Ed V Dave - 9pm on C4 & Sky News

[gordondaviesmoustache]

GDM is a ****, that is not being nasty its a fact and one he probably would not dispute ;))

Guilty as charged.

 

[Len Rum]

That's the real-world equivalent of answering someone's question and not looking in their eyes when you do so ;-)

Wot?
Chill out mate, go for a walk round the block or do whatever you need to do to unwind.
The site was running slow for me which might have been due to the graphics on borrowing, so I replied as a new post rather than display it again as a 'quote' reply.
Hope that's ok with you.

I'm as chilled as a motherfucker, mate, hence the wink at the end of my post. I think the heat of the election campaign is starting to affect your judgement.























;-)

Thank you for that wink ( hastily checks correct spelling).
x

 

[Rascal]

The economy was in recession from 1990 to 1993. At the time it was considered a deep recession. I remember it well, as I started working properly for the first time in early 1991, in a sales position, in a sector of the economy which is always one of the first to feel the effects of a downturn: consequently, my customers would remind me daily about how bad thins were. These complaints started to abate sometime in 1994, which ties in with that graph, funnily enough, when the deficit was reducing apace.

Your slavish adherence to anything with a red rosette on it has, I suspect, blinded you to the point I was making. Gordon Brown oversaw around a decade of significant and, it should be said, commendable growth. If, during that period, he was unable to even contain the deficit, never mind reduce and eliminate it, then when was he ever going to do such a thing? The answer has to be "never"; and therein lies the rub. He, and other Labour Chancellors will always have this hardwiring to spend taxpayers money. It's like an addiction. It's for laudable, worthwhile reasons but when you're running the economy you've got a responsibity, to a significant exent, to put your perfectly understandable emotional desire to help people and make society fairer to one side, and run the economy in a prudent fashion. It might take longer to get there, but you can still achieve your aspirations, at least to a worthwhile extent. They seem to manage it by that route in Germany.

Of course, we'll hear to usual stuff about infrastructure projects and investment in the nations future, but there's a differece between building an extension on your house and constructing a swimming pool in your back garden. One might be be necessary and add value to your house, the other, a luxury that with its cost of upkeep actually diminishes the value of your home. Both might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but only one stands the test of time when you get made redundant a few years later.

In short, a Chancellor needs to be self-disciplined and robust, not someone with all the restraint of a drunken sailor on shore-leave. It's only way to make society fairer, long term imo.

Thats a fair and thoughtful arguement that fits the narrative of today rather than the facts of yesteryear.

Recessions are a fact of the economic cycle, Browns boast of ending boom and bust has done much to help shape that narrative because it has allowed the deficit for perhaps the first time in UK history to become an issue when it the past it has never really mattered.

If you look back historically the UK has been built on debt, it borrowed to build armies and navies to rule the world and reap the benefits from it. We borrowed first, we didnt do it from a balanced budget. WE have used to debt especially gilts to fund our growth for hundreds of years because we had no other choice if we wanted to make our mark on the planet. It was only in the last budget for instance that Osborne announced that we had finally payed off the debt from WW1. 97 years after we ended it. We in effect as in our generation have paid for that war, the next generation will be paying for WW2 and the generation after will be paying for the rebuilding we needed after WW2 and so on. But todays narrative is skewed towards why should future generations pay for our excesses. My answer is why is our generation clearing up the debt of forefathers and providing for the future as well. Its a double edged sword and it is totally the antithesis of how the UK has worked as a country since its inception.

Of course a balanced budget is desirable if possible but in times of economic depression it is idiotic in my opinion to try to pay off debt and balance books because in the long run its our future generations that will end up paying for the infrastructure they needed now. To me its imperative we invest now and we can whilst interest rates are at an all time low. We invest and grow the economy, provide the services our generation needs and the growth accrued can help pay off the debt acquired.

It must be obvious that in 1945 we had debt at 256% of GDP yet rebuilt the nation, created the NHS and the welfare state in a time of severe austerity and because we invested we had the boom years of the 50s and 60s and were in a place where we as a nation could exploit the white heat of technology. Imagine where we would be without the foresight and courage of Atlee and his cohorts.

