大象传媒

Laura:

Glad you picked up on this... Guido had it on his site, with the following tag...

"That means the government was over-spending by more than 拢258 million per day last month, which is living beyond our collective means by more than 拢10 million an hour, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Gordon Brown and Ed Ball鈥檚 reckon the government should spend even more. John Redwood blogs 鈥淣o wonder the Governor thinks we ought to print some more money 鈥� who is going to lend us all this?鈥� The Zimbabwean dollar rose 15% against the British pound last month鈥�

UPDATE : The FT reports that this morning 鈥渟aw another lacklustre gilt sale from the UK Debt Management Office.鈥�

Ouch....

Labout truly are a busted flush, ruining the economy like they always do. 拢8 billion shortfall in what is traditionsally the best month for income due to Corporation Tax payments is a disaster, that WE will all have to pay for.

Laura, how about highlighting the real number of those of working age but not in work, which is over 6 million, when all benefit claimants are taken into account. That is also a drain on the economy we cannot afford.

As for Darling saying we will have to live within our means, that is a bit rich coming from a government that has doubled the overall national debt in only 3 years.

Don't forget PFI!

Excellent blog for drawing attention to what is a good day to bury bad news.

From figures quoted on 大象传媒 this morning 'experts' were expecting 拢500 million borrowing as July is normally the month when money pours into the Treasury coffers.

Chancellor Darling says it's in line with his expectations. Really? 拢8 billion?

It's obviously time we found out why once again the 'experts' have got it so badly wrong.

If July was supposed to be the best month what can we expect thereafter.

Are we now borrowing to have to pay interest on our borrowing. If so that is truly the beginning of the end. Some bad news alright.

Perhaps we need a new criminal offense; Committing acts of deceit in public office.

This could include such things as trying to cover up the truth, publishing misleading figures, double accounting, and not honouring a manifesto pledge (eg holding a referendum on the Euro Constitution).

If such a Law were enacted, many of the current Politburo would soon be donating samples of their DNA.

I am reminded of Jo Moore and 9/11!

It would appear that the day of the release of the alleged Lockerbie bomber is a good day to put out the figures detailing the horendous state of the UK givernment finances.

Got any spare change Mr IMF?

Problem is I think his answer is "Nope...we're all broke"

No surprises there then. The Opposition Parties have been saying this since an election before May 2010 was virtually ruled out. This Government has frequently denied that there is a problem; is this because they are more or less assured of losing next year's General Election?
Then there is the suggestion that they have no interest whatsoever about the U.K., win or lose they can go skulking back to a devolved Scotland. Possibly they have some scheme in mind that will allow them all to take well paid jobs so they have none of the worries that affect the non-political members of society.
If I am wrong, then I am sure that their supporters on these pages, will leap to their defence.

Perhaps the Chancellor might like to fly to Libya as well this afternoon.

From being an economy well-positioned to come out from the recession early we have still not arrived at the most basic level now achieved by the French, the Germans and the Japanese. Yet another undertaking failed by this government!

For as long as we linger in the lower league the less able we will be start beginning to recover from the grotesque indebtedness into which this government and their friends in the City have left us. Indeed it seems why should they even bother to change anything as they are alright with their bonuses from taking silly risks, their so-called poverty rations, and the generosity of the taxpayer.

For the last month I have been mystified by the apparent coma which has fallen upon the political class. I understand they are all on holiday. I am so pleased they have all this time to relax as whilst they consume the lotus the real economy is still hurtling down the slope with no brakes, no parachute and with no sign of the hard landing yet.

Now we have reached the point in which income tax receipts are insufficient to meet the burgeoning bill for welfare payments. Yet despite this people who were put out of work earlier this year are finding that their job-seekers allowance is now finished. The political liability for the failure of the government's economic policies is starting to ratchet up. Yet, does anyone really care?

It seems to me that the government is relaxing in the mistaken assumption that quantative easing is helping to launder the gilt market so there is nothing much to worry about. We need GBP 175 billion to make up the public spending deficit and the Governor has just brought the identical amount into existence by binary magic.

Now I know that QE is there to fill the black hole of debt left by imploding banks late last year. My question is does the Prime Minister actually realise that, or does he think that QE will solve all his fiscal problems?

My concern is that there has been no attempt so far to try and cut the size of government to fit the available cloth. There are already stealth cuts going on in the public sector where institutiuons suddenly discover that anticipated funding has not appeared. How are these so-called efficiency measures actually determined if they are indeed determined?

We have just had a silly debate over the NHS, but without income streams from the real economy there cannot be an NHS worthy of the name.

There are going to have to be significant cuts in public spending and the budgets are going to have to be amended accordingly. Now is the time to plan those changes for implementation from this autumn. Is this happening? I think not. I believe nothing is happening: the only government policy is that of Micawber; something wil turn up.

In my view we are now watching the death of social-democracy in Britain. The government cannot think its way out of the conundrum of having no money to spend but lots to spend it on. The government is stuck, unable to decide what to do as to do what needs to be done will have a profound effect on its client-state.

