can we please note how useless the Tories are being in this current crisis?

[morningpaper]

They have NO IDEAS

Even the Telegraph reported Cameron as giving one of his worst performances in the commons

ooh yes because life was so much better when British Gas, British Telecom and the Water companies were owned by the government.

can someone explain what effect Gordon paying off some of the national debt all those years ago is having now?

I just wonder.

Well gas and water were a lot cheaper.

Phones were dearer though

Since privatisation in 1986, average prices for gas have fallen by 32% (up until a year ago that is), water is up but that's misleading as the increases reflect the massive amount of work required to upgrade the pipes etc. Price increases are now slowing. BT's tariffs are down 35% since privatisation.

So what were the details of the Conservative policy for creating legislation to restrict mortgage lending? Were they going to increase provision of public sector housing or something? I can't quite remember....

Re: Margaret Thatcher, I was under the impression that the railways went a bit tits up. I think she saw a future of people driving their cars more. Admittedly nobody has reintroduced school milk. She was right on that one.

They did re-introduce free school milk. For under 5's.

Oh well, a journey of a thousand miles and all that

Upwind, Callisto, and especially SmallWhiteCat - spot on. Luckily, most people (other than a few confused mumsnetters...) are seeing thru' the smokescreen and he is set for a total wipe-out in the election

FFS- are people really still talking about Thatcher? Including Cameron?
He has shown himself to be lost atm.
And I agree- Vince Cable is well worth listening to.
Apparently, the Tories have been contributing to massive share drops by leaking information; it's in their interests; selfish, short visioned, money oreintated fucking Tories.

So- the alternative - DC- makes you happy? Complacent, transparent, smooth talking PR man?

To be honest I think that the people who have come up with this deal are civil servants and they would have given the same advice to any government.

Agree, David and his boys have contributed nothing to this crisis.
At least Gordon is doing something positive to get us through this crisis.

MP, can anyone explain how GB has screwed up the country's finances? Are you joking??

-Chancellor for the last 10 years, presiding over the "end of boom and bust".

-stealth taxer, ruining the private pension industry forever in the process whilst introducing the gold plated public sector pension bonanza.

-haven't we got one of the biggest national debts in Europe, despite the 10 years of continued growth that he keeps banging on about(even I know about putting money aside for a raining day, and I gave up my economics A Level after 3 days).

-squeezing middle England into an inch of its life, whilst allowing unrestricted City bonuses and growth of ridiculous unnecessary public sector jobs (but not useful things like teachers and nurses).

-selling all our gold reserves at the bottom of the cycle.

• the 10p tax band fiasco

• complete lack of effective safeguards and regulation over hedge fund gamblers and short sellers etc.

• independence of the Bank of England except not when it suits the government.

• unregulated growth of the buy to let sector allowing individuals to buy up whole estates rather than limiting ownership or taxing heavily in order to allow a wider spread of ownership.

• Nationalisation of private businesses eg Northern Rock.

• seeming lack of regulation over local government investments.

I could go on but where to stop?

Rose - yes and having dithered til it was almost too late (and may in fact turn out to be too late) gets applause for 'doing something' . OneLieIn are you Sarah Brown?

Um, the Labour government has given us LOTS more nurses.

I blame Gordon as much as the next citizen but let's not start making myths.

And Thatcher is relevant - this is her legacy. Deregulation of the financial markets doesn't look so clever now, but if a Labour government had tried to introduce proper regulation, they would have been howled down by those spivs in the City.

Frankly unless you have to eg Gordon B And A Darling who would want to comment or even attempt to make sense of all this.I agree it should be all hands on deck but i really think the silence is because they have no answers or ideas

MrsGuy, no i am not, but I will take no offence.

Rose, let me remind you how many people lost their jobs and their homes and whole communities under the Tories.

This all started back in the Tory hey day, when bonuses, shares, financial excess was all beginning.

If you go through your list Rose, most of those started in the Tory days.

BTW, we have always been a bunch of f'ing idiots following blindly the US economy because we are 'special allies' - it is all bollocks.

Vince Cable seems to be the only person who has a clue what's going on, and the only person who warned us it was coming. Vince for Chancellor! (I'm not a Lib Dem but feel like a drowning woman spotting a life raft.)

They're all as useless as each other, IMO.

Aren't the number of nurses relative to our population size?

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if the entire country went bankrupt, given the size of our national debt, our public sector and these out of control guarantees the government are giving. At least the Icelandic government has had the guts to admit that to their people.

GB, in his cosseted job for life political world, has forgotten that it is small to medium businesses (who actually pay tax unlike the very rich) and ordinary tax payers who are the real wealth generators of this country. These people are not his constituents, and he has ignored them at his peril.

I'm not immune to the fact that the Tories have got us into a similar mess before (Nigel Lawson following the German currency wasn't a huge success). I seem to recall a Spitting Image sketch in which Tory puppets were promising to rescue the country from the mess they had created, a bit like GB's suggestion that "now is not the time for a novice", but they got thrown out at the subsequent election just like labour will be.

It's time for a change. I'm for Dave and Barack.

I'd hazard a guess that the 'silence' from the Tories is more due to the fact that the media is focusing atm on those in charge and what they're doing about the crisis. Seems reasonable. The fact that a) we're in the eye of the financial storm right now and b) we do not have an election coming up means that whatever ideas the Tories may have are not especially relevant, given that they have absolutely no chance of putting them into action & it's not their job to do so. I frankly don't give a tinker's cuss whether they have a policy this week. What earthly difference would it make right now?

Christ, the Government hasn't given the greatest impression of an organisation that knows what it's doing. To expect DC & Co to come up with a concrete policy about this whole business now! immediately! seems a tad perverse. They'll have to do so when we do have that election. And they will have to action it because there's no way on God's earth that Labour are going to win. If I weren't practically bankrupt anyway I'd put money on it.

Oh come on its obvious. the tories are much too busy worrying about their banks going tits up.

anyway, they know that we know that they are all bankers (past, current or future) so maybe they are better off keeping quiet.

yes, they do look pathetic.

you know, history is going to look back at this recession, and say, "how on earth could people have sleepwalked into it? why were they all so greedy and unrealistic" but you have to have lived through it to understand the mass blindness.

Also David Cameron knows he will look a bit daft is he mentions large city bonuses, seeing as he's worth £30 million...

Exactly!