The modern day narrative is in my opinion a false dichotomy, it ignores whats gone before and is an unproven means of achieving anything. You may want a steady, self disciplined chancellor, i want a visionary Chancellor, one who is prepared to move us forward, invest and not sacrifice all we have on this idiotic pursuit of austerity based on small statist ideology. Our debt is not anolamous by any past measure, but by the falsehoods of "maxed out credit cards" "bankruptcy" "like Greece" we have a populace that for the first time in our history actually thinks about and worries about something that has not bothered us as a nation since time immemorial.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

Re: Ed V Dave - 9pm on C4 & Sky News

Are you prepared to pay for the treatment of British expats, or leave them to fend for themselves?

Expats where?

And for treatment where?

Brits living overseas get entitlement to medical treatment under reciprocal arrangements. Medicare in Australia for example.

Cut access to medical treatment to foreigners living in Britain, and other countries will do likewise to British expats.

Err sorry but this is just not the case.

 

[Len Rum]

Good reply from Rascal
Another angle is to take the right wingers on using their own figures.
Between the boom years in the eighties 1982-87 the Tories ran a cumulative deficit of 56 bn, between 2002 - 2007 Labour ran a cumulative deficit of 200bn.
Correcting for inflation mid eighties to mid noughties ,value of £1 increases to between 2 and 3.5 depending on how you measure it, call it 2.5 to be on the safe side and the Tories cumulative deficit is 140bn in mid noughties money.
Ok , 60 bn less over five years than Labour ( using this simple measure), worth a discussion maybe,but not the radical and fundamental difference between the two parties some on here are talking about.
Large part of the difference would be Labour spending on NHS.
As a % of GDP both parties ran deficits of 2- 3 % of GDP in these periods.
To repeat not much difference between the two.
Postscript: to put these figures into perspective George Osborne has borrowed 500bn in five years , 200bn more than he predicted when he came into power. Sort of brings into context Labour's pre crash borrowing figures doesn't it. It's like someone in debt nowadays to the tune of a few hundred grand wishing he'd saved that 2s/6d spare bit of cash he used to have in the good old days.

 

[Malty]

Good reply from Rascal
Another angle is to take the right wingers on using their own figures.
Between the boom years in the eighties 1982-87 the Tories ran a cumulative deficit of 56 bn, between 2002 - 2007 Labour ran a cumulative deficit of 200bn.
Correcting for inflation mid eighties to mid noughties ,value of £1 increases to between 2 and 3.5 depending on how you measure it, call it 2.5 to be on the safe side and the Tories cumulative deficit is 140bn in mid noughties money.
Ok , 60 bn less over five years than Labour ( using this simple measure), worth a discussion maybe,but not the radical and fundamental difference between the two parties some on here are talking about.
Large part of the difference would be Labour spending on NHS.
As a % of GDP both parties ran deficits of 2- 3 % of GDP in these periods.
To repeat not much difference between the two.

Correct.

Nobody is a winner in this debate.

 

[cibaman]

The economy was in recession from 1990 to 1993. At the time it was considered a deep recession. I remember it well, as I started working properly for the first time in early 1991, in a sales position, in a sector of the economy which is always one of the first to feel the effects of a downturn: consequently, my customers would remind me daily about how bad thins were. These complaints started to abate sometime in 1994, which ties in with that graph, funnily enough, when the deficit was reducing apace.

Your slavish adherence to anything with a red rosette on it has, I suspect, blinded you to the point I was making. Gordon Brown oversaw around a decade of significant and, it should be said, commendable growth. If, during that period, he was unable to even contain the deficit, never mind reduce and eliminate it, then when was he ever going to do such a thing? The answer has to be "never"; and therein lies the rub. He, and other Labour Chancellors will always have this hardwiring to spend taxpayers money. It's like an addiction. It's for laudable, worthwhile reasons but when you're running the economy you've got a responsibity, to a significant exent, to put your perfectly understandable emotional desire to help people and make society fairer to one side, and run the economy in a prudent fashion. It might take longer to get there, but you can still achieve your aspirations, at least to a worthwhile extent. They seem to manage it by that route in Germany.

Of course, we'll hear to usual stuff about infrastructure projects and investment in the nations future, but there's a differece between building an extension on your house and constructing a swimming pool in your back garden. One might be be necessary and add value to your house, the other, a luxury that with its cost of upkeep actually diminishes the value of your home. Both might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but only one stands the test of time when you get made redundant a few years later.