Something has to be done: what none of us can afford now is for the government to fail at even that most basic level. If nothing is done - and I fear that will be the case - then there can only be further decline, further debt and further pain. The only way out then will be slash and burn cuts on a fearsome scale. This will only serve to make matters worse.

At least Nero played the violin whilst Rome burned. All we get is whining about the Tories. Never mind the Tories, what is Labour going to do?

The fact that the information is slipped out on the QT while the public's attention is focused on the Lockerbie bomber situation demonstrates that New Labour has not changed and that they still avoid the open transparency that taxpayers want.

It's also true that given the financial situation New Labour could increase taxes slightly now to ameliorate the rises that will be coming later on, but cowards though they are New Labour are going to do nothing now until after the general election in the vain hope that they will be re-elected.

By that time the situation will be a lot worse and more draconian measures will be needed. It's the equivalent of an NHS patient having to have an infected leg removed simply because the doctor did not take the necessary remedial action when treating the patient's original complaint, an infected toenail, allowing the infection to spread.

Have New Labour never heard that prevention is better than cure?

This is a classic:

Despite that the chancellor told the 大象传媒 this lunchtime that the figures were "still broadly in line with what we were expecting",

expecting when? in the boom? October 2008? Earlier this year? last week? 5 minutes before the numbers came out?

What a load of old tripe.

They Government have truned into bad Tarot card readers - everytime a piece of information comes out they throw out a statement of "oh, yes, we were expecting that"

....and just as mediums have been found out as frauds - so will the Government.

If, as you will all no doubt remember we are the Country best placed to face this recession and we produce figures like this, the rest of the world must be cr4pping themselves. Apart from Canada, Australia, Japan, France and Germany obviously, but apparently they don't count, in the we are the country best placed quote because that would make Gordon look like he may have told a few fibs about the true state of our economy.

The DNA database may be an important crime fighting tool but so were all those records kept by the Stasi, KGB, etc. Not a good enough reason to have it.

At last Laura someone is mentioning the important issue, which seems to have been ignored by everyone.

There will be no recovery, these figures and they most certainly will not be the true ones are horrifying. We are now in last chance saloon. Darling should be called to Parliament to explain why these large sums exceed any forecasts for borrowing.

What on earth is King doing at the Bank of England, banks are keeping cash and lending it back to the Government. The private sector on which we depend for our taxes is not being allowed credit to continue, while the massive public sector is still receiving more money and jobs to keep unemployment down.

Tax receipts are down due to business in the private sector not getting credit and what there is, is expensive to obtain and the silly VAT cuts. This lack of balance between the public sector and the private is a recipe for disaster and is contributing to our debt everyday. Added to this is our ballooning debt, who is going to lend us this kind of money. We will have to print more.

This can only be scorched earth policy and Brown must be brought to account for bringing this Country down, as it most certainly will be.

We now have debt upon debt this is an impossible situation for the Country. My suggestion is that this Government must be removed from office as soon as possible before they can do any more damage. However if I were the Conservatives I would not want to take on an economy in this state. Especially with an uninformed public who are blissfully unaware of how bad things are.

My deep concern is not necessarily the amounts, although they are eye-watering, but that it seems to be spiralling out of control. The government just do no admit that there is a problem and until they do so how can we have any confidence that it is under control.

With regard to 'living within it's means' - well it was interesting to hear 2 Economists piffling their guff on Radio4 this morning.

They are convinced that Britain won't default on their debts - why? - well because they expect the next Government (whichever loonies get in) to immediately announce huge spending cuts (although I bet they don't before the election).
This is what the markets are counting on - which is why the 拢 is not in a larger hole than it is.

However - just as Economist always do, they are forgetting that these 'spending cuts' are peoples jobs, services and livelihoods and even the muted British public don't like their freebies being taken away.

The next Government is already backed into a corner, without the cuts they risk default and Economic disaster, and with them they face huge social unrest and disorder.

Not quite how the Economists saw it - but then what do they know, they're only Economists and obviously don't know what they are doing or they would have prevented it happening in the first place!

....Darwin said we eveolved from monkeys? - I don't think some people ever actually evolved at all. The monkeys must be laughing at us because they all know they can feed themselves and don't rely on a useless paper money system to survive - for them it's all about the bananas.

If Darling is really saying we must live within our means he is wrong. What we should have been doing for the last 10 years is living within our means but then "borrowing to invest", "no return to book and bust" was the big Gordon lie.

What we have to do is live below our means because we are going to have to pay not only the interest but the capital that we are borrowing. Whatever politicians tell us we are in for a hard 20 years.

Thanks a bunch Gordon, your crazy idea didn't work and you have trashed the English economy. There's one current MP who should stand down at the next election, but then he is never wrong, everyone else is aren't they?

ah well, in for a penny in for a pound

I'd say we're like a guy who's almost completely broke ... deep in debt, only a couple of quid in the back pocket ... and the only way he can pay the money back is to get a job

so, does he ...

