The Conservative Party

[Gareth Barry Conlon]

 

[Chippy_boy]

To be fair the borrowing was needed in 2008/2009.

Yes, I agree it was. But that's not actually the most damning part of the graph. The worst bit is the persistent borrowing under Labour, running up to the 2008 crash. From 2000 to 2008 we had a period of incredibly strong global growth. The macro-economic backdrop was great, with low interest rates, low unemployment, strong growth and everything looked good. And yet *still* in those good times, Labour was running a deficit. It's what Labour does.

So when the crash came, and we needed to borrow heavily (and I agree we did), debt was already at a high level and additional borrowing pushed it to dangerously high levels, which we've been dealing with for the past 8 or 9 years.

The patterns though are clear: Labour push up borrowing, push up taxes and push up spending; the Tories get in try to sort out the mess, involving painful cuts and things which are basically unpopular; they just about get things back on track and then they get kicked out so that Labour can come back in and ramp up the spending again.

People like increased government spending (more money for schools, hospitals, public services etc) and conclude Labour are the caring party and the Tories are evil. When in fact all the Tories are trying to do is balance the books and get the economy working so we can actually AFFORD to spend more on public services. Rather than just saying "fuck it, let's blow the money (we haven't got) anyway".

Actually I think Corbyn is too stupid to understand any of this and genuinely believes spending boat loads of cash will somehow work. McDonnell probably does understand it won't work, but doesn't give a shit, since a crashed economy (and society) suits his greater agenda.

 

[Ban-jani]

Yes, I agree it was. But that's not actually the most damning part of the graph. The worst bit is the persistent borrowing under Labour, running up to the 2008 crash. From 2000 to 2008 we had a period of incredibly strong global growth. The macro-economic backdrop was great, with low interest rates, low unemployment, strong growth and everything looked good. And yet *still* in those good times, Labour was running a deficit. It's what Labour does.

So when the crash came, and we needed to borrow heavily (and I agree we did), debt was already at a high level and additional borrowing pushed it to dangerously high levels, which we've been dealing with for the past 8 or 9 years.

The patterns though are clear: Labour push up borrowing, push up taxes and push up spending; the Tories get in try to sort out the mess, involving painful cuts and things which are basically unpopular; they just about get things back on track and then they get kicked out so that Labour can come back in and ramp up the spending again.

People like increased government spending (more money for schools, hospitals, public services etc) and conclude Labour are the caring party and the Tories are evil. When in fact all the Tories are trying to do is balance the books and get the economy working so we can actually AFFORD to spend more on public services. Rather than just saying "fuck it, let's blow the money (we haven't got) anyway".

Actually I think Corbyn is too stupid to understand any of this and genuinely believes spending boat loads of cash will somehow work. McDonnell probably does understand it won't work, but doesn't give a shit, since a crashed economy (and society) suits his greater agenda.

Society needed to change though and it was through New Labour. They weren’t aware the financial crash was coming and at the time of the 00’s, we needed significant investment in the NHS and other infrastructures.

Living standards went up and whilst they were borrowing to make this happen, it wasn’t a dangerous level until 2008 happened.

Investment isn’t a bad thing for a period of time, even if the deficit does go up, I would say that without the crash the investment added by Blair’s government in the period of 97-2007 would have been comfortably reversed, as and when we reached the levels of infrastructure improvement needed.

Again, the crash bollocks’d that up.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Danger of becoming?

The Tories say they have 124,000 members, but in reality the figure is much lower, they could probably fill Wembley Stadium at a pinch.

Those few members the party does have are older, whiter, and hold views that are unrepresentative of the public as a whole (a clear majority are Brexiters and more than half support the death penalty, with reactionary views on other social issues more prevalent than in other parties).

Running a minority government means May is beholden to dozens of competing factional demands and interests, and MPs are conscious that the membership has a greater stake in this fight than ever.

Nowhere is this more obvious than on Brexit, where those opposed to May have been using the anger of the grassroots to their advantage these past three years and particularly since the disastrous 2017 election.

When May cringingly talks to camera about how she is listening to our frustration about getting on with it and delivering Brexit, if you feel a bit disconnected, you're not alone, she's not talking to the British people, she's talking to the gloriously decrepit Tory party membership.

The Liberals have 99,200 members and Labour 570,000.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Society needed to change though and it was through New Labour. They weren’t aware the financial crash was coming and at the time of the 00’s, we needed significant investment in the NHS and other infrastructures.

Living standards went up and whilst they were borrowing to make this happen, it wasn’t a dangerous level until 2008 happened.

Investment isn’t a bad thing for a period of time, even if the deficit does go up, I would say that without the crash the investment added by Blair’s government in the period of 97-2007 would have been comfortably reversed, as and when we reached the levels of infrastructure improvement needed.