In short, a Chancellor needs to be self-disciplined and robust, not someone with all the restraint of a drunken sailor on shore-leave. It's only way to make society fairer, long term imo.

Thats a fair and thoughtful arguement that fits the narrative of today rather than the facts of yesteryear.

Recessions are a fact of the economic cycle, Browns boast of ending boom and bust has done much to help shape that narrative because it has allowed the deficit for perhaps the first time in UK history to become an issue when it the past it has never really mattered.

If you look back historically the UK has been built on debt, it borrowed to build armies and navies to rule the world and reap the benefits from it. We borrowed first, we didnt do it from a balanced budget. WE have used to debt especially gilts to fund our growth for hundreds of years because we had no other choice if we wanted to make our mark on the planet. It was only in the last budget for instance that Osborne announced that we had finally payed off the debt from WW1. 97 years after we ended it. We in effect as in our generation have paid for that war, the next generation will be paying for WW2 and the generation after will be paying for the rebuilding we needed after WW2 and so on. But todays narrative is skewed towards why should future generations pay for our excesses. My answer is why is our generation clearing up the debt of forefathers and providing for the future as well. Its a double edged sword and it is totally the antithesis of how the UK has worked as a country since its inception.

Of course a balanced budget is desirable if possible but in times of economic depression it is idiotic in my opinion to try to pay off debt and balance books because in the long run its our future generations that will end up paying for the infrastructure they needed now. To me its imperative we invest now and we can whilst interest rates are at an all time low. We invest and grow the economy, provide the services our generation needs and the growth accrued can help pay off the debt acquired.

It must be obvious that in 1945 we had debt at 256% of GDP yet rebuilt the nation, created the NHS and the welfare state in a time of severe austerity and because we invested we had the boom years of the 50s and 60s and were in a place where we as a nation could exploit the white heat of technology. Imagine where we would be without the foresight and courage of Atlee and his cohorts.

The modern day narrative is in my opinion a false dichotomy, it ignores whats gone before and is an unproven means of achieving anything. You may want a steady, self disciplined chancellor, i want a visionary Chancellor, one who is prepared to move us forward, invest and not sacrifice all we have on this idiotic pursuit of austerity based on small statist ideology. Our debt is not anolamous by any past measure, but by the falsehoods of "maxed out credit cards" "bankruptcy" "like Greece" we have a populace that for the first time in our history actually thinks about and worries about something that has not bothered us as a nation since time immemorial.

Governments don't necessarily pay off debt in chronological order. They pay off the most expensive first, provided the terms allow. They're indifferent to whether the debt was taken out last week or 200 years ago provided the terms are the same. But if the debt taken out 200 years ago requires them to pay interest of 3% and the debt taken out last week requires them to pay interest of 5% they pay off last weeks debt first, provided the terms allow them to.

The repayment of the WW1 debt had nothing to do with whether the government could afford to pay it off, it just didnt make economic sense to do so.

 

[Rascal]

The economy was in recession from 1990 to 1993. At the time it was considered a deep recession. I remember it well, as I started working properly for the first time in early 1991, in a sales position, in a sector of the economy which is always one of the first to feel the effects of a downturn: consequently, my customers would remind me daily about how bad thins were. These complaints started to abate sometime in 1994, which ties in with that graph, funnily enough, when the deficit was reducing apace.

Your slavish adherence to anything with a red rosette on it has, I suspect, blinded you to the point I was making. Gordon Brown oversaw around a decade of significant and, it should be said, commendable growth. If, during that period, he was unable to even contain the deficit, never mind reduce and eliminate it, then when was he ever going to do such a thing? The answer has to be "never"; and therein lies the rub. He, and other Labour Chancellors will always have this hardwiring to spend taxpayers money. It's like an addiction. It's for laudable, worthwhile reasons but when you're running the economy you've got a responsibity, to a significant exent, to put your perfectly understandable emotional desire to help people and make society fairer to one side, and run the economy in a prudent fashion. It might take longer to get there, but you can still achieve your aspirations, at least to a worthwhile extent. They seem to manage it by that route in Germany.

