Labour Watch

[Clive Evans]

And there was me thinking that the Financial Crisis was caused by American Banks loaning money to just about anyone who wanted it ( the famous sub-primers ) and UK banks getting involved by investing in some of this debt.

[tuffers#1]

Lucky the Engine fell off 1 of the planes on 9/11 &
Obliterated all the records of Enron 1st bank America & the other mob who were so in debt that when it fell down all records of those debts dissapeared.

Luckier still theyd just moved the federal reserve out a few days before.

[NuneatonO's]

You prefer Tories then?
Thought labour weren't to blame for the financial crisis?

It’s been made pretty clear that Blair and Brown were to blame for the the financial crisis. They even left a note saying they’d spunked all the money up the wall, or words to that effect.

Strange how people are choosing to ignore that now.

One of the most often repeated "economic" arguments posited by Tory party supporters is the "didn't Labour leave a note admitting there was no money left?" question, which is often used in conjunction with the absurdly counter-factual "Labour bankrupted Britain" narrative.

The first thing to note about this question is that the note that was left by Liam Byrne saying that "there's no money" was intended as a joke, not as a serious statement of fact. The joke being a reiteration of the 1965 note left by the Tory Chancellor Reginald Maudling for his successor Jim Callaghan that said "good luck old cock, sorry to leave it in a mess".

If the crux of your economic argument is a joke note written years ago by a fool like Liam Byrne, then it's absolutely clear that you don't have the faintest regard for genuine economic analysis, and prefer to rote learn absurd economic fairy stories from the employees of right wing press barons like Rupert Murdoch (S*n, Times, Sky TV), Jonathan Harmsworth (Daily Mail, Metro), the Barclay brothers (Telegraph, Spectator) and Richard Desmond (Express, Star).

It's hard to believe that anyone could be credulous enough to believe that the proposition that "there's no money" was a serious and accurate one rather than a joke, but apparently lots of Tory supporters do, and even use it as the keystone of their argument in favour of reelecting the Conservatives!

It's hard to not feel like I'm being patronising in explaining what is to come in the next paragraph, but there are apparently a heck of a lot of Tories out there who honestly don't seem to understand this stuff.

The idea that there ever was "no money left" is a childlike fantasy. The United Kingdom has a central bank called the Bank of England that can just create new money out of nothing via a process known as Quantitative Easing. Since the global financial sector meltdown of 2007-08 the Bank of England, since 2010, has created £435 BILLION in this way. When a country has a sovereign central bank that can create new money, the idea that there is "no money left" is demeaning economic baby talk.

One of the things that this Tory reliance upon the "no money left" arguments illustrates is the incredible selectivity of the Tory mind. It seems that the Tory has perfect recall of events in 2010 when it comes to stupid joke notes left in the treasury by an embodiment of uselessness like Liam Byrne, but when it comes to all of the promises and predictions made by Tory politicians back in 2010, they've managed to completely forget them all.

They can remember Liam Byrne's stupid note perfectly, but they can't seem to remember stuff like George Osborne promising not to raise VAT (then raising it just 2 months later), David Cameron promising "no more top-down reorganisations of the NHS" (then launching the biggest top-down reorganisation in the entire history of the NHS), and they can't remember George Osborne predicting his ideological austerity experiment would have completely eliminated the deficit by 2015 (they now admit that it won't be eliminated until long after 2020).

Whenever you hear anyone use Liam Byrne's "there's no money" note as the crux of their economic argument, you can be absolutely sure that you're either communicating with an outright bullsh!tter, or someone who is an economic illiterate who prefers to rote learn their opinions about the economy from the pages of the right-wing press; in lieu of making the remotest effort to actually understand economic issues for themselves.

[StillSpike]

I wonder if there's a chance RedO was being sarcastic ?

[Mikero]

One thing the Tories do forget is that in the months before the crash there was a working group under John Redwood looking into banking regulation, its main remit being further de-regulation!

Mikero

[Dunners]

You tell him, NuneatonO.



*Anyone else picturing Conkles sat at home doing a face palm?

[Thor]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Sound like a real blue fella.

I said that earlier this week, do keep up dis.

However, everything he says is correct though so you can't fault him for that.

[A Pedant]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Also: independence of the Bank of England to stop interest rates being used as a political tool instead of an economic tool, the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, a whole raft of changes relating to LGBT+ rights (including repealing the hated clause 28, which even the Tories themselves later apologised for as a "mistake"), the minimum wage and all the new schools, hospitals and Sure Start children's centres that were built, the low pay commission, tax credits, devolution...