(1) spend the two pounds on a ham and mustard sandwich, get his strength back, and get a job?

or:

(2) use the cash to repay a tiny portion of his debt, leaving himself penniless and unable to eat, and thus too weak to even contemplate getting a job?

(1) is Labour policy and (2) is what a Clown would advise

tough call, isn't it?

False statistics seem to be all the rage at the moment (I know technically this is about a forecast rather than a statistic, but the difference is really only temporal). Anyone could surely forsee that unless the cycle is broken that tax revenues will fall and benefit claims go up. Relying on a forecast that assumes otherwise is whistling Dixie. I don't think that asking for either action (start cutting public spending NOW) or the truth (we need to start cutting public spending but won't countenance it till after the election) is too much to ask at this critical stage.

Meanwhile, we're for British companies to hire talent from abroad, meaning that innovation and wealth-creation continues to be hampered for the long term.

Utter madness.

The goverment forgot to list:-
PFI
Student loan company
Railtrack loan garantees
Nucular power station decomisioning grantees
Bank grantees
Bank buy out
unfunded nation pension scheams
unfunded civil servent pension scheams
the list goes on and on
when they declaired the level of debt

Good piece of reporting, thanks Laura.

Of course the government/BoE will cover this with a smokescreen of some sort. Other financial news today is designed to offset the gloom. Apparently we are spending more in the shops than last month. In addition, it seems that more mortgages are being granted.

Neither of these are really positive, because each has a down-side (very low interest rates) that is already affecting some of us.

Increased spending is possible partly because low interest rates put more back into the pockets of the indebted. The new mortgages are funded by imaginary money that will have to be made real after the election by raising more tax.

So someone is winning! But it isn't my elderly mother-in-law who depends on her meagre savings. And it isn't me - I'm saving as fast as possible because I think I will be forced into unpaid redundancy within months.

PS

You are too modest: your intro says you are "holding the fort." I'd say you are doing more than that. Extending the military metaphor, I'd say you are also patrolling the perimeter and conducting preemptive strikes.

"But the eagle eyed among you might have noticed the government borrowing figures published today. They were always going to be bad, but this bad?"

Dear Laura, you don't have to be eagle-eyed to realise that the Treasury is deep in the smelly stuff.

Of course, it's not their fault. It all "started in the USA" and was, presumably, not on the horizon - although some people were warning about an over-reliance on a credit-based boom way back in 2003/04.

You have to feel sorry for Alistair Darling. He can hardly blame the previous Chancellor, can he? But it was the Brown Chancellorship that unleashed a tsunami of credit-bouyed "growth".

It could have been a controlled growth - but Big Gordon didn't want to put any brakes on an unsustainable boom. This was, after all, a cuddly New Labour Boom - not one of those nasty Tory booms...

Try telling that to the people whose privately managed pension schemes have been decimated (well more than 10 percent hacked off, actually).

Any surprise that, with a tri-partite oversight arrangement that didn't work, a lack of resolve to limit rediculous loan-to-value lending, a desire to spend as much as possible and call it "investment", the Big G focused only on tax-take?

Where has all the money gone?

Forget the Ponzi schemes, we have had political fraud here in the UK over more than a decade. It's all based on passing the responsibility for paying off massive debts to a younger generation. Well, on behalf of my children, thanks a lot!

I just have to offer this link because it shows the mindset on expenditure.

Interesting news stories all round today.

The debt figures for July lend more weight to what many of us have suspected fro some time, that the countries finances are in a much, much worse state than is being acknowledged. Who knows the true extent of the horror ?

Meanwhile, Alistair Darling is doing his best to distance the government from the Lockerbie bomber's release - "It's Kenny MacAskill's decision, that of the Scottish government. They have to make that decision. They have to justify whatever that decision is."

This obviously puts Gordy in a very difficult position, because his new best friend Barak Obama and his fellow US politicians are not likely to be pleased by this decision. And I'm not sure the "it was a Scottish decision" will wash in the US. I doubt the Americans will understand and appreciate the oddities of the devolution model, as no one else does either. This isn't helped by the number of Scottish MPs in cabinet and government - the Americans definitely won't get it. "A Scottish decision for a Scottish PM" is how they will probably see it !

So Gordy prefers to praise the democratic process in Afghanistan. Eventually, he may get round to allowing such democratic events such as an election in this country.

Disgusting Darling! "No More Boom & Bust"

As Aggers just said on TMS... "There's some spin out there!"

can't see how darling can honestly "spin" his way out of this hole. That'll be left to the tax payer. he should be sacked as should Gordon. How? By way of a GE!!!

Sick of Labour failure!

Between the lockerbie decision and the afghan elections it was always going to be a good day to bury bad news.

Does anybody still doubt the cynacism & dishonesty of this government.

As to the figures, they are nothing short of astonishing - whats the protocol for declaring national bankruptcy?

and is there any international statute against countries who carry on trading when bankrupt? because thats what this government is doing, and any idiot knows that spending money you haven't actually got will always end badly.