Of course, we'll hear to usual stuff about infrastructure projects and investment in the nations future, but there's a differece between building an extension on your house and constructing a swimming pool in your back garden. One might be be necessary and add value to your house, the other, a luxury that with its cost of upkeep actually diminishes the value of your home. Both might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but only one stands the test of time when you get made redundant a few years later.

In short, a Chancellor needs to be self-disciplined and robust, not someone with all the restraint of a drunken sailor on shore-leave. It's only way to make society fairer, long term imo.

Thats a fair and thoughtful arguement that fits the narrative of today rather than the facts of yesteryear.

Recessions are a fact of the economic cycle, Browns boast of ending boom and bust has done much to help shape that narrative because it has allowed the deficit for perhaps the first time in UK history to become an issue when it the past it has never really mattered.

If you look back historically the UK has been built on debt, it borrowed to build armies and navies to rule the world and reap the benefits from it. We borrowed first, we didnt do it from a balanced budget. WE have used to debt especially gilts to fund our growth for hundreds of years because we had no other choice if we wanted to make our mark on the planet. It was only in the last budget for instance that Osborne announced that we had finally payed off the debt from WW1. 97 years after we ended it. We in effect as in our generation have paid for that war, the next generation will be paying for WW2 and the generation after will be paying for the rebuilding we needed after WW2 and so on. But todays narrative is skewed towards why should future generations pay for our excesses. My answer is why is our generation clearing up the debt of forefathers and providing for the future as well. Its a double edged sword and it is totally the antithesis of how the UK has worked as a country since its inception.

Of course a balanced budget is desirable if possible but in times of economic depression it is idiotic in my opinion to try to pay off debt and balance books because in the long run its our future generations that will end up paying for the infrastructure they needed now. To me its imperative we invest now and we can whilst interest rates are at an all time low. We invest and grow the economy, provide the services our generation needs and the growth accrued can help pay off the debt acquired.

It must be obvious that in 1945 we had debt at 256% of GDP yet rebuilt the nation, created the NHS and the welfare state in a time of severe austerity and because we invested we had the boom years of the 50s and 60s and were in a place where we as a nation could exploit the white heat of technology. Imagine where we would be without the foresight and courage of Atlee and his cohorts.

The modern day narrative is in my opinion a false dichotomy, it ignores whats gone before and is an unproven means of achieving anything. You may want a steady, self disciplined chancellor, i want a visionary Chancellor, one who is prepared to move us forward, invest and not sacrifice all we have on this idiotic pursuit of austerity based on small statist ideology. Our debt is not anolamous by any past measure, but by the falsehoods of "maxed out credit cards" "bankruptcy" "like Greece" we have a populace that for the first time in our history actually thinks about and worries about something that has not bothered us as a nation since time immemorial.

Governments don't necessarily pay off debt in chronological order. They pay off the most expensive first, provided the terms allow. They're indifferent to whether the debt was taken out last week or 200 years ago provided the terms are the same. But if the debt taken out 200 years ago requires them to pay interest of 3% and the debt taken out last week requires them to pay interest of 5% they pay off last weeks debt first, provided the terms allow them to.

The repayment of the WW1 debt had nothing to do with whether the government could afford to pay it off, it just didnt make economic sense to do so.

Yes pal, it wasnt really my point, but thanks for the further explanation to my original post.

 

[The perfect fumble]

The economy was in recession from 1990 to 1993. At the time it was considered a deep recession. I remember it well, as I started working properly for the first time in early 1991, in a sales position, in a sector of the economy which is always one of the first to feel the effects of a downturn: consequently, my customers would remind me daily about how bad thins were. These complaints started to abate sometime in 1994, which ties in with that graph, funnily enough, when the deficit was reducing apace.

Your slavish adherence to anything with a red rosette on it has, I suspect, blinded you to the point I was making. Gordon Brown oversaw around a decade of significant and, it should be said, commendable growth. If, during that period, he was unable to even contain the deficit, never mind reduce and eliminate it, then when was he ever going to do such a thing? The answer has to be "never"; and therein lies the rub. He, and other Labour Chancellors will always have this hardwiring to spend taxpayers money. It's like an addiction. It's for laudable, worthwhile reasons but when you're running the economy you've got a responsibity, to a significant exent, to put your perfectly understandable emotional desire to help people and make society fairer to one side, and run the economy in a prudent fashion. It might take longer to get there, but you can still achieve your aspirations, at least to a worthwhile extent. They seem to manage it by that route in Germany.

