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Eurozone crisis buys Cameron and Brown some time?

Surely this should read "Eurozone crisis DENIES Cameron or Brown ANY more time"

As Elvis might say, 'a little less talk, a little more action, please'

Brown has run out of time and should go.

Cameron needs to get dealing ASAP and get on fixing things before it is too late.

BoE need to start raising base rate slowly but surely to get ahead of the markets and put a stop to any further inflation of house prices.

Plus some swift action on tax rises and cuts.

A National Government NOW...

It appears that no party has an hope of a workable majority thus we have to hope that The Queen exercises he constitutional discretion and calls upon the leaders of the three main parties to form a grand coalition tasked with saving the Nation from financial collapse.

A new age is dawning . The new rulers of the world are the vulture hedge funds , the discredited credit rating agencies and the misinvestment (had to conjure this word , no other way to describe them) banks . Wonder why people would bother to vote when their fate is decided in Wall Street and the City of London . Unless these predators are regulated , I predict that 1929 will look like a year in paradise compared with what will follow .

3 John

Why not a Lib-Con alliance? That would be almost 60% of the vote.

Or, we have a break up of the UK as the Conservatives have a clear mandate in England but not in Scotland Wales or NI. Like wise Labour now has no mandate in England.

Dispite everything that those who support the Conservatives say has been done wrong and however useless they say Brown is, David Cameron could still not get a majority.

The concept of the saviour Conservative party is put to the test and is rejected. The myth of the great Conservative goverments of the past is gone.

The only sane way forward is a period of national government.

Just a reminder of the obscure Budget 2010 public finance appendix - quote

" the Bank of England Asset Purchase Facility Fund (BEAPFF), which is
a monetary policy instrument that is also excluded from the measures
excluding the temporary effects of financial interventions. As at the end
of December 2009, the scheme had added some £18 billion to the National
Accounts measure of PSND, mainly from gilts which for PSND are valued at
face value and this was lower than the market price paid."

QE gilt face values lower than market prices paid.

A government of national unity is now required to end the arrogant monopoly of power by parties commanding a minority of the share of the vote. This would be good news for the markets.

Just a quick calculation 5 minutes ago tells me that for every one percent of the national votes cast: the Conservatives have secured 8 seats in Parliament, Labour 8.46 seats and the Lib Dems a paultry 2.23 seats. Can this be right, surely not.

Constitutional uncertainty and the pound drops against the Euro - good for manufacturing, bad for the banks; European fiscal uncertainty and the pound gains against the Euro - bad for manufacturing good for the banks; that's a devil of a deep blue sea.

As a continental, I never understood why people in the UK are asked to vote on a working day. I think if voting was set on a Saturday or even "Sunday" there would not have been scenes of people not being able to vote and there might actually be more voting.
Maybe an electoral reform for the future?

I think that a hung parliament regardless of the the markets is good for the country. Decisions will have to be made for the national good not for party or ideological grounds. Maybe we do have a future after all.
Too much panic in the markets for me, maybe for other countries but not here now

6 The concept of the saviour Conservative party is put to the test and is rejected. The myth of the great Conservative goverments of the past is gone.

In England the Tories have won! In the UK with 36% as the Tories have Labour would have won.

It's either Con-Lib or a break up of the UK

If anyone has been rejected it is Labour who have 2M less votes than Con!

#3 John_from_Hendon:

".... to form a grand coalition tasked with saving the Nation from financial collapse."

Yes, sounds good in principle. But the only thing the politicians have got together on in recent times is to cook up an expenses system which almost everyone now agrees was morally dishonest - not a good omen for future cross-party co-operation!

Once again it looks like so called "Financial Experts" like yourself may spin the world economy into free fall, similar to your personal contribution to the Northern Rock downfall. Financial predators and journalists have their own agendas from both of which ordinary investors suffer the most. Try being positive at times rather than speculate just for the sake of the story.

#5. At 10:06am on 07 May 2010, StartAgain wrote:

3 John

Why not a Lib-Con alliance? That would be almost 60% of the vote.

But it would be death to the liberal democrats and parties do not sign their own death warrants (usually)!

Better a Lab-Con coalition good support in all the Nations of the UK - but the climbing down from the (stupid!) rhetoric would be impossible, unless the Queen steps it and insists - that is her constitutional duty.

