大象传媒

Oh well that's okay then...it's a tax and spend time boimb rather than a tax bombshell.

No wonder they look worried.

This is a disgrace form the no more boom and bust man of hubris.

Trying to silence the opposition before they've even had chance to reply is both control freakery and paranoia.

But then newlabour and Gordon brown are nothing other than paranoid control freaks; as are their apologists who seek to manage the newsflow.

Call an election.

One thing's for certain: We'll all end up paying more!

We all have to watch carefully what Gordon Brown actually does rather than what he actually says.

The two are usually quite different, and we'll just have to wait and see what the reality of this actually is......

Can we have a link to Listen to the report, I cant access a TV at the mo but can find no links on the bbc site other than live text update!

This government has lived beyond its means and so have the population of the UK for the last 10 years.
Is Alistair Darling going to spell that out; if not there will be a Tax bomb where it is timed or otherwise?

Unless and until 拢50bn a year is taken off government expenditure he is just playing politics.

So, why you may wonder should this government be candid now?

You may wonder have you taken leave of your senses to believe that this government would be candid about anything.

One good reason is to try to put the Tories on the spot.

Yeah. No doubt. Country in recession. Bust of the biggest housing bubble in UK history. National debt doubled. Largest defecits of any major country going into a recession. UK consumer mortgaged to the eyeballs. UK consumer with the highest personal debt levels on this or any known planet. But Gordon Brown is focussing on the key issue.

Put the Tories on the spot. Attempt to distract people from the complete mess that they (Labour) made of the economy.

Good to see they've still got that eye for detail.

Will Labour finally see sense and quietly slow the growth in government spending?

Isn't this what Cameron said they should do last week? Along with the business tax proposal Osborne and Cameron have been touting for the last few months?

Credit where credit is due Nick? I mean, 大象传媒, objective, 大象传媒, objective.

And where is this spending squeeze?

In 2005 we were promised by Brown that they would be reducing the civil service by 75,000.

Last week, we find out not only has it ballooned but they've hired 50,000 more in the last six months against 300,000 private sector job losses.

In reality, it's a credibility gap.

So we trust the people that got us into this mess to get us out? Proven track record to careful economic stewardship, etc, etc, etc.

Or do we go for a change based on what they promise to do; to get us out of this mess?

Here in lies the rub.

History points to a unenviable track record.

Labour do not revive ailing economies, they never have, they make them worse.

Pound in your pocket.
Crisis, what crisis?
No more boom and bust?

Time for a change.

Will Labour finally see sense and quietly slow the growth in government spending?

Isn't this what Cameron said they should do last week? Along with the business tax proposal Osborne and Cameron have been touting for the last few months?

Credit where credit is due Nick?

And where is this spending squeeze?

In 2005 we were promised by Brown that they would be reducing the civil service by 75,000.

Last week, we find out not only has it ballooned but they've hired 50,000 more in the last six months against 300,000 private sector job losses.

In reality, it's a credibility gap.

So we trust the people that got us into this mess to get us out? Proven track record to careful economic stewardship, etc, etc, etc.

Or do we go for a change based on what they promise to do; to get us out of this mess?

Here in lies the rub.

History points to a unenviable track record.

Labour do not revive ailing economies, they never have, they make them worse.

Pound in your pocket.
Crisis, what crisis?
No more boom and bust?

Time for a change.

Reality check....
2.5% VAT reduction = 2.1% price reduction, on 'luxuries'.
If retailers pass it through, and do not absorb it as part of their inflation price rises, which, by the straw pole I've done, is what will happen.
Then next year 'our beloved chancellor' will be able to blame the retailers for all his woes.
By the way, any good retailer (who does behave) may I remind you, is an unpaid tax collector, who will have to change software, shop prices, possibly standing orders, direct-debits and goodness knows what else to enable this political excuse to fail!
All at the cost to the retailer!

it seems this government have lost the plot entirely they have turned on every thing the party they are pretending to be stands for and have stolen any other policy that looks good to the media and future voters.

looking at all these parties today they are all the same and any difference is negligable.

gone are the days when you voted with conviction and had a party that stood alone in its willing to do whats right.

now voters dont realy have a choice its a battle of personalities now and to be honest that is not what british politics is about.

these parties are corrupt inept and should retire from westminster honurably and resign themselves to the history books.

does this country deserve such bad governments?

should the parlimentary system be overhauled??

should mp's be elected just on popularity through the media???

should we the voters be conned and poorly treated by mp's that are elected and fail to uphold their promisses, or should there be a real change for the good.

Nick,

If, as you suggest, Brown is going to be candid then, once the electorate understands the full impact of the recession we are facing, Brown is facing disaster. He cannot escape the truth of the debts and the interest payments we are having to pay or repay.

However, as expected, Darling has started with all the usual platitudes and accusations of problems the world over. This is all about winning the next election and wrong footing the Conservatives, not about the truth and the tough decisions we have to face.

I am not looking forward to the next 30 minutes, never mind the next 5 years.

all the best

You have a headline on the 大象传媒 website about Darling " predicting " the shrinkage of the UK economy in 2009.
Did the OECD not " predict " this some time ago?
(Not to mention my elderly neighbour, who says he's glad he's on his way out as opposed to the way in!)

If the Tories actually want to win the next election then they must simply be addicted to power for its own sake, as is the present government.

The nimble Labour critters will quickly tar the Tories with the blame for the results of 13 years of Gordon Brown and they will be turfed out in a landslide in 2015 or thereabouts.

Better sitting this one out if they really want to do good and let Labour dig itself into extinction.

No nasty surprises lurking in the small print....


