Byrne left a national debt of £1,073 trillion with an annual budget deficit TRENDING UPWARDS - and back then at £157 billion a year.

Labour’s Mr Byrne when touring the TV studio’s and asked HOW will Labour get our debts under control and budget for the future, the dishonest idjut used to say “we can’t account for every penny, we have to see what happens after the general election” - when they'd had 'the books' for 13-years lol

Yet Labour with NO POST CRASH RECORD of getting our debts under control, or coming up with a plan to put the economy on a sustainable growth path (aside from ideological cuts on wealth raising peanuts) are SAYING THE SAME THING NOW, and getting away with it.

So morally who has the credentials to offer spending plans the UK will be able to afford, Cameron or the Labour leader pretender, one of numerous shadow pretenders that were IN that last Labour government?