Well done Britain, I mean it in all sincerity.

You were not put off by threats of a hung parliment and demands from parties for an absolute majority.

They left you with an Economic mess, now we've left them with a political one.

Now lets sit back and watch the collapse and prepare ourselves for the next phase of Revolution.

I happened to see the dow 'blip' live last night and thought economic armageddon had been brought forward - but it was just a 'pre-warning' of how ready the market is to collapse.

They say trading error - I say mmmmmmm, funny how those trading errors never happen on the way up??

However lets not blame the electorate for the incoming disaster - it's been coming for a long time and the market reaction would have happened regardless of the result - unless of course we 'elected' a dictator who is assured of making those cuts required....

7 Just a quick calculation 5 minutes ago tells me that for every one percent of the national votes cast: the Conservatives have secured 8 seats in Parliament, Labour 8.46 seats and the Lib Dems a paultry 2.23 seats. Can this be right, surely not.

No, it is not. Time to change to PR

Robert - reference your "Oh Dear" comment at the end. You had your moment of doom-mongering glory over Northern Rock and the wider banking crisis. But in the current situation you really need to act more responsibly while the politicians work out a way forward. Please stop trying to spook people, as you started to do in the early hours, reporting that the markets "were already putting the pound under pressure because of the hung parliament". I reckon most people think the economic stability of the UK is marginally more important than your hysterical attempts to secure a Pulitzer prize.

All this user's posts have been removed.Why?

Unless the tories get a majority, we'll need a fork life truck to get Gordon out of number 10.

The public have said a plague on all your houses. It is an arrogance of the politician to claim anybody has a victory. It is this arrogance that lead to the expenses scandal. Politician should learn some humility and find a way to work together. What they will do is go back to the electorate in a few months demanding a five year dictatorship.

Robert,

Paradoxically, there would seems to be a derivatives market opening up in all of this... on optimism!

More to the point: if behaviour is a financial commodity, aren't we heading straight back to the 20s and 30s?

Which begs the final question: Did Adam Smith see all this coming!?

Mind, morality in economics would indeed open up a can of worms!! Not least for David Cameron!

Coming back to the point, if the political elite (blue or otherwise) seem impotent and unwilling to unbundle this most caustic of links, then are we not entering a rather long roller coaster ride for UK plc?

I await your thoughts!

--

9. At 10:21am on 07 May 2010, Philippe

I'm afraid it's by design - by having polling on a workday you can ensure there is a skew towards the non-working population - which means the country is run by the non-productive - which is probably why the politicans are heading down the path of unsustainability - as that's what 'their' electorate desire.

The true election will come when the 40% of the country who are 'productive' decide to down tools in protest - they don't need a ballot box to show their feelings - they can bring the country to a halt, and they probably will when they see the bill the bankers have left for them to pay with their taxes.

"Constitutional uncertainty and the pound drops against the Euro - good for manufacturing, bad for the banks"

I don't agree, the uncertainty is not primarily constitutional, ultimately it is fiscal, in light of a weak government. Failure to curb public spending will mean it continues to crowd out export-earning / import-substituting industries, and prevent these from growing. Failure to keep a lid on inflation means that the same industries will face higher costs at home, negating some of the effect of a weaker pound. A weak pound is only good for the trade balance if you are able to restructure the economy to take advantage of it.

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

13. At 10:34am on 07 May 2010, P Stevens wrote:

"Once again it looks like so called "Financial Experts" like yourself may spin the world economy into free fall, similar to your personal contribution to the Northern Rock downfall. Financial predators and journalists have their own agendas from both of which ordinary investors suffer the most. Try being positive at times rather than speculate just for the sake of the story."

Feeling the pinch are we? - going down the pan is it?

This has nothing to do with the media, they have been trying to put a 'good spin' on this for some time. If you think Roberts is being 'too honest' - then you wait until you find out the real truth

A case in point when Stephanie mentioned (again) on the news that 'UK is not Greece' and compared the respective Government deficits....but what about the private debt ration Steph? - ignoring it are we? hoping the 262% of GDP we owe privately somehow doesn't contribute to 'aggregate debt'?