[Dohnut]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Also: independence of the Bank of England to stop interest rates being used as a political tool instead of an economic tool, the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, a whole raft of changes relating to LGBT+ rights (including repealing the hated clause 28, which even the Tories themselves later apologised for as a "mistake"), the minimum wage and all the new schools, hospitals and Sure Start children's centres that were built, the low pay commission, tax credits, devolution...

Look, I was very pro New Labour and records will show just how much good work they did, especially in the early years. There is no denying Brown later misjudged the economic climate and he, together with Ed Balls, took a different view on debt than other countries, even breaking their own golden rules. They continued and even escalated speanding money they didn’t have, true Labour, whilst many other countries looked to reduce debt. By the time of the Global crisis the UK were in a far worse position to cope and independent experts at the time forecast decades to repair the damage. They were right. Not fixing the roof whilst the sun shines, a term correctly used at the time. Brown and Balls f*cked up in the end. They assumed the good times would continue and got it wrong. After years of boom they ignored the possibility of busy. Ten years of poo poo followed.

But it’s wholly wrong to look at that and the WMD fiasco ans the barometer of their performance, which overall was pretty good. And Blair, like him or not, was a charismatic leader unlike any party leader since.

[Disoriented]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Sound like a real blue fella.

I said that earlier this week, do keep up dis.

However, everything he says is correct though so you can't fault him for that.

Birds of a feather ...

[StillSpike]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Also: independence of the Bank of England to stop interest rates being used as a political tool instead of an economic tool, the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, a whole raft of changes relating to LGBT+ rights (including repealing the hated clause 28, which even the Tories themselves later apologised for as a "mistake"), the minimum wage and all the new schools, hospitals and Sure Start children's centres that were built, the low pay commission, tax credits, devolution...

Look, I was very pro New Labour and records will show just how much good work they did, especially in the early years. There is no denying Brown later misjudged the economic climate and he, together with Ed Balls, took a different view on debt than other countries, even breaking their own golden rules. They continued and even escalated speanding money they didn’t have, true Labour, whilst many other countries looked to reduce debt. By the time of the Global crisis the UK were in a far worse position to cope and independent experts at the time forecast decades to repair the damage. They were right. Not fixing the roof whilst the sun shines, a term correctly used at the time. Brown and Balls f*cked up in the end. They assumed the good times would continue and got it wrong. After years of boom they ignored the possibility of busy. Ten years of poo poo followed.

But it’s wholly wrong to look at that and the WMD fiasco ans the barometer of their performance, which overall was pretty good. And Blair, like him or not, was a charismatic leader unlike any party leader since.

Do you have any links or backup to that extraordinary statement, or did you just invent that "fact"?

[Max B Gold]

I wonder if there's a chance RedO was being sarcastic ?

Possible. But it delivered a cracking reply.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Also: independence of the Bank of England to stop interest rates being used as a political tool instead of an economic tool, the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, a whole raft of changes relating to LGBT+ rights (including repealing the hated clause 28, which even the Tories themselves later apologised for as a "mistake"), the minimum wage and all the new schools, hospitals and Sure Start children's centres that were built, the low pay commission, tax credits, devolution...

Look, I was very pro New Labour and records will show just how much good work they did, especially in the early years. There is no denying Brown later misjudged the economic climate and he, together with Ed Balls, took a different view on debt than other countries, even breaking their own golden rules. They continued and even escalated speanding money they didn’t have, true Labour, whilst many other countries looked to reduce debt. By the time of the Global crisis the UK were in a far worse position to cope and independent experts at the time forecast decades to repair the damage. They were right. Not fixing the roof whilst the sun shines, a term correctly used at the time. Brown and Balls f*cked up in the end. They assumed the good times would continue and got it wrong. After years of boom they ignored the possibility of busy. Ten years of poo poo followed.

But it’s wholly wrong to look at that and the WMD fiasco ans the barometer of their performance, which overall was pretty good. And Blair, like him or not, was a charismatic leader unlike any party leader since.

So just to clarify, it wasn't Blair (1997 - 2007) who was responsible for the financial crisis, it was Brown and Balls (2007). Got it.

What an absolute fu*king clown.

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Also: independence of the Bank of England to stop interest rates being used as a political tool instead of an economic tool, the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, a whole raft of changes relating to LGBT+ rights (including repealing the hated clause 28, which even the Tories themselves later apologised for as a "mistake"), the minimum wage and all the new schools, hospitals and Sure Start children's centres that were built, the low pay commission, tax credits, devolution...

Good point - on the one hand you have some Sure Start centres up and down the country, on the other hundreds of thousands (millions?) dead foreigns. It's a tough call.

[Max B Gold]

Look at his record indeed. 10 years of aggressive foreign policy and illegal wars. 10 years of deregulation that resulted in the financial crisis of 2007/08. 10 years of PFI that the NHS is still paying for. 10 years of bringing in tuition fees that leaves the young with a mountain of debt. 10 years of rising inequality. And so on and so on.

