Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 22, 2012, 10:15:40 AM
I just realised I put conservatism which wasn't the right term at all, at least not that broad. Fiscal conservatism. But you think LibLab is the way forward?

I actually completely agree with your post further down about all of the parties being a shower of sh*te. Revolution is the way forward, none of this better the devil you know you crap. 

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 22, 2012, 12:14:47 PM
Some would argue that the Conservatives always have to pick up the pieces of Labour's failed mess...

Personally, I don't think any of the parties are any good. Biblical showers of sh*te, the lot of them, which is why I don't vote.

Except it works both ways. Labour have to fix the country after the Conservatives too. Then, by the time the public get an opportunity to decide to kick out an incumbent, there is either an incredible level of damage or they have fixed it. The other side of that is the incumbents are usually starting to cure the issue.

Even when Maggie got into power the Labour government were already starting to pull the country back together and get onto fixing the unions, they knew how, all they needed was the political impetus to do it. The strange thing is she managed to work it on a parlimentary basis, at voting it was great for the majority, a time of boom. In between the cabinet had to put the brakes on and the country went bust.

The then Tory leadership were starting to fix their mess but didn't have the time to do so before the next elections when Labour got back in. Unfortunately for them they had so much bad baggage by that point to carry that the only possible way to fix it was to rip the party back to basics. That's still not finished, it's something that takes a long time.

Last time it wasn't so much the Labour leadership to blame, they got caught in a world wide event. The Conservatives would have put their feet in the same huge hole. At the time Labour were using small c conservative tactics as much as right wing. Their mistake was they assumed that growth would continue seemingly forever, and they could therefore spend, spend, spend.

Had the US not gone down the pan first that might have continued, at least for another few years. The UK had it really good under New Labour until that point. Again, they were fixing the issues, the problem being they could only fix UK Ltd at a rate limited by all other countries. Had there been a quick fix option then they might have used it.

Again, as with the Tories, they had been gathering a lot of baggage, Iraq, Afghanistan and other drains on the money supply were not going to go away quickly. Much of the damage was psychological rather than physical, the reasons they invaded Iraq and the bad publicity spawned through it dragged them down.

Examining the way the country was going when the Conservatives/Liberals were elected into power as a coalition, had they just twiddled their thumbs the country would have sorted itself out anyway, same as was happening when Blair led his lot to victory.

Showers of sh*te might be accurate, but sh*te is still fertiliser of sorts.

Quote from: Clock'd 0Ne on March 22, 2012, 12:14:47 PM
Some would argue that the Conservatives always have to pick up the pieces of Labour's failed mess...

Personally, I don't think any of the parties are any good. Biblical showers of sh*te, the lot of them, which is why I don't vote.

labour created this mess though. Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.
its the usual cycle.. cons save money, people get fed up, labour comes in & blows it all, people think its good, then it goes tits up.
wash & repeat.

As for the budget - its been good for me. I dont smoke. Im a low earner & Im also going to pay less corporation tax.
Dont drive a company car anymore.

The budget works out pretty well for me too for the same reasons. At the end of the day someone has to get hit by it though, some people are fools and think the govt. can magic money up out of the Downing Street top hat (usually the same voters seeking all the handouts to pee their lives away on the dole and having a missus that is a baby factory).

Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 08:13:16 AM
labour created this mess though. Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.
its the usual cycle.. cons save money, people get fed up, labour comes in & blows it all, people think its good, then it goes tits up.
wash & repeat.

They might have overspent but they were not the only ones involved in creating the mess, most of the blame can be pinned to the American Bush government and the European ones. The actual recession was caused by business indulging in stupidity and deceit.

As I said, if the Tories had been in power we would have had almost the same problems. Government spending might have been slightly lower but tax on the rich would have been the same.

Let's not pretend the govt. are so naive as to not know about it or that they themselves haven't been feeding from the trough, in bed with banks and big businesses. You are right though, regardless of who would be in power we would have this problem - because they are all a shower of sh*te.

Quote from: Serious on March 23, 2012, 10:06:25 AM

Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 08:13:16 AM
labour created this mess though. Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.
its the usual cycle.. cons save money, people get fed up, labour comes in & blows it all, people think its good, then it goes tits up.
wash & repeat.

They might have overspent but they were not the only ones involved in creating the mess, most of the blame can be pinned to the American Bush government and the European ones. The actual recession was caused by business indulging in stupidity and deceit.

As I said, if the Tories had been in power we would have had almost the same problems. Government spending might have been slightly lower but tax on the rich would have been the same.

i agree it still would have happened, but there would be no way the housing market boom would have happened & people having so much personal debt.
People found it much easier to get credit under labour so a lot of things got priced hiked as people had the false pretense of having more disposable income

Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 19:33:24 PM
People found it much easier to get credit under labour so a lot of things got priced hiked as people had the false pretense of having more disposable income

I dont remember Labour giving the credit out, it was greedy banks who were unable to see that their overexposure to dodgy markets would eventually catch up with them when everyone realised the vast majority of Western growth was powered by unsustainable debt.

For that very same reason Labour overspent, they also didn't realise the debt bubble would burst as it did. Labour can be blamed for the overspending during their Government when they should have been saving for a rainy day, but that is exactly how politics works in a democracy. Why plan for the future when there is a high probability you wont be in power? Especially if the purse strings are being tightly controlled.

Career politicians exacerbate the problem even more because their sole purpose is to wield the power they so desire.

Quote from: Serious on March 23, 2012, 10:06:25 AM
They might have overspent but they were not the only ones involved in creating the mess, most of the blame can be pinned to the American Bush government and the European ones.

Actually you can place plenty of blame on Bill Clinton, African Americans and David Bowie...

Quote from: Eggtastico on March 23, 2012, 08:13:16 AM
Only the banking sector glossed over the amount of money they blew - including our gold reserves.

Come to think of it I wonder how much it was, and the difference would have been at most £9 billion. And you keep on trying that every time a political thread comes up.

During the Thatcher government they sold off  over £50 billion in government owned assets, at a fraction of their real worth. BT was claimed to need investment money in order to modernise, then it was sold and it turned out that the money magically appeared inside the company.

Now the Tory a**hole in downing street is talking about selling off RBS shares to Abu Dhabi, at a 50% loss. So that could be another £7 billion plus loss from the CONservatives.

So, the Tories have wasted far more of your money than Labour.