This situation has got to be controlled, Or sooner or later the country will be worst that of a third world, You just can't keep spending all this cash .Has this despicable shower of misfits no sense of wellbeing for any -one other than themselves? .All that shouting of policy improvements at the general electioneering time, was just a lot of hot air just two capture your floating voters?If Mr Cameron has any sense he will hand over control two some one else as its becoming mission impossible, and have nouthing to do with sorting out a bankrupt nation.

"sagamix wrote:
(1) is Labour policy and (2) is what a Clown would advise"

Labour's policy seems to be to get a bank loan and blow it all on scratch cards or go down the bookies. If it works then great, however if it doesn't we are all screwed.

18 sagamix

Saga, I know that you perceive yourself as having a job to do, and that Brownite propaganda won't just write and publish itself on its own, but your simile is so far wide of the mark it is in the "taking the public for fools" category.

At this moment, nobody in their right mind (and that very definitely includes the Conservatives) would anticipate paying off public debt any time soon. That's because the equivalent of your "couple of quid in the back pocket" has ALREADY BEEN SPENT! Frankly, in world terms, we are already busking and shaking our collective tin at passers by.

The first milestone in economic recovery is to slow down the rate at which the debt increases. That means dropping those projects that have no value - ID cards being the best example of all - and managing downwards those areas where excess expenditure is made for no added value - certain computer projects being good examples. (Emphasis - I am not suggesting that economic paradise can be achieved by cutting ID cards and a couple of big projects alone: they are EXAMPLES.) It is very important to note how much worthless waste is still being perpetuated by the current government. Their inability to admit that there is a debt crisis is a significant part of why debt is rising.

[As an aside, I am trying to think of what, in your silly simile, is the equivalent of Britain refreshing itself with a ham an mustard sandwich. Nope - nothing in the government's strategy seems to match your analogy at all.]

But just to make a final point, I have to ask you what you think is wrong, ultimately, with debt repayment? You seem to object to it, so you presumably have a thought-out position on the subject. You need to understand that debt is not like some sort of stain on the wallpaper, that can be ignored unless you reach some sort of level of efeteness that you seem to associate exclusively with the Tory mind. Debt is actually a very serious problem. Like it or not, the capital sum has to be paid off sometime. In the meantime, there is interest. We are spending more on interest now than we do on defence - soon, we may be spending more on interest than we do on education. The more debt we have, the more interest we pay - not just pro-rata with the debt but actually, the interest rates, as we have already found, go up as the debt goes up. Please remember we get no value from the interest we pay. It is just money (of which we currently have almost none) wasted, flushed away.

Saga, I'm sure we can both agree that debt repayment is for the future, not the present (and I doubt whether we will see a government of whatever colour being able to afford to do it for at least four years), but what is your problem (and, by extension, Labour's problem) with debt repayment?

Ah saga the old clown jibe again, you need some new material.

If only this governement was borrowing 拢2, I seem to recall a figure somewhere between 拢175 000 000 000 and 拢225 000 000 000.

But what's a few noughts between friends?

But you see for your analogy to work, our friend who uses his last 拢2 and eats the sandwich has to recognize the errors of his past and immediately change his profligate behaviours...

...send in the clowns.

Another clever Labour policy wasn't it? To give loss making businesses tax refunds for the past three years. What business on the edge would not show a loss to get this money back? What accountant would still have a client if he did not make them aware of it?

Then they wonder where the tax take has gone. Not just for the past year but they are now refunding against company losses for the previous two.

Then there is the VAT fiasco. Another 12 billion down the tubes

Unemployed people don't pay tax and there will be many more of them in the coming year or two or more.

The self-employed as always aren't counted in any statistics but many of them are working for incomes well below the poverty line and won't be earning enough to pay tax even if they are still doing business.

If the tax take is dire now can we imagine what it will be when this recession really starts to take its toll.

Perhaps the experts can give us some realistic statistics for once.

No wonder Mervyn King was looking so despondent.

He must be wondering how quickly he can retire before his public sector pension disappears down the Swannee

#18

No, Labour Policy is to pop into the Grand Hotel for a slap-up meal and stick it on an already maxed-out credit card.

Labour's delusion with regard to debt is perfectly summed-up here:



The really terrifying thing is that this guy, presumably, believes the nonsense he is writing. Either that, or this is the Crashmeister's cover story for completely trashing the public accounts in advance of an incoming Tory government.

Either way, it's nothing short of criminal.

Talk about a double bluff; while we were concentrating on the above two matters, the National Audit Office, disclosed the current Ministry of Defence finances.
I found this information on a Reuters report, issued within last hour. It is truly unbelievable. The N.A.O. cannot trace the wherabouts of 拢6.6 billion worth of U.K. defence equipment, made up of armoured vehicles, troop body armour and weapons. To quote "We are not saying that they are not there, we just cannot trace them."
This so disgusting when our young men and women are dying in Afghanistan, probably in part through lack of equipment. No wonder this Government and the M.O.D. did not want it disclosed.
I think that we, our troops and their families are owed an explanation, the TRUTH for once, not waffle.

Laura, "They were always going to be bad, but this bad?"