Oh the lies are certainly breaking up now - the truth is finally showing through the sands of deception...

I'm sure there will be lots of blame for the electorate and the media for 'causing this mess' - but the reality is that the speculators didn't see this coming - well more fool them.

3# John from Hendon
Seconded.
Britain should be treated as a business on the brink of collapse.
A Con-Lib alliance with the economy placed in the experienced hands of Ken Clark & Vince Cable ought to fully restore confidence and be able to implement acceptable unpopular decisions in the national interests to get us out of this mess.
Surely the British people voted for a hung parliament, knowing a national government would be the most likely outcome.

Mind you at the moment it sounds like all the Queen's horses and men might be needed to evict crash and co.

11. At 10:30am on 07 May 2010, StartAgain

Oh come off it. The Conservative share of the vote is smaller than Michael Foot's in 1983! After, as I recall, 'the longest suicide note in history'

With a 65% turn out 23.5% of the voting population choose the Conservative message. Cameron may form a working government but if he starts laying into the deficit with typical Conservative bias he better start writing his own now.

Mr Dimbleby comments with a little disdain the price required for UK minority parties to support the Conservatives in a hung parliament. Does he not realise why Labour have the support of the majority of the Scottish constituancies? Does he not consider the price the Labour goverments over past decades have paid to sustain that support? I believe I detect a little immpartiality in his comments.

If the Conservatives win less than 14 of the remaining 29 seats then it is quite possible that they will have less seats than the combined Labour/Liberal parties.

If this happens then it is constitutionally legitimate for Labour and the Liberals to form a Coalition government, indeed precedent says that Labour should try to do so. If they did this without Brown as PM and with Vince Cable as chancellor then it may even be popular.

It is going to be very close and the Conservatives see this. It looks like they might try come out with some bravado ahead of the final result but nothing is going to come out of this until this final result is in.

Well is it any surprise the Capitalists are trying to blame the media?

It seems that some are having trouble handling the truth now it's all coming out - there are some seriously deluded people who are feeling the burn of reality this morning.

Listen to the sound of panic - and get used to it...

interesting times, the problem for the parties at least, is do they really want government of the uk over the comming months, couple of years at max while a coalition hangs together, it seems one hell of a poisoned chalice

I think there could be another more sinister effect from the Eurozone crises.
I was recently watching the demonstrations in Greece, which have since turned violent.
A lady protester who was interviewed said that the people were angry because they felt that "the crises was caused by politicians and bankers, but is was the ordinary people who had to pay with higher taxes and wage cuts."
As other countries, such as Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland, introduce austerity measures in an attempt to keep themselves solvent could we see a spread of these protests across Europe?

27 With a 65% turn out 23.5% of the voting population choose the Conservative message. Cameron may form a working government but if he starts laying into the deficit with typical Conservative bias he better start writing his own now.

Excuse me bottom line is if you don't vote you don't count - excluding the few that were locked out the 35% don't count. So, the Tory share of the vote was 36% fair enough.

Listen I want to see a Con-Lib alliance as it will have a 60% popular mandate. Anything else would be undemocratic especially from an English perpective what share of the vote in ENGLAND did the tories get? 44%? They would have won an English election.

Brown is finished - aa Lab/Lib/Nationalist coalition would be unacceptable and undemocratic in England. What percentage of Enlish voters did so for Lab - 19%? Sorry, but that is no mandate to govern in England. In my opinion it is up to David Cameron to battle his own party and to for a coalition with Clegg - either that or it is time to break up the UK into the 4 nations.

Laying into the deficit - you make it sound like it is something that can be avoided - what planet aare you living on? But, it is probably right that no one party should do it alone - but at no point does Brown have the answer.

25. At 11:23am on 07 May 2010, writingsonthewall wrote:
13. At 10:34am on 07 May 2010, P Stevens wrote:

"Once again it looks like so called "Financial Experts" like yourself may spin the world economy into free fall, similar to your personal contribution to the Northern Rock downfall. Financial predators and journalists have their own agendas from both of which ordinary investors suffer the most. Try being positive at times rather than speculate just for the sake of the story."

Feeling the pinch are we? - going down the pan is it?

