MNers get your heads out of the sand. Economist says Tories deserve to win.

[whifflegarden]

Here . On the basis of policies, according to the economist, Tories deserve to win. I agree with them, and if after the last 13 years of wasting public money, poor financial sector regulation, sell off of assets at the lowest price, you people are still buying the Labour line then god help you !!

We have a time bomb of a legacy according to the economist, and I agree. God help us if we wake up on May 7th to a Labour government. The markets will go into meltdown. Greece, now Spain debt now have junk status...will we follow them? You decide.

Hills Report online at:
www.equalities.gov.uk/national_equality_panel.aspx

Problem for me with the economist magazine attack on labour's record is that it assumes without any analysis that the ten years of growth achieved was a random circumstance! So when things go well internationally, Brown gets no credit but when things go badly it's all his fault. Not sure the economist magazine predicted the crunch!

Happikidz - The article doesn't say that:-

"As chancellor, Mr Brown seemed to some to have worked a kind of economic alchemy. Britain?s economy grew by an average of 2.9% a year for a decade. Living standards rose and inflation was tamed, with the help of an independent Bank of England. Mr Brown boasted of abolishing ?boom and bust?; and if Labour had lost the election of 2005, that claim, and his reputation for economic management, might have escaped intact.

Instead, he has been humbled. True, in 2008 he implemented a wise bank bail-out that was admired and emulated elsewhere. But he has since presided over a deeper and longer recession than in many of Britain?s peers. The previous prosperity under Labour now looks somewhat illusory. It was too reliant on a financial-services sector that the government, transfixed by a kind of post-socialist awe at the magical workings of the City, failed to regulate properly, and on rising public debt and perilous private borrowing: British citizens are more heavily indebted than those of any other rich country. Labour argues that the mistakes evident in retrospect?in financial regulation, for example?would have been made by a Tory government too. Perhaps. But they happened on Labour?s watch."

A lot of the growth was outside his control, but the Labour government certainly contributed to growth - we grew faster than many other couintries.

I think the financial sector was going through a period of change and it would have been irrelevant who was in government. Labour seemed to do better than the previous Conservative administration and still seem to have done better - sorry everyone - than the previous Conservative administration however the world economy is stronger than any government.

I don't know how many of you realise but there is another sea-change currently underway within the financial sector (based around communication technology) I would humbly (very humbly) defy the journalists in the Economist to predict the outcome.

Realistically - the financial sector will continue and the governments will have to accommodate it or it will move (and so very easily now)somewhere more accommodating.

Not sure oojimaflip, where is the economist quote complaining about the lack of banking regulation and excessive growth? And by the way, that wise bail out saved millions of jobs and businesses in this country and Cameron wouldn't have done it. Nor would he have created the fiscal stimulus that has brought us through the recession to possible recovery. Seems a bit early to me for the comfy conclusions the Economist wants to draw. What matters is securing the recovery.

You know happikidz I think you have a point there. The 'neo-Keynsian' (sorry for the clumsy and 'inaccurate' conceptual naming) fiscal stimulus did seem to have an effect - will it work? I know the next quarter predictions are good in comparison with our European neighbours - but its only a prediction as of yet. We all hope the outcome will be positive.

I am still floating about here but I was impressed that the Labour government acted. I remember the last time and Norman Lamont very clearly (not that I'm totally blaming him of course). Labour did act - all credit to them.

happikidz - "where is the economist quote complaining about the lack of banking regulation and excessive growth? "

Regulation: - " It was too reliant on a financial-services sector that the government, transfixed by a kind of post-socialist awe at the magical workings of the City, failed to regulate properly.."

Excessive growth (I presume you mean of financial services rather that the economy in general) :- It was too reliant on a financial-services sector that the government, transfixed by a kind of post-socialist awe at the magical workings of the City, failed to regulate properly,"

Wise bail out:- "True, in 2008 he implemented a wise bank bail-out that was admired and emulated elsewhere."

I think you are trying too hard to find things to disagree with.

It's interesting to see that most of the comments on The Economist's own blog on the article are absolutely against the theme. The article has very little detail on how the Conservatives would deal with the deficit. Indeed their whole campaign has a huge hole of 80% of the deficit not dealt with. They will have to increase taxes and they will make cruel cuts to the incomes of those who can least afford it. The Tories are enriched by Financial Companies' donations. THey absolutely will not have the will or desire to solve the endemic problems we have with banks and financial organisations. Also, it is one thing to take waste out of public organizations like the NHS but to hand contracts over to private companies in which people at the bottom will be paid below survival wages and those at the top will be on million pound bonuses is immoral. Those company bosses coming out against NI increases are probably also against a minimum wage, company pensions, paid holidays etc etc. This big society idea is crazy coming from a Party which wants to hang on to as much inheritance as possible for the very rich rather than give back to society via taxation. Surely we should be encouraging our kids to go out and make their own fortunes.