Oh yes. Don't forget to add on the off-balance-sheet PFI, Brown's banking spree, & future costs of the State Pension, in the face of the huge retirement due, & the however-many-million damaged, wasted, unemployed or just plain old unwanted, of the human wreckage. Those who cannot, will not, or are not, contributing anything, financially, to the country. Under that weight, without an even more iron will than Maggie, Cameron will be lucky to be alive, politically, in five years time. God help him, because nobody else can! Brown's dug the hole, now he's getting the rest of us to throw Cameron in it.

Shut down the state sector & deny payment to all those who claim from it (you'll see Toxteth, circa 1981, for that), in entirety &, on the back of a hugely reduced tax income for the government, the country might have the debts paid off, in five years time. Else, it'll take decades to sort out, without the populace doing the British equivalent of storming the Bastille, if it ever can be.

JR @ 30

Like it or not, the capital sum has to be paid off sometime

not true, actually - the debt has to be serviced but not repaid - if you are running at a "stable" debt level = 40 pc of GDP (which I know we aren't ... but just to illustrate my point) then you don't repay the capital, do you? - you just keep rolling it over and paying the interest - in fact, in the typical GDP increasing scenario (again, I know it's not ... but once more just to illustrate) the absolute value of the capital outstanding would increase ad infinitum - and that would be no problem - I think you're falling prey to the Thatcherite "country is like a household" notion - seductive because simple, but simplistic because wrong

filipino @ 31

the old clown jibe again, you need some new material

yes I know - you're right - I'm fond of it but it's no way good enough to last until the Election - don't want to end up like the 23rd series of Last Of The Summer Wine - you won't hear the C word again ... not from me anyhow

And July is supposed to be good month with bumper corporate taxes! Apparently, according to the 大象传媒 ceefax the expected borrowing figure for July was GBP 500 million or GBP 8.33 per person in the UK and it actually GBP 8 billion i.e. GBP 133.33 for every man woman and child in the UK.

Just remember back to 1997 "Things can only get better" was what Labour told us. Some hollow promise.

#34 b b jack I noticed the same comment to days ago in another news paper and i thought it was some one having a laugh how can all that equipment been overlooked A few heads should roll over this one surely
I can understand a dater base loss of computer equipment but all that gear its astonishing to say the least.

Of course, the next government could print paper, to pay it off, whilst maintaining all state benefits at their present level. Cue a nice, big dose of monetary inflation feeding through into price inflation. Watch the pound take a further huge dive, & the bond market perform an illusionary recovery (higher gilt prices, in the face of a weaker pound), when it happens. Then, expect the export market to do better & imports to dry up. Non-British produced goods would become too expensive, relative to British-based manufacturing. Interestingly, an encouragement to job creation in the manufacturing sector. Primarily, this should depend on how the pound interacts with the Chinese/Yuan market. Though, the purchasing power of Sterling-based personal savings will get trashed under a BoE printing (i.e. inflationary) situation.

#36 "you just keep rolling it over and paying the interest"

You offer second-best, if the country can (eventually!) pay off the capital. Surely, you'd rather the country be debt-free? After all, the money, allocated towards paying for future debt interest, could then be used to help pay for, heaven forbid, the NHS. Though, perhaps not, hence once of the reasons why Labour will get kicked out, for not looking after their own er... interests.

saga 36

Strictly speaking, on a national scale, you are quite right. Any given debt (with the exception of undated gilts) has a finite term to it, but we typically pay it off with further borrowing. However, you are ignoring the interest burdon - in fact, you don't mention interest at all, which is amazing.

It remains the case that we have to pay interest on our indebtedness, that the interest we pay rises at least as fast as the debt we incurr, that we are paying huge amounts of interest that we could otherwise spend rather better on more worthwhile things (e.g. health and education), and that our current indebtedness is rising because the government fails to address the problem by cutting expenditure on unnecessary and over-expensive projects. These are all points from my original post. Since you didn't address them, I can only presume that you acknowledge that they are correct.

It also remains the case that the only practical way to reduce our expenditure on debt interest is to pay off some debt - albeit, as I think we both agree, that is for the future, not the present. It still seems to me, however, that you are inclined to disagree, and to assert that in some way paying off debt is bad. What is your alternative (if you have one)? Maybe you feel you can argue that in fact, our debt level is not excessive after all?

#37

So let's assume, just for a moment, that carrying a national debt of 40pc of GDP is both sustainable and desirable. Given a likely level of national output currently of, say GBP1250bn, that suggests a maximum level of debt of GBP500bn, so only an overshoot of over 100pc, then. And of course, as the economy contracts, the overshoot increases (I'm afraid your ever-increasing GDP scenario works both ways).

When would you suggest we start thinking about paying that overshoot back?

#41 Ello-Ello

I don't believe this country has been debt free since Pitt the Younger

Laura:

Yes, the black hole deepens...

To answer the 2 sets of remarks:

TAXES AND SPENDING etc...It could have been more and worst than expected; So, the bright spot is that the deficit is less than originally ....

DNA: What is the purpose of keeping people's DNA even through they have not been convicted ...

