Where Would We Be Now If Brown Had Won Last May?

[Chil1234]

Genuine question. Pre-election, the Labour manifesto pledges on budget management were very similar to the ones on offer from the other parties. Darling, in a speech not long after the election, seemed to be very much a 'deficit believer' and criticised Brown for failing to tackle the subject head on, instead getting sidetracked into a debate between investment and cuts. Would things be fundamentally different now if we still had a Labour government? Better or worse?

We'd be in the same position as Greece and Ireland; begging the EU for hand outs because we're bust! Labour have been overspending for years.

We'd have made it to the first budget. Labour would have kowtowed to the unions and the cuts would not have been as deep.

At the same time they'd still be trying to sleight of hand everyone by cutting one thing then throwing money at another thing.

Result would have been our credit rating would have been downgraded and we'd be royally in the shit. We'd be going cap in hand to the IMF who'd then have forced pretty much exactly the same spending cuts on us in return for the loan.

So basically we'd be in a slightly worse situation and have even LESS money to spend on all the things we'd love to like welfare, police, nurses.

I'm just gobsmacked at how many people still fail to grasp the reality of our economic situation and still think that money grows on trees.

This country, as said would have gone the same way as Greece, Ireland.

Chil1234, are you trying to put the wind up the posters, by suggesting such a dreadful scenario!

You and I know, under nanny/police state labourism, I probably would not have been allowed to reply to your dreadful suggestion.

Well on a purely selfish level my DH would not be in the process of being made redundant from Job Centre + along with 25% of the staff there. I wouldn't be being funded month on month by the council who cannot commit to 'long term' funding at present for the charity I work for (as a Benefits Advisor)

Durham You probably would have been in the same boat. Just a few months later.

MadamDeath, yes you are right. By 2014/15 we're expected to be paying about £74 billion per year on interest repayments alone. Thats just interest....not the actual debt.

The longer we delay getting our deficit/overspending under control, the worse that figure gets.

To put it into context we spend about £45 billion on defence. Thats army, navy & air force. And £63 billionish on education.

That's why its laughable the people who say there's no problem at all and we should keep doling out money to all & sundry.

Oooh good question!

It depends on whether Darling remained as chancellor. It's possible he may have succeeded in holding off the bond market and delaying the cuts for 12 months. But by about now (or the March budget) he would have needed to address the deficit and would be announcing cuts.

If Darling had been replaced by Balls? - I'd say the IMF might be sniffing around by now.

(And - I'd be too busy researching property and schools in Zug to post on here .)

@complimentary... Inspired by watching an old 'Have I Got News For You' from some time in 2009. Darling had just set out a budget, citing the Great Depression as the reason for borrowing £175bn, predicting 3.5% growth in 2011 (!) and welshing on the Brown 'golden rule' to only ever borrow to invest (not to borrow to finance the 'current budget').... and even arch-red Mark Steel couldn't find anything nice to say about it

Knocking on the IMF's door

Claig. Precisely. If Chil1234, posts anymore of her Orwellian scenarios/predictions, half the posters will be heading for the hills!...

Chili, how can we ever trust Darling, a man whose, eyebrows, don't match his hair!

bust

Enjoying the same public-sector job cuts, but a little later and at the instigation of the IMF.
I really think we'd be more screwed, but people wouldn't have the satisfaction of being able to blame the Tories.

On the plus-side we'd see something less of Smirking Osborne.

Complimentary - I'm still shocked that you went to LSE. Isn't it quite left wing? I bet you had lots of fights interesting debates.

I agree with the consensus on this thread

We would have had another budget of overspending, followed by a budget of draconian cuts and tax increases, but a little too late so that our credit rating would have been downgraded and our interest payments increased massively.

So I think we would have been much deeper in the mire, with idiots at Nos 10&11.

Given a choice between smug bds and idiots, sometimes the smug bds are the lesser evil.

Eyebrows notwithstanding, Darling is turning out to have been one of the more sensible ones.... which I'll admit is worrying. Remember the horsewhipping he got from his own team for calling the recession the worst in 60 years or whatever? And he was right!

I'd quite forgotten about 'The Golden Rule' incidentally until I looked up that 2009 budget speech (yes... that sad).

How could you forget the Golden Rule?

Well Gordon did!.... Thank you ladies and gentlemen, I'm here all week....

Socialists tend not to worry about paying bills, I find. Partly because they don't believe in balancing budgets but mostly because they believe they themselves shouldn't have to. Being members of the exploited working class and all. Leave paying the piper to the plutocrats, eh?

I went to LSE too. The lefty thing was before my time...

Good Heavens - you don't all think the last Labour Government was a socialist government, do you? They were merely spendthrift Tories.

Jackstarb. Let's put it like this, I was young when I attended the LSE. Most of my time was spent in the 'Three Tuns Bar!' (all subsidised of course). I always knew was out of place. I was practically the only one who wore make-up!. Not a copy of the Daily Mail in site!

Plus most of my hols were spent in Ibiza at the time, which was not the normal hols for those at the LSE. Those were the days, before fees and 'one' could enjoy a good knees up in Spain.!

Also I was not as political, as I am now,otherwise I can assure you there would have been plenty of fights. arguments
debates!

on site, or in sight. The Daily Mail that is!

or insight?

No way would the UK have been downgraded - that was always a myth put about by tories.

Remember that these credit agencies are just bunches of rich ex bankers playing the bond markets for their own sake and they were rating sub prime mortgages as AAA right until the crash.

If Brown had won:

The NHS would be safe from the utter destruction it now faces.

Many people would be feeling the pain of major cuts in public services and would be losing their jobs - but not as many.

Banks and other big companies wouldn't be getting a corporation tax give away.

I am quite sure the bonus tax on bankers would have been kept.

Instead of the hugely regressive VAT increase we'd have the much fairer NI increase that the tories repealed.

The Lib dems would have a future.

Labour would be behind in the polls instead of current position of getting a 78 seat majority if their was an election tomorrow.