What is the matter with someone wanting their savings to be safe? For all you know this poster may just be worried about their cash savings held with the cooperative in GBP losing value. Or, heaven forbid they have a modest private pension to protect for imminent retirement after a life of hard graft.

By all means vent your anger at the banks (especially the Scottish ones protected by us all by our Scottish PM/CoE) and hedge funds - I am with you on that. But not ordinary folk who are mighty scared for the future.

So now we have a hung parliment - can someone tell me when the hangings begin?

I've brought my rope and some wood for gallows...

Apparently we're going to see 'horse trading' - maybe that's a reflection on the expected energy crisis.

Fortunately we don't have proportional representation in this country or we would get coalition Governments.......whoops!

Not only have the electorate made their message clear (we don't want Labour, we don't see the Tories as better and the Lib Dems are not really acceptable) - but they have beaten the MP's with their own fixed first past the post system!

Who's up for another election then? - this could go on for years...

The people have spoken.
They are asking you to grow up, talk to eachother, stop your bickering and start getting us out of this mess.
How about it ?

...and does anyone want to bring up the question of Lloyds and RBS 'profit' again?

RBS 45.15 -3.08 -6.39% - Break even 55p
LLOY 55.64 -1.00 -1.77% - Break even 75p

Maybe not eh? - best keep schtumm for a while. Don't want to look like a complete fantasist.

I hope the rest of you are getting the message here - there are forces at work who are prepared to distort the truth about the Economic situation in any way possible to dissuade anger and disatisfaction. A week ago there was great applause for the 'turnaround' in our 'investment' using the most ridiculous mathematical assessment from these peddlars of lies.

...but the truth can not be disguised forever - not even with the world's media on your side.

33. At 12:50pm on 07 May 2010, StartAgain wrote:

"Excuse me bottom line is if you don't vote you don't count"

I think we're going to find out exactly how much those people do count in the near future....just as the 30% who didn't vote in the Greek elections are making their voices known now. (and they have a compulsory voting system)

34. At 12:56pm on 07 May 2010, StartAgain wrote:

"What is the matter with someone wanting their savings to be safe? For all you know this poster may just be worried about their cash savings held with the cooperative in GBP losing value. Or, heaven forbid they have a modest private pension to protect for imminent retirement after a life of hard graft."

...and the truth we can't handle is exactly how we're all just cogs in the great mechanics of Capitalism...

You can try and justify it in any way you like with moderate language, but it doesn't hide the harsh truth which is all pensions and 'investments' are earned from surplus labour value - it's why the system collapses you know.
It's because of the stance you portray about 'the little man' which ensures the system remains - at a cost to us all.

"By all means vent your anger at the banks (especially the Scottish ones protected by us all by our Scottish PM/CoE) and hedge funds - I am with you on that. But not ordinary folk who are mighty scared for the future."

If "ordinary folk" are scared for the future - then it's their own fault for spending too long watching drivel on the TV and not bothering to investigate the contradictions of Capitalism.

Maybe they should have listened to Marx and this could have been avoided - too many people have had their heads in the sand for too long - and now the sandstorm arrives they're all getting a "liddle bit scared"

33. At 12:50pm on 07 May 2010, StartAgain

Brown will stand aside if requied. The deficit needs to be tackled but people are scared about the way the Conservatives would go about that; they have form.

The significant majority of people voted for parties other than the Conservatives. As the Conservatives failed to get a majority of the vote any suggestion that a government that does not involve the Conservatives is undemocratic is just nonsense.

We shall see, I suspect that Cameron will get there. It is not my first choice.

34. At 12:56pm on 07 May 2010, StartAgain

You might want to check out just who owns the bansk you claim to be Scottish. RBS might have initially been Scottish but I'm sure you'll find that is the last thing it has been for many years.

Scotland returned one Tory MP. That says a lot about the politics of the Scots. And of course the Scottish view of big business. Should Boy George and his mate Dave manage to form a government, I am deeply worried about the political turmoil that will create.