=Dennis Junior=

bango + JR + ello

the debt is too high, would be a strange person who thought it wasn't - but the true picture is far from clear, and it won't be until the banking numbers have worked their way through - depending on how that pans out, the debt scenario could be awful, or it could just be bad - big difference between awful and bad - what's close to certain, in my view, is that gilts will NOT be AAA rated within 3 years - they shouldn't be now, to be frank, and neither should US Treasuries - when the US is downgraded, that will be a BIG THING because so many other instruments are priced off it as a benchmark - looking forward to that, actually - long overdue - but gilts losing the AAA? - not important - not bothered - just the technicians catching up with reality

18. sagamix

Give a man a ham and mustard sandwich and he will eat for a day. Teach him how to make ham and mustard sandwiches and he will eat for a lifetime.

So, Saga, which party will improve education, so he can learn sandwich-making and accountancy, and which party will force the banks to lend again, so he's able to open a sandwich shop??

blame @ 47

nice one! - and yes 2 vital things, as you rightly say ... upgrading education (so probably moving towards an end to the toxic private opt out) ... and finally getting a grip on these ridiculous banks (good old fashioned nationalisation being the obvious solution, I suppose)

and your question ... the Big Question ... which party will be best on the above?

well, not the Conservatives (obviously) - maybe the LibDems but they (sadly) are not an option - leaves us with Labour but not this Labour, thank you very much - no, what we want is the best of all possible worlds ... which is ... LABOUR WITHOUT BROWN !!

46 sagamix

Your posts today continue to amaze me, and not in a good way, either.

First, as you acknowledge, debt is too high (though from your 18, reducing it seems to be a Tory idea: bad, in your world, of course). Even then, you can't bring yourself to acknowledge that the importance of debt being too high is because of the drain on our resources due to the enormous levels of interest we are having to pay. That means debt is too high right now and needs addressing right now. We don't have to wait for some myth about banking figures to be spun at us, it's a big problem right now. As said before, we can't afford to bring debt down now, but we need a policy to control the rate at which debt is rising.

And then, presumably reflecting future government policy, you are completely cool about losing rating status on gilts, as if rating status was some piece of luxury window dressing. Fact is, if we lose rating status, then the interest rates that we pay on debt rise, and so our overall outgoing on interest becomes even more unaffordable. Where did you think the 拢8 billions required to keep the nation afloat last month came from? Losing rating status would be a national tragedy because of the immediate impact on expenditure. I cannot understand for one moment why you are trying to spin this out as unimportant.

jr @ 49

okay, I was exaggerating to make a point - perfectly respectable technique - losing our AAA wouldn't be total non event but it wouldn't be as serious as many make out - you, for example, with your "national tragedy" - the thing is, gilts shouldn't be AAA now because the probability of the UK defaulting at some point over the next 10 years or so is quite a bit higher than a 3As rating implies - if I was buying gilts, I'd price them as AA (at best) and I would imagine that's what the Market is doing - it's just that the Ratings Agencies (not for the first time) are behind the curve - to be fair to them, downgrading a country is a political minefield, so they end up doing it about 3 years after they should have done - that's when it's a western developed nation, of course ... a proper country ... when it's an "Emerging Market" country, they cut ratings at the drop of a hat

sagamix 50

The cost of dropping our ratings status would be about the same as 1p on the income tax raises. That's more money, that we don't have, expended on interest paid to outsiders, without the slightest benefit to the UK. Effectively, real money, taken from real people and real companies, flushed down the lav on a grand scale. Yet you still try to belittle the significance of this. Why?

... well because 1p on income tax wouldn't be such a massive deal, would it? - and certainly not a national tragedy

ha! ... hoist with your own petard, JR

Saga @ various#

Oh dear.

You sure you worked in Front Office, Saga? Not just emptied the bins in there at 6am?

Or delivered organic, free range, biodegradable Islington-grown ham and mustard sandwiches from a small, hand portable wicker basket occasionally?

The only correct thing you said is that 1p on income tax wouldnt be such a massive deal.

Bit like getting rid of the 10p band wasnt such a massive deal either, eh? Problem is, its going to affect the poorest rather than the richest, who will find a way around it anyway. And what is that 1p on income tax going to go on? "Servicing" the ever growing debt mountain.

The ham sandwich analogy is an interesting one. The stimulus approach, (pump-priming I think Keynes may have referred to it as) is all well and good and I think (from my limited economics knowledge) to be applauded when you have something to prime the pump with. Such an occasion worked before after 9/11 and after the Tech bubble burst when Brown did just that, but not as profligately as this... capital projects, certainly in the tech/IT side still ran, but not in the private sector... the problem is now, Brown has all the pumps running full tilt, but is continuing to borrow the water from the Chinese and the Middle East, writing IOU's for the water as fast as he can... and eventually, before long, the water is going to run out or whoever he is buying it from is going to jack the price up and start demanding terms we cant honour. The analogy of "oh well, I'm starving, so I'll nip into the Savoy for a slap up on an already maxed out credit card and then when the bill comes along, I'll do a runner" is perfectly apt. OK for a Peckham wide boy, but not the way you should be expecting an "honourable" politican to act.