Oojimaflip, sorry to diagree but Brown was one of the very few senior figures in the whole financial system that was calling for more regulation of the banks BEFORE the crash. Why didn't The Economist support him then?

sweetjane, you're so right. Why are we handing the keys to the treasury back to the party of the bankers and bosses? I just don't get it.

clicky

Sorry I got excited and put that clumsily. I don't mean to suggest the Tories are the party of all bosses and bankers, just of a large network of retail companies and finance folk and media barons that are funding and supporting them. It just seems so odd to me that "the people" trust cameron more than brown to get us a good deal.

This is the type of person the tories attracts, I wonder how much he will donate to the tory party

www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/robert-mugabe-david-cameron-conservatives

I interviewed my local three candidates, and Lib Dem didn't respond, even after they said they wanted to be involved which surprised me as I may well have voted for them!
I would never have voted Labour, but my local candidate has been brilliant, really supportive.
Not sure if I'm allowed to post the link, but the local paper covered the story too!

happikidz - do you have a link to an article about that or something? I thought Gordon Brown was in favour of very light regulation up to the crash.

Whifflegarden....we are not that stupid. The Economist is bound to back The Conservatives. Check out on WIKI who owns it. The Financial Times / The Rothschild Empire / and a board of trustees that cannot be removed. More Tory tactics. Give me something different. Sound policies perhaps?

We voted Labour in out of disillusionment with Tory, now we are disillusioned with Labour. Please God if anyone is not sure, vote for something different. LIB DEM wants a system of fairness in voting. Why don't the other two want it? Oh....I get it now?
That would mean listening to the electorate not a bunch of bankers.

Give me strength.

If anyone finds this electoral system perverse then please vote it out.

Cabelpower The Econmoist != the Tory party. See thread above for arguments. Which makes it a more interesting event than the Sun coming out for the tories, but no more a reason why anyone should.

Oojimaflip, not the best reference but close:

www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/press_146_01.htm

This is speech in washington in 2001 on globalisation. Scroll down to section on
"Rules of the game for the global economy."

Quote:"The new architecture must therefore involve an enhanced role and authority for the IMF, monitoring and reporting on the operation of codes and standards, and my proposal is that we make the IMF's surveillance and monitoring functions independent of the inter-governmental decisions about financial support for crisis resolution.

Alongside greater independence for the IMF, the capacity to prevent crises would be improved by expanding the work of the financial stability forum - which brings together the combined expertise of the IMF and key regulatory authorities - as an international early warning system to tackle national financial sector problems which have international repercussions.

Where governments discharge their responsibilities for transparency and subject themselves to surveillance, then commensurately increased responsibilities by the private sector should include a willingness to participate in ongoing dialogue with their host countries to identify problems early and develop cooperative solutions for restoring stability."

oojamaflip -

Don't start me on the global economy and the IMF:

18% of the share of votes is owned by the USA with a population of 4.3%.

1.9% by India with a population of 17%.

We need fairness.

We need to start again.

And why anyone would trust Cameron is beyond me.

Bring on Vince Cable.

Happikidz - But in 2005: www.cbi.org.uk/ndbs/press.nsf/0363c1f07c6ca12a8025671c00381cc7/ee59d1c32ce4ec12802570c70041152c

"n the old regulatory model ? and for more than one hundred years ? the implicit principle from health and safety to the administration of tax and financial services has been, irrespective of known risks or past results, 100 per cent inspection whether it be premises, procedures or practices.

So regulation came to mean that government routinely and continuously inspected everyone and everything, demanded information from all of us on a blanket basis, required forms to be filled in for all issues subject to regulation and inspection -- the only barrier to complete coverage usually being a lack of resources.

This approach, followed for more than a century of regulation by governments of all parties is outdated.

The better, and in my opinion the correct, modern model of regulation ? the risk based approach - is based on trust in the responsible company, the engaged employee and the educated consumer, leading government to focus its attention where it should: no inspection without justification, no form filling without justification, and no information requirements without justification, not just a light touch but a limited touch."

I'm not saying he should have seen it coming, just that he didn't.

CablePower - I don't think I mentioned the IMF? Anyway, interesting point. I haven't looked into the IMF much. I like the LibDems on a lot of things, not sure on them on Economics though.

Ooojimaflip, well I agree with you he didn't see this exact crisis coming at this exact time in this exact way.

Still, I would rather have him sorting out the financial system than anyone else because he understands it, to my mind, so much better and is reprsenting a far broader coalition of interest than the other lot.

Gosh..didn't know this was still going.
Cablepower, of course you're not stupid, wasn't meant to come across as that. You're right on the "cycles of disillusionment" for sure. So predictable.
Whilst I agree on the need for reform, in my opinion the economy is the most important thing right now and I don't see that the libdems are the right party to deal with it.

Whifflegarden - economically speaking our whole infrastructure is totally dependent on imports from abroad...fuel / food.

Nothing is produced in uk anymore. We buy everything from abroad through huge supermarket chains who control price.

No foodshops in UK 1950: 221,662
No foodshops in UK 1997: 36,931

We.ve let it happen. I defy you to buy British...it's really hard.

The Renewable Sector offers new jobs and homegrown fuel. We have water and wind.

Environment has always been a big thing for Lib Dem

Economics is Vince Cable's secret weapon.

An environmental economics is the way forward but that's to much of a nightmare for the banks / big business / and media.

This won't happen with Tory...it's too brave world.