No thanks.

Also: independence of the Bank of England to stop interest rates being used as a political tool instead of an economic tool, the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, a whole raft of changes relating to LGBT+ rights (including repealing the hated clause 28, which even the Tories themselves later apologised for as a "mistake"), the minimum wage and all the new schools, hospitals and Sure Start children's centres that were built, the low pay commission, tax credits, devolution...

Good point - on the one hand you have some Sure Start centres up and down the country, on the other hundreds of thousands (millions?) dead foreigns. It's a tough call.

The benefits of an "independent" Bank of England needs to be explained further exploring the concepts of political and economic tools in the context of the concept of political economy.

I'm too lazy to do this can you oblige?

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

I'm too lazy and stupid, so no.

[Dohnut]

Also: independence of the Bank of England to stop interest rates being used as a political tool instead of an economic tool, the Good Friday Agreement, the Human Rights Act, removing most hereditary peers from the House of Lords, a whole raft of changes relating to LGBT+ rights (including repealing the hated clause 28, which even the Tories themselves later apologised for as a "mistake"), the minimum wage and all the new schools, hospitals and Sure Start children's centres that were built, the low pay commission, tax credits, devolution...

Look, I was very pro New Labour and records will show just how much good work they did, especially in the early years. There is no denying Brown later misjudged the economic climate and he, together with Ed Balls, took a different view on debt than other countries, even breaking their own golden rules. They continued and even escalated speanding money they didn’t have, true Labour, whilst many other countries looked to reduce debt. By the time of the Global crisis the UK were in a far worse position to cope and independent experts at the time forecast decades to repair the damage. They were right. Not fixing the roof whilst the sun shines, a term correctly used at the time. Brown and Balls f*cked up in the end. They assumed the good times would continue and got it wrong. After years of boom they ignored the possibility of busy. Ten years of poo poo followed.

But it’s wholly wrong to look at that and the WMD fiasco ans the barometer of their performance, which overall was pretty good. And Blair, like him or not, was a charismatic leader unlike any party leader since.

Do you have any links or backup to that extraordinary statement, or did you just invent that "fact"?

Journals.openedition.org. Nicholas Sowells. Written in 2011. As for it being fact! Like most stuff written by these so called experts it is their opinion. But from memory it was a decent opinion. But fact? Who knows, I don’t. Have a read and make up your own mind.

Just done a search. doi.org/10.4000/osb.1136

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

Who?

[StillSpike]

So Gideon Osborne (who you'd think would have had a vested interest in backing up the claims you've made that the Brown/Darling "overspending" would lead to problems that would take decades to recover) was just chatting sh*t when he said his policies would eliminate the deficit by 2015, then?

[Admin]

Why do any of you even engage with the old duffer? He knows full well what he’s doing along with tin foil hat specialist Thor.

It won’t be long before he’ll be blaming the poor and fat again.

[Dohnut]

Who?

A good read, Whether you agree or not. Like I said, it’s not fact (some is) but opinion. Much of it though coincides with my feelings about New Labour, what they achieved and finally how they (Brown) screwed up. So you could say I am biased in what it spouts as being a fair reflection

Have a look.

It is a fair reflection in my opinion of how the past 10 years of austerity was born. And my concerns over some of Corbyns ideas.

[Dohnut]

So Gideon Osborne (who you'd think would have had a vested interest in backing up the claims you've made that the Brown/Darling "overspending" would lead to problems that would take decades to recover) was just chatting sh*t when he said his policies would eliminate the deficit by 2015, then?

I’m not defending Osborne. A Chancellor talking sh*t? What next? This article is not about the Tories handling or mishandling the situation they inherited, just an opinion on why it happened. An opinion I agree with. Brown went from a sensible Chancellor to someone on a massive ego trip hell bent on making his mark in history. Just my opinion.

[Max B Gold]

So Gideon Osborne (who you'd think would have had a vested interest in backing up the claims you've made that the Brown/Darling "overspending" would lead to problems that would take decades to recover) was just chatting sh*t when he said his policies would eliminate the deficit by 2015, then?

I’m not defending Osborne. A Chancellor talking sh*t? What next? This article is not about the Tories handling or mishandling the situation they inherited, just an opinion on why it happened. An opinion I agree with. Brown went from a sensible Chancellor to someone on a massive ego trip hell bent on making his mark in history. Just my opinion.

So the near collapse of world capitalism can now be explained by the over blown ego of one man? You pulling our plonkers?

[Admin]

Of course he is. Why are you even bothering?

[Max B Gold]

Of course he is. Why are you even bothering?

Why are you trying to stifle debate on here?