Sorry mate, I know we're from opposite sides of the political spectrum and I have to (lord knows why) admire your dogged determination to stick to the cause, but you'd better watch that petard mate. You're in real danger of turning into a laughing stock. I'm not telling you to change what you believe, you have to work that out for yourself, but... mate, this... this makes it look as if you're out of your depth and drowning. Labour are completely economically, morally and spiritually bankrupt and heading for the exit door. I'm not saying the Tories would be any better, but they could not possibly be as bad as this.

Thats why I've began the emigration process. I've had enough of it. They might be happy to mortgage our futures to whoever will buy it, just to keep hold of political power, but I'm damned if I'm going to subsidize it to massage Brown's ego. I've got precious short years on this planet as it is and Cyclops is not going to be allowed to ruin it. No way.

sagamix 52

Nice monument to Labour's attitude to public funds.

fubar @ 53

political asylum in Belgium ... I like it!

I thought I made some good points, actually - ah well - nice riff on the "Islington Sandwich Service" but the rest? ... well you don't need me to tell you

55#

Not so much political asylum mate, God, if I was looking for that, I'd be heading a lot, lot further east than Belgium...

You made some points mate, you provided a counter to the mass of others opinions. Which, granted is always needed. But I dont know whether you're doing that just to be a permanent devils advocate, or whether you sincerely believe it.

Is that what you want to be? A counterweight? You dont necessarily believe in what you say, but you have to portray it in the interests of balance?

Opposition for its own sake, in other words??

Or do you say what you really feel??

fs @ 56 ... I'm VERY anti Conservative - that's my driving force to blog - to communicate that - and I try to use a number of different techniques - you know, mix it up a bit - I can do "Man of the World" but I like to be a bit schizophrenic (sic?) - think it can be more effective than being totally straight all the time - I love analogies, ideas, language and logic, I hate sophistry and fake intelligence, and I distrust "facts" and personal experience - thing is, fubar, there's a real need (especially on here) to express the left wing, anti reactionary position - okay it's dirty work, but someone has to do it

Sosmix @ 57

Thought you were a floater, old bean

Ghost did you really believe Saga was a floater? :) Unless of course he considers a brief flirtation with Respect, The Communist Party or Socialist Labour enough to make him a floater.

Saga actually reminds me of a guy I met at University who had been brought up as a Labour party member ("The Labour party will do you right son mark my words" sort of stuff). At times it was like talking to a cultist.

But then I am a cynic and tend to think of left-wing parties as a group of people trying to get onto a life boat. The first says "Hey lads, if you get me in the boat I can help you in from the top" only to turn around and refuse to help for fear of capsizing it when he is actually in.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

60#

OH FOR CHRISTS SAKE MODERATORS, LOOK IN THE TWO POSTS ABOVE AT 58 AND 59!!!

THEN COMPARE WITH THE CONTENT OF POST 60!

@ saga 36

A fantastic insight into the mind of a labour supporter - thank you!! Debt DOES have to be paid off, you dont keep rolling it over because you are pouring money down the drain on interest payments.

Here's an idea, we could even save some and then actually earn interest instead of paying it.

I take it you went to the Crash Gordon school of economics and have a number of maxed out crdeit cards, well done you.

why is it that we have let in 6 million to do jobs that 6 million others are paid around 拢25k for doing nothing?

that seems to be sound economics NOT ?

Mark_WE wrote:
Ghost did you really believe Saga was a floater? :) Unless of course he considers a brief flirtation with Respect, The Communist Party or Socialist Labour enough to make him a floater.

Saga actually reminds me of a guy I met at University who had been brought up as a Labour party member ("The Labour party will do you right son mark my words" sort of stuff). At times it was like talking to a cultist.

But then I am a cynic and tend to think of left-wing parties as a group of people trying to get onto a life boat. The first says "Hey lads, if you get me in the boat I can help you in from the top" only to turn around and refuse to help for fear of capsizing it when he is actually in.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Nah... never believed him.. I think it is only H that keeps him tied to Labour ... Love is blind and all that

Mark WE @ 59

I am a cynic and tend to think of left wing parties as a group of people trying to get onto a life boat. The first says "Hey lads, if you get me in the boat I can help you in from the top" only to turn around and refuse to help for fear of capsizing it when he is actually in

not sure that's quite the right word for someone who believes that - five letters and starting with a "c" is fair enough ... but not cynic

Well this is really the emperors new clothes. With such a deficit, an increase in unemployment we find that confidence in the housing market is rising and the banks are lending more, but against what? Where is the collateral coming from for the banks to be lending if the number of repossessions are increasing and to cap it all the FTSE is responding. Could it be that foreign investment is increasing to push housing oncemore out of the reach of the indigenous people?

It amazes me, how the British electorate never seem to learn. I have lived through three Socialist administrations in this country and each of them left us in an utter mess. Yet there are still plenty of citizens prepared to return another one. Talk about lemmings..!

