it is C
but i regret to announce i'm rather a fan of this government....mindless media circus aside.
Gordon Brown,par example,is responsible for the longest period of sustained economic growth in ...oh bugger...is it thirty years?I can't remember.
Anyway.It's not great but we're okay,really.
Everything's fine.
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Fri 23 Jan 2009, 15:20, 2 replies)

But surely
what we've seen is that he was responsible for bugger-all. It's all global movements; he just had the good fortune to be Chancellor when things happened to be fine. It's like taking credit for keeping the beach dry just because you happened to be in charge of it when the tide was going out.
( Olembe Refuses to write in this space, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 15:24, closed)

No, that's not true...
Yes, there are global cycles, but if you police your financial industry properly, they can't accrue toxic debt or lend to sub-prime borrowers.

The government should also then have enough revenue from tax left from the up-turn to help the economy ride out the down-turn, but Brown (and Blair) wasted all the cash, but now seeks to deny any responsiblity. Then again, it's typical (New) Labour policy - Tax the middle classes to breaking point (class war), then spend all the money like water. At no point in the 20th Century did a Labour Government ever turn a bad economy into a good one - so why would Brown be any different?
(Chad, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 15:33, closed)

Sorry -
- I didn't mean to imply his policies were benign: they definitely weren't. I simply meant he shouldn't get any credit for the good times.
( Olembe Refuses to write in this space, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 15:39, closed)

ahhh...
sorry - I did think it incredible that you'd be standing up for him!
(Chad, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 15:44, closed)

how can you support Brown?
Aside from the fact that I have grave doubts about the long term vision provided by a one-eyed man, they rode a wave of economic growth put in place by John Major (as no government policy takes effect for at least three years), whilst pissing away money on support immingrant-snigle-mother-gay-basket-weaving workshops, trying to federalise us into the EU state by the back door and starting two illegal wars. They let the Bank of England (which they privatised, not the Tories, remember) set interest rates, made them responsible for the Pound, but gave them next to no power to prevent bad economic actions by either government or the financial industry...

I could go on for a long, long time, but basically, Blair and Brown took us from prosperity to huge public debt and unprecedented levels of personal borrowing. Of course, people were happy because they could have their sovreign rings and Reebok Classics, but the fact is that anytime the average level of borrowing is 100% of the household income, plus at least another 100%, then there is a real problem and that, unfortunately, is how Brown "beat" the boom and bust cycle - he just turned a blind eye to irresponsible lending until such times as it became totally unmanageable and it brings the coutnry to its knees...i.e the present day.
(Chad, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 15:29, closed)

alright,i agree.
what's an illegal war?
(Fuckpig "That's not even a pound a midget.", Fri 23 Jan 2009, 16:06, closed)