Afternoon Robert,
having watched a replay of the chaos on the American markets yesterday (which now involves unwinding all trades for the affected 30 minutes of madness and panic) and the follow on selling that took place in Asia last night I wonder if we are entering another financial collapse (ala credit crunch part II)?
Banks are refusing to lend to each other again (sound familiar), the euro seems to be headed for a complete collapse with Germany withdrawing support for it and worst of all, after all the bailouts around the world we do not have the money (worldwide) to bail out everyone again!
One poster here asks Robert P not to make a drama out of a crisis but if you put all of the pieces together then the conclusions are not optimistic.
Just heard Mr Brown (bless him) offer a referendum to Mr Clegg in return for his party's support. So that's another 6 months of snouts in the trough then.
The Politicians still don't get the message after the whole country has been shouting at them, I really despair with this lot.

!!!!´óÏó´«Ã½ BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!

"New high in personal insolvencies"

Also in the news today!

Brown just wants to say three things.
Another soldier killed in Afghanistan.
His family have been informed.
That's his short life over.
Recession caused by aliens say Brown and Darling.
Cowdenbeath mum has triplets.

GC

I think its a little silly to talk of Con+Lib or Lab+Lib, or even con+Lab having a mandate of over 50% of the voters, when the main selling point of the Lib's was that they were a real difference to the other two parties.

If we forgot the names or who we individually want to support, surely the main party receiving 36.2% or the vote or approx 25% of the population does not equate to majority government reflecting the population's voting

Well, Britain's taxpayers have bailed out banks' casino incompetence - yet banks are still trying to rule over democracy?

Bankers can go to the same hell they created.

Without the 'ordinary' working people's money and the 'ordinary' business money that banks/currency speculators and hedge-funds have gambled with and 'shafted' pensioners. These banking speculators should be challenged and told what to do with their fraudulent behavior by all democratically elected representatives. Or do the bankers run your representatives? Hmm?

This so-called confusion in UK politics is the best thing to happen to democracy in a 100 years in the UK.

Coalition - bring it on. Westminster working for the people - what a novelty?

Britain is NOT in the Euro-zone. Any politician or commentator who compares Britain with Greece is scare-mongering.

The Greeks were very comfortable with their own currency and their own way of life - it wasn't broke until Greece adopted the Euro and the untouchable currency speculators destroyed this economy to fund their private islands?

The lesson of the Euro, as a currency, is exposure to speculating bandits?

European Union may be a Union of countries for a multitude of reasons - but a single currency - OMG - WHO WAS ELECTED TO DECIDE A SINGLE CURRENCY WAS ULTIMATELY THE WORST EGGS IN ONE CURRENCY BASKET?

33. At 12:50pm on 07 May 2010, StartAgain wrote:
27 With a 65% turn out 23.5% of the voting population choose the Conservative message. Cameron may form a working government but if he starts laying into the deficit with typical Conservative bias he better start writing his own now.

Excuse me bottom line is if you don't vote you don't count - excluding the few that were locked out the 35% don't count. So, the Tory share of the vote was 36% fair enough.

Listen I want to see a Con-Lib alliance as it will have a 60% popular mandate. Anything else would be undemocratic especially from an English perpective what share of the vote in ENGLAND did the tories get? 44%? They would have won an English election.


This is the vote in Scotland
Lab 41 seats
Lib Dem 11 seats
SNP 6 seats
Con 1 seats


Nationally we have

Troy 10592258.00 40.97%
Labour 8509376.00 32.91%
Lib Dem 6751786.00 26.12%

Labour+Lib Dems got 15,205,906 votes, making 311 seats.
Tory only 10,561,428 votes =301 seats.

Didn't John Major form a government with 31%?

So if you want Cameron, does that mean Mr Salmond can send Trident down to park outside your house then? I hear is is looking for somewhere in England to send it right now.

What has happened here is the voters have said they don't want any of them. Tories will cause the havoc they always do, particularly in the north of Endland and Scotland, where they absolutely failed. Thatchet at one point managed to do better! And Labour have been punished. It will take time for us to understand why they were punished. Don't think anyone is grasping what went on in Wales yet.

I suspect the war was punished, their continued move to the right has also been a huge issue across the country aand outwith the media and the City, but the jobs Tories will destroy are not a price worth paying hence their problems.

All this talk of pressure and time is nonsense. Adults have huge decisions to make and that requires time. The reason why the Tories are talking about time pressure is because they want things and they want it now. How childish!