In the context of remarks about remembering the attrition inflicted on the British people and their economy by Labour; although the British electorate may not seem to learn, the mess of the last Tory administration bears remembering. Not merely 17 years of condemning people to misery because of the then government's unimaginative strategy of financing (by oil) their assault on unions, a strategy of turning the economy into a laissez-faire, big bang economy, beset by credit booms and busts which merely presaged the current one and acted as the founding stone; I remember Northern Rock lending outrageously risky money in the very early 90s. Having sold houses in the late 70s on discharge from the forces, nearly 20 years ago I knew that Northern Rock's business plan was dangerous. So let's remember where this started.
Labour took on the guise of being a 'city friendly' party, while proving themselves to be spendthrift, negligent where regulation is concerned (tho' they did not press the big bang levers in the 1980s) simultaneously committing us to near open ended war in Iraq, when they ought to have concentrated on the unfortunately necessary response to the destruction in September 2001, when as we know a NATO member country found itself at war, with bodies raining from the sky, because some people found the alternative (staying in the towers to cook and/or suffocate to death) unacceptable.
Moreover, Labour - which has in its current incarnation emphasised evidence based practise in medicine, prison psychology, local government [...] - not only waged its expensive war in Iraq on the basis of a singular item of flawed evidence without the corroboration that is vital in both law and intelligence, but has also continuously and without pause massaged the statistics it releases. The latest example is Harman's egregious intervention where the stats on pay and women are concerned.
So, not to put too fine a point on the matter, Labour have lied, they have lied continually; they have lied about the ethical things that matter (war in the context of an 'ethical foreign policy'), they have lied about the theoretical things that are supposedly dear to their heart (egalitarian issues on women's pay), and they have completely forgotten or ignored the rump of the working class that brought them into being in the first place, a group of people that are sometimes wheeled out as idiosyncratic curios for documentaries. Remember them do we?
The war in Iraq has caused deep divisions, and has almost obliterated the British people's memory of the founding cause of the latest war in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq cost us dearly at a time when we cannot afford such a cost, and it has cost the lives of many thousands of people (overlooking the dubious statistics published by a team of British 'researchers', whose statistical techniques were IMNSVHO as dubious as the reasons for going to war in the first place); however, that should not obliterate our memory where Iain Duncan-Smith is concerned, since he advocated war irrespective of any supposed weapons of mass destruction. It is deeply disturbing that the advice of internal security organisations was ignored by this government; they were bluntly told that waging war in Iraq would increase the probability of terrorist incidents on the island, but went ahead on the basis of little or no real evidence when, all the while, the data on internal and external threats were presented to them.
While these things are true, it is also true that MoD requisitioning and supplying are in tatters, that equipment has been in short supply and out of date. Whilst defence is a core function of state - one could even say a foundation - Labour are traditionally bad where it is concerned, and have proven fulsomely this time around that they do not understand the concept. Education? A teacher friend of mine withdrew from the profession on the grounds of the bureaucratic, politically correct pupil rights rules to which they have been subjected. More teachers have been assaulted than would otherwise have been the case. They have thrown resources into the NHS without prior review only carrying them out after the first massive splurges, without any apparent sense of organisation and tempo, whilst running the forces down and simultaneously over committing them to the point where they are creaking.
The latter is very important if one remembers Mandelson's comments on Irish television to the effect that the Guards divison are 'chinless wonders' (why in a politically correct world was he allowed to get away with that one, remembering that slanderous remarks about gay men, about women on account of gender, and so on draw down opprobrium? How could Mandelson be allowed the luxury of such ad hominem remarks?), if one remembers that the defense secretary is ranked 23rd in cabinet, and if one remembers that there were apparently moves to blacken Dannatt's name.
So yes, with qualifications Labour have indeed conformed to stereotype, whilst performing the contortionist's act of being 'city friendly'.
Let us not expect the Tories to decline the opportunity to conform to stereotype. Expect the Tories, after a year, to follow Labour precedent and discontinue the previous government's spending and taxing plans; expect the Tories to run the NHS down, hope that it will not suffer in the way that it did under 17 years of Conservative underfunding.
Which is worse, must we continually see-saw between one barking dog that tells us we have 48 hours to save the NHS, that Saddam could mobilise WMD in 48 hours (oh yes, that was an old one wasn't it?), and another that beats the drum of exaggerated Adam Smith styled economics, conveniently forgetting that even Smith did not extoll the virtues of rampant, unrestrained capitalism?
As to the Liberals, well Cable has had a good fiscal war, certainly. However, there is so much political correctness, so much lying down and exposing of the jugular to those opposed to our way of life that I cannot see myself voting for them.
Reluctantly I will vote Tory. Voting Labour will, this time around, be voting for further unrestrained destruction. I still harbour a hope that the Tories will somehow perform a balancing act where defence, health, taxation and economics are concerned. I will not hold my breath for especially long. My knowledge of the history of these matters tells me that the Tories are as bad as Labour, in their own specialised way.
Happy electioneering then.