I think the Coalition aren't doing a bad job

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Things could be worse. We could be paying through the nose for our debts like the Italians or the Greeks. We could have a much steeper rise in unemployment & faster slowdown in the economy. Tough times mean governments can't make popular decisions.

Settling an argument therefore, AIBU?

Yes, that's the one, ahhhhpushit because they are gits who do not represent the majority against the vampire 1%, just like this lot but more subtle in their methods

Maintaining our AAA rating is no small matter, and the fact that it was retained even up to the last General Election was probably predicated on the assumption from the markets of a Tory victory.

I believe that we are currently paying £43 billion a year simply to service our debts and this is scheduled to increase to £60 billion a year within a couple of years. This has to come from taxation. Assuming there are 30 million income tax payers in the country this works out at £2000 per tax payer per year or £167 per month on average.

Maybe this should be itemised on people's salary slips so that people can see it clearly.

We need to reduce the deficit to zero before we can even begin to pay down the debt. I don't see how landing our children and grandchildren with uncontrollable debt is in any way responsible or enlightened.

Incidentally, the last administration in which total government spending actually went down in real terms was the Callaghan government of the late 1970s (i.e. not Thatcher). They had to do this after bankrupting the country and having to go cap-in-hand to the IMF, who bailed us out in return for austerity measures.

They are doing a great job of demonising large sectors of our society.

YANBU at all.

Unfortunately, though, you're posing the question on leftwingnet.com mumsnet rather than on a reasonable, well balanced forum where people can see value in policies other than 'taxing the rich more'.

it depends if you're the one that it has directly affected

both dp and i are unemployed for the first time ever

this website is honest and representative of the majority rather than left wing

Yes, YABU, very in fact. I take it you're not poor or disabled then?

this website is honest and representative of the majority rather than left wing

No it's not.

you're posing the question on leftwingnet.com mumsnet

Yes....been wondering if there were any others who thought like this.

Left wing.com? Are you having a larf? Have you actually read the benefit-bashing threads? Or the ones defending bankers' bonuses? Left-wing my arse.

The only people who think they are doing a bad job are the spongers, the feckless, the irresponsible and the rent-seekers.
Even milliband and Balls accept that their cuts would be very similar to the coalition cuts.
We spent way beyond our means, now we have to pay it back.
just like family budget.
When you think of the money that Broon wasted, PFI , selling the gold cheap, not regulating the city or the financial institutions

it's enough to make you weep

Hi there,

Just a quick note to let you know that we've moved this to Politics.

Yabu. As a lone parent who is already £100 a month down and about to be shafted by the CSA charges and universal credit then I think they're doing a piss poor job. Fine if you have loads of cash, not so fine if you're already at the bottom of the pile.

I'm scared stiff about the future.

Another one who finds MN relatively left-leaning compared to some population groups - and not just rich London ones. In general rich Londoners are quite lefty; it's often less well-off people in places like Bedfordshre and Kent who are more right of centre. That's a population group - the so-called 'Middle Englanders' - who are routinely ignored, condescended to and sneered at by esteemed organs such as the BBC and the Guardian.

Leaving that aside, I think bradbourne and fluffyhands have it: the debate about whether the Conservatives are doing anything appreciably different to what Labour would be doing were they in power is irrelevant: the scandal is that all governments (not just in this country) seem now to have been manoevred into a position where they are forced to govern in the interests of corporations rather than the people they are supposed to represent. All this stuff about who gets which bit of the benefits pot is just tinkering around the edges, harsh though that might seem to people who are affected by changes.

That and the fact that ultimately what's 'ruining the economy' is the fact that the tiger economies are on the up and Europe isn't. You can't blame that on David Cameron, and the fantasy that some inspired Labour leader would be able to change it is just that - a fantasy.

I'm also a bit at the way quite a few people seem to equate 'doing a bad job' with 'reducing the subventions to [insert deserving group of choice]'. That seems to me to represent a startling blindness to the concept that our nation-state might have interests as a whole rather than just being composed of competing groups all clamouring for the biggest slice of the pie.

YABU the rich are getting richer and everyone else is paying the price, in particular the next generation who can't afford degrees or houses

After thinking and reading about it for a while, I came to the conclusion that actually putting up tuition fees is a wise decision in terms of the overall national interest. By putting a more realistic price tag on higher education it'll force students to think harder about whether it's worth going to university, and as time goes on it'll kill off some of the more ridiculous Mickey Mouse degrees and begin to reverse the appalling degree inflation that happened under Blair. It's shit for current students but in the long run it will result in degrees being meaningful again, which will benefit future generations of students.

On the other hand privatising profits but nationalising debt, which both Labour and Tory governments have done in the last 3 years, is a fucking scandal. Neither government really believes in free markets, or they'd have let the bad banks go under rather than bailing them out.

Yeah, they're doing a great job. We've experiencing the first double-dip recession for many decades, and unemployment is at it's highest level since the Tories were last in power.

Nobody has any money to spend, so the economy is being completely stifled. At a time when a well educated populace is the most important thing for the economy, tuition fees are tripled, and student applications have dropped quite drastically.

Wealth inequality has never been greater, and children and families in poverty has increased considerably and expected to continue to rise while the cuts continue to bite.

Meanwhile, bankers pay continues to be outrageous, rewarding failure, and even publicly owned banks are giving their directors huge sums from the public purse, while funding for public services are being cut.

The Tory ideas of helping the economy are the same failed ideas of neo-liberalism which have shattered the middle-classes in the past 30 years and which caused the financial crisis - more deregulation and tax breaks for the richest.

They're doing absolutely fucking brilliantly.

WE are also treating the most vulnerable members of society in an appalling fashion in the guise of saving a bit of cash to give to the super rich

No growth, recession looming, unemployment rising, no stimulus package in the offing.

Great job. Yup.

Has anyone on this thread said a Labour leader would do a better job?

Please find evidence of The Guardian and the BBC sneering at and condescending to Middle England.

Unfortunately Labour are not much of an opposition at the momment.

Because of our voting system we will only ever get to pick from 2 horses.

Sure, if you equate the national interest with that of the City of London. Great, glad I read that too

Salme - You've misunderstood me if you think I'm equating the actions of this government ipso facto with the national interest. I'm simply stating that how much money a government is paying to this or that group (however deserving) is, taken on its own, not an adequate measure of whether or not it is doing a good job. And the fact that this seems lost on some suggests a worryingly narrow perspective.

I agree, things could be a lot worse. We could still have Labour in power !