42. At 2:21pm on 07 May 2010, splendidhashbrowns wrote:

"Banks are refusing to lend to each other again (sound familiar)"

Ah yes, I forgot in all the 'excitement' about the LIBOR spiking last night.

Whilst the politicans fiddle, the Greeks are burning...

It wont be long before the MPs start worrying.
They will start to wonder if they are missed.
I mean they have long holidays and they aren't missed. Now their leaders are rushing about like headless chickens.
Will they actually be missed if nobody goes to see the queen?
No government. Life goes on.

It just goes to show that nobody actually cares if they open their mouths or not.

What I want to know is whether they start getting paid from the moment the returning officer makes a declaration or when they sit down in the house. At least Rantzen lost her deposit.
Small mercies.

What on earth is the matter with our dunderheaded politicians?

Surely it cannot have escaped thier notice that, when you have a crass voting system like ours, a draw is a fairly plausible outcome?

And surely, at sometime over the last 1,000 or so years, one of
these nitwits has thought out a proper way to deal with this
outcome? So why are these cretins discussing what to do now,
at this late stage?

Just follow the constitution, and that's that. And,
if the daft, unwritten constitution is as defective
as it looks, then scrap it.

Don't they make you sick?

Is this what 'recovery' looks like? - how many people are getting deja-vu?

Shanghai 2,688.38 -51.32 (-1.87%)
S&P 500 1,105.34 -22.81 (-2.02%)
Nikkei 225 10,364.59 -331.10 (-3.10%)
Hang Seng Index 19,920.29 -213.12 (-1.06%)
TSEC 7,567.10 -12.38 (-0.16%)
CAC 40 3,383.11 -173.00 (-4.86%)
S&P TSX 11,589.59 -252.84 (-2.14%)
S&P/ASX 200 4,480.70 -92.50 (-2.02%)
BSE Sensex 16,769.11 -218.42 (-1.29%)

Lab-Con Alliance the people have spoken!

It is time Britain grew up.

And no wonder the bonds and shares have tumbled. These vultures cannot make any money on the back of this.

50, yeah you're right, we need them like the common cold, but the worrying thing is they've got their sticky hands in the Treasury,

GC

41 Scotland returned one Tory MP. That says a lot about the politics of the Scots. And of course the Scottish view of big business. Should Boy George and his mate Dave manage to form a government, I am deeply worried about the political turmoil that will create.

We already have a problem as Labour is over reliant on Scittish seats. Add to that the Barnet formula and the West Lothian question - there is already resentment in England over this - perhaps we need a period of change I am all for English independence.

47. At 3:12pm on 07 May 2010, corum-populo-2010 wrote:

"Britain is NOT in the Euro-zone. Any politician or commentator who compares Britain with Greece is scare-mongering."

Ah the old 'devaluation has no cost' dream - what a shame it will eventually become a nightmare when the country realises how much we rely on imported oil...

39 WOTW

If "ordinary folk" are scared for the future - then it's their own fault for spending too long watching drivel on the TV and not bothering to investigate the contradictions of Capitalism.

Maybe they should have listened to Marx and this could have been avoided - too many people have had their heads in the sand for too long - and now the sandstorm arrives they're all getting a "liddle bit scared"

You don't understand people do you - they don't want Marx, we still have a Monarch for goodness sake. People have got lives to lead - families to care for - they know tough times are ahead and they will cope without falling to pieces. They have been there before - capitalissm is flawed but it provides what most of the people want most of the time.

I know in your fantasy world you like to think we will all take to the streets, put a few McDonald's windows in - set fire to a few cars perhaps, but we won't.

I suggest you focus more on the constructive rather than the destructive - for the sake of your health if nothing else.

48 copper

Con Lib = 17M+ (60%) votes according to your figures and over 360 seats - that is a clear mandate if such an alliance comes about how can you disagree with that?

I assume you are pointing to the fact that the tories have no mandate in Scotland - that may be true but this is a uk election. Give the Scots aa referendum on independence, I hope they vote yes.

Not sure what your point is with Trident?? What has it got to do with Salmond?

55. At 5:14pm on 07 May 2010, StartAgain wrote:

Or it could be said the Tories are over reliant on an over-heated housing bubble down south.