Well thatll be a Nu Labour first.

So VAT will be dropped by 2.5% from next monday - well I won't go shopping this weekend then!

Ironically the one place where most people will notice the VAT decrease (fuel prices) the government are going to increase duty to compensate.

And to think Labour attacked the Tories when they mentioned increasing taxes on fuel when the price dropped!

Oh my god.
You really are now just regurgitating whatever the Labour spin machine tells you. Perhaps you should look back through previous budgets with Brown's fingerprints all over them, every one contained some sort of clever trick, subtle wording or small print that the initial reading left out. Not willing to mention the 10p tax debarcle that every journalist missed last year? There will be a sting in the tail, there always is.

Add to this the fact, yes fact that Brown has never, ever correctly predicted the national debt. It has ALWAYS been higher than forecast. Will next year be any different? No. So he won't have enough even if he does raise more money from tax increases that he has told us about.

Interestingly enough, two years ago I did not here anybody complaining about the 'housing buble'! Then everybody was happy that a shabby one-bedroom flat was in the price range of above 拢250000 and people were queueing to get mortgages at 120% of the price. Nor anybody complained about the public spending, when that meant 4 hours waiting times in A&E and no waiting lists for operations.

Now that the time has come to pay for the mortgages, the holidyas in Spain, the fleatscreen TV and the 4X4 on credit, everybody seems to blame the Government. There is nobody else to blame for the 'housing buble' and the huge personal debt of the public, but ourselves.

So...
"retailers, I expect you to drop your prices, with all the costs that will involve, but I'm keeping the price of fuel up'
hummm!

#18

Now that the time has come to pay for the mortgages, the holidyas in Spain, the fleatscreen TV and the 4X4 on credit, everybody seems to blame the Government. There is nobody else to blame for the 'housing buble' and the huge personal debt of the public, but ourselves.

Where have you been for the last 11 years, then?

Predicted 78bn deficit this year and 118 bn next year. 8% of GDP. Debt as a %age of GDP expected to keep rising until 2015/2016. Rising to 57% of GDP.

And we all know this government has never in over a decade in all it's pre-budget and actual budget predictions come in under budget. Not once. Five predictions every budget 'Deficit this year will be 35bn, next year 28bn, following year 18bn etc etc blah blah.'

Come next year guess what?

SNAP!

'Deficit this year will be 35bn, next year 28bn, following year 18bn etc etc blah blah.'

And here they are actually predicting deficits of 78bn and 118bn, 105bn, blah blah.

So we can confidently predict it will be more like 100bn for 2008/2009 and 140bn for 2009/2010.

And predicting only two quarters of recession next year too with overall negative growth of 0.75% to 1.25%. Only four quarters of negative growth? The biggest housing bust in UK history? Redundancies predicted at 250,000 per quarter for the next year but our economy will be growing Q3 2009? Pure invention.

Then fantasy of fantasy a positive growth for 2010/2011 of 1.5% to 2.0% and borrowing still at 105bn. Borrowing 7% of GDP to get a 2.0% 'growth'. The same beautiful minds that had us borrowing 3% of GDP for the last five years to get 2% 'growth'.

They really do just make this stuff up don't they.

Nick, other than Leader of the World Brown-job, are you the only one who actually believes what Labour puts in its manifestos? (Sorry, I forgot about Margaret Beckett)

Please make my day and tell me you do.

Please

Pleasy pleasy please!

Keynes was turning in his grave, now he has split his sides laughing.

#20 Your point being?

Let me put your mind at rest- I do not own a flat-screen TV, I drive a 1998 Ford Escort and have never been to Spain.

P.S. And I do not blame the Government for the 'housing buble'.

If the old legend is correct, a Scot wears nothing under his kilt. By the same token, I don't think Brown has anything under his hat!

Dear Nick,

On the "Daily Politics" show today, I see you are wearing a chalk stripe suit, as is Andrew Neal. Your stripes are smaller, and I started to consider the reason. Were these suits Xmas gifts from the 大象传媒, or is there now to be uniformity in clothing as well as political slant? Of course I may be wrong, as usual, and maybe the 大象传媒 is now issuing a uniform dependent upon seniority and salary scale. Will this mean that the dreadful Jonathan Ross will wear a suit with stripes reminiscent of a pajama?

I hear alot of wingeing Tories who presumably were quite content during the four recessions inflicted upon us by incompetent Tory administrations. Labour's mistake is following too closely the Tory capitalist model.

Capitalism is fine and will stimulate growth, but needs constraints. The head in the sand approach by both Labour and Tory to the 'beast' has led to us sleep walking into yet another recession.

We now need to do something (Tory proposals have been pathetic) and I'm afraid the government has also missed a trick. The real trick will be to use the money wisely (VAT cut will do little or nothing) and raise taxes fairly (45p upper tax is a step in the right direction). I don't see any competent suggestions from the Tories.

Why doesn't the government listen to the only parliamentarian who seems to know what he's talking about - Vince Cable!

What a lot of bellyaching, whinging, 鈥榠nsults to Her Majesty鈥檚 Realm鈥� some of you shabby lot are鈥�

Pay your dues as Her Majesty鈥檚 Government deems just within the shared global circumstances being as they are against present and certain fiscal odds鈥�

Call Yourself British鈥�?

You鈥檙e mere Blaggards! Cowards! Cads! Neardowells! who Kilroy would never want to rendezvous with鈥�

Pssst!

"Question marks" "Question Marks" so many question marks digitally and illogically substituted for "Exclamation Marks" or "Parentheses" originally and properly inputted when having posted 鈥減ost comment鈥� posting.