Of course, we'll hear to usual stuff about infrastructure projects and investment in the nations future, but there's a differece between building an extension on your house and constructing a swimming pool in your back garden. One might be be necessary and add value to your house, the other, a luxury that with its cost of upkeep actually diminishes the value of your home. Both might have seemed like a good idea at the time, but only one stands the test of time when you get made redundant a few years later.

In short, a Chancellor needs to be self-disciplined and robust, not someone with all the restraint of a drunken sailor on shore-leave. It's only way to make society fairer, long term imo.

Thats a fair and thoughtful arguement that fits the narrative of today rather than the facts of yesteryear.

Recessions are a fact of the economic cycle, Browns boast of ending boom and bust has done much to help shape that narrative because it has allowed the deficit for perhaps the first time in UK history to become an issue when it the past it has never really mattered.

If you look back historically the UK has been built on debt, it borrowed to build armies and navies to rule the world and reap the benefits from it. We borrowed first, we didnt do it from a balanced budget. WE have used to debt especially gilts to fund our growth for hundreds of years because we had no other choice if we wanted to make our mark on the planet. It was only in the last budget for instance that Osborne announced that we had finally payed off the debt from WW1. 97 years after we ended it. We in effect as in our generation have paid for that war, the next generation will be paying for WW2 and the generation after will be paying for the rebuilding we needed after WW2 and so on. But todays narrative is skewed towards why should future generations pay for our excesses. My answer is why is our generation clearing up the debt of forefathers and providing for the future as well. Its a double edged sword and it is totally the antithesis of how the UK has worked as a country since its inception.

Of course a balanced budget is desirable if possible but in times of economic depression it is idiotic in my opinion to try to pay off debt and balance books because in the long run its our future generations that will end up paying for the infrastructure they needed now. To me its imperative we invest now and we can whilst interest rates are at an all time low. We invest and grow the economy, provide the services our generation needs and the growth accrued can help pay off the debt acquired.

It must be obvious that in 1945 we had debt at 256% of GDP yet rebuilt the nation, created the NHS and the welfare state in a time of severe austerity and because we invested we had the boom years of the 50s and 60s and were in a place where we as a nation could exploit the white heat of technology. Imagine where we would be without the foresight and courage of Atlee and his cohorts.

The modern day narrative is in my opinion a false dichotomy, it ignores whats gone before and is an unproven means of achieving anything. You may want a steady, self disciplined chancellor, i want a visionary Chancellor, one who is prepared to move us forward, invest and not sacrifice all we have on this idiotic pursuit of austerity based on small statist ideology. Our debt is not anolamous by any past measure, but by the falsehoods of "maxed out credit cards" "bankruptcy" "like Greece" we have a populace that for the first time in our history actually thinks about and worries about something that has not bothered us as a nation since time immemorial.

This is as good a post as I've seen in a long while.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Good reply from Rascal
Another angle is to take the right wingers on using their own figures.
Between the boom years in the eighties 1982-87 the Tories ran a cumulative deficit of 56 bn, between 2002 - 2007 Labour ran a cumulative deficit of 200bn.
Correcting for inflation mid eighties to mid noughties ,value of £1 increases to between 2 and 3.5 depending on how you measure it, call it 2.5 to be on the safe side and the Tories cumulative deficit is 140bn in mid noughties money.
Ok , 60 bn less over five years than Labour ( using this simple measure), worth a discussion maybe,but not the radical and fundamental difference between the two parties some on here are talking about.
Large part of the difference would be Labour spending on NHS.
As a % of GDP both parties ran deficits of 2- 3 % of GDP in these periods.
To repeat not much difference between the two.
Postscript: to put these figures into perspective George Osborne has borrowed 500bn in five years , 200bn more than he predicted when he came into power. Sort of brings into context Labour's pre crash borrowing figures doesn't it. It's like someone in debt nowadays to the tune of a few hundred grand wishing he'd saved that 2s/6d spare bit of cash he used to have in the good old days.

Pathetic attempt. You are beyond help, but thankfully you only have one vote.