Wish you had campaigned for that during the 80s when we were a swill with so much oil! Still, it will last Scotland so much longer if you don't want it. That's fine.

writingsonthewall

I know you're not the worlds biggest fan of capitalism, and I see the sense in many of your arguments but also disagree with quite a few. They are entertaining, and I appreciate your lucid thinking on a range of topics, but I'd be interested to know what you would do if could change things.

If we take #15 and the required cuts for the UK. Let's take Ireland for example: They have very admirably decided to put their own house in order and implemented austerity cuts. However, as a direct result their GDP has shrunk even faster than would otherwise be the case, their deficits have not improved and their debt burden as a proportion of gdp has now got worse.

I can imagine that you could reply they are damned if they do and damned if they don't (as highlighted by yesterday's Moody's report), but I would like to know what you would do in Brian Cowen's shoes?

Harrins

59. At 6:17pm on 07 May 2010, copperDolomite wrote:

Still, it will last Scotland so much longer if you don't want it. That's fine.

We'll make sure we get our fill before it runs out - then break free :)

Seriously, I think this election result has exaggerated the Scotland-England issue. The Tories aren't wanted in Scotland but Labour has held power in England by virtue of it's Scottish MP's - what to do other than devolve power or break up the UK.

61. At 8:31pm on 07 May 2010, StartAgain wrote:
Seriously, I think this election result has exaggerated the Scotland-England issue.

No it hasn't. IMHO. It has always been there. No matter what Labour has done, the Tories have not yet been forgiven. And I am not surprised. If you'd spent any time Scotland during the 80s or 90s you'd understand.

We had potato blight here just as the Irish had it all those years ago when millions of Irish died. The Scots had a deeply ingrained sense of taking care of people so the rich city dwellers fed and helped the hungry crofters - they didn't horde their reiches and leave people to starve - apparently. Mrs Thatcher simply failed to understand the deep rooted Calvinistic outlook in Scotland. It is a subtle difference but she didn't get it.

The biggest export from Scotland has never been the Water of Life, it has been people suffering from recession after recession. Almost everyone I graduated with has left - not because they want to but because the UK is so London-centric - and all of them are homesick but grateful they have jobs.

I hear lots of people complaining about how the Scots get lots of things the English don't - like cancer drugs etc. As I understand it, it goes both ways, there are cancer drugs available in England that the Scots don't get. The number of times the Sunshine paper has tried to get the Enlgish voters to vote tory in an election. Cross the border and see what the same newspaper is saying in Scotland and it is a very differenct push! The Daily Pail does it with the UK paper, singing the exact opposite over the Irish Sea. Kelvin McKenzie promised he'd leave if the Tories didn't win - he should have left at noon for Belize - did he join the tax haven? Hope so.

It is a foretest of 'local choice, local governence' the polticians are saying we all want. Just watch the number of arguements across counties growing. We've had it with bin collections. Those regional, national and county differences will magnify. The bickering is going to be like living in a family of 20 kids all fighting over the toys, the biscuits, the bikes and the sweets! Awful!


When it comes to the Eruozone. The markets will just have to wait on us. We do not dance to their tune and the sooner they get used to it the better. The hung parliament was no fluke - business leaders sit back down and shut up. Get into your boxes and understand no business has a vote in this or any other democracy. The people, your customers do.

I can understand why the international markets are getting the jitters. They at present see no one in the UK in a position to start paying back the debt.

Thankfully the Conservatives managed to secure over 300 hundred seats giving it a strong foundation and a coalition/formal arrangement with the Lib Dems will create a majority government that, hopefully, will take quick and decisive action on trying to get the national debt down.

I think the crisis in the Eurozone has shielded the UK economy from the worst the likes of Mr Soros can throw at us. But sooner or later the sharks will become tried of the Eurozone and turn their attention on us.

#14:

the Liberals signed their own death warrant once before when they let labour anywhere near paliament for the first time.

To do it again about 100 years later would finally let the conservatives back in so they can sort this mess out.

With political turmoil in Germany and in the UK, and the unresolved European debt contaigion crisis, it seriously looks as if we are at the beginning of the end for the Euro.

This failed European economic model characterised by the the phoney currency known as the Euro is now at the point of self-destruct.

Take shelter, things are going to get a lot worse!