Again, the crash bollocks’d that up.

Who knows.

But I would say that whilst presiding over strong growth AND fleecing the public with 100+ stealth taxes, AND still running a perpetual deficit, was not a great idea. Basic economic prudence tells you that you should be putting a penny aside for a rainy day whilst times are good. Labour didn't do that and we've been paying for it ever since.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Danger of becoming?

The Tories say they have 124,000 members, but in reality the figure is much lower, they could probably fill Wembley Stadium at a pinch.

Those few members the party does have are older, whiter, and hold views that are unrepresentative of the public as a whole

A bit like the Labour Party, only they have even more members whose views are even more unrepresentative of the public as a whole.

 

[Ban-jani]

Who knows.

But I would say that whilst presiding over strong growth AND fleecing the public with 100+ stealth taxes, AND still running a perpetual deficit, was not a great idea. Basic economic prudence tells you that you should be putting a penny aside for a rainy day whilst times are good. Labour didn't do that and we've been paying for it ever since.

I respectfully disagree.

We’ve been paying for the global financial crash, not Blair’s policy.

Now I will agree that taxing too heavily is not a good thing and you can take borrowing too far, however I’ve always found the correct answer to be inbetween the Tories and Socialist ideals.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I respectfully disagree.

We’ve been paying for the global financial crash, not Blair’s policy.

Now I will agree that taxing too heavily is not a good thing and you can take borrowing too far, however I’ve always found the correct answer to be inbetween the Tories and Socialist ideals.

It would be silly of me to suggest austerity and the painful cuts we've had to endure for the past several years are all down to Brown's mismanagement and I didn't mean to suggest that. Of course the financial crash is the major cause (let's not get into how we allowed our banks to be so over-exposed).

But it's mathematically incontrovertible that had we not been running a deficit in every year of the 7 or 8 years previous, we would have had less debt going into the 2008 crash and we'd have less debt after it. And global downturns and even severe crashes happen all the time; it's part of the cycle and financial prudence should mean you plan for it, you prepare for it. What you don't do is carry on spending and borrowing, taxing and spending, borrowing more and spending more - with your head in the clouds and then get bitten in the arse when a crash happens.

Brown's thirst for spending left no stone unturned in how and where he could take money off people, and he still ended up pushing up debt year on year on year on year. Just his stealth tax on pensions alone has made tens of millions of people, tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds worse off.

And yet, staggeringly, absolutely STAGGERINGLY, Fumble and his cronies think Brown and Blair were not left enough, and would have them spend even more, tax even more, and with even more disasterous effects. The Brown-Blair years were about as innocuous (in terms of damage to the economy) as Labour administrations get: They took 10 years to fuck it up. McDonnell could do it in 10 weeks.

 

[Ban-jani]

It would be silly of me to suggest austerity and the painful cuts we've had to endure for the past several years are all down to Brown's mismanagement and I didn't mean to suggest that. Of course the financial crash is the major cause (let's not get into how we allowed our banks to be so over-exposed).

But it's mathematically incontrovertible that had we not been running a deficit in every year of the 7 or 8 years previous, we would have had less debt going into the 2008 crash and we'd have less debt after it. And global downturns and even severe crashes happen all the time; it's part of the cycle and financial prudence should mean you plan for it, you prepare for it. What you don't do is carry on spending and borrowing, taxing and spending, borrowing more and spending more - with your head in the clouds and then get bitten in the arse when a crash happens.

Brown's thirst of spending left no stone unturned in how and where he could take money off people, and he still ended up pushing up debt year on year on year on year. Just his stealth tax on pensions alone has make tens of millions of people, tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds worse off.

That’s true but no one could have predicted the sheer scale and devastation that 2008 was going to cause, well almost no one (I have watched the Big Short).

I am not against running a deficit and increasing spending if it is necessary to investment in the country’s infrastructure at the time and I believe we needed it when New Labour came to power.

 

[Chippy_boy]

That’s true but no one could have predicted the sheer scale and devastation that 2008 was going to cause, well almost no one (I have watched the Big Short).

I am not against running a deficit and increasing spending if it is necessary to investment in the country’s infrastructure at the time and I believe we needed it when New Labour came to power.

I'm not against it either for short term stimulus, but that's not what it was being used for. It was structural, persistent, overspending.

You talk about it being needed? What were the 100+ tax increases for? On the back of global growth and rising GDP, the tax take rose dramatically: that is what we should have used to fund infrastucture and other investment. But no, that wasn't enough, we had to persistently keep borrowing as well and that I think was a mistake. They overspent. Remember the fateful note? "I'm afraid there is no money left". Because Blair and Brown had spent it all, and more.

(Edit, and funnily enough re no-one could have predicted the scale of the crash, my dad did. He was a quite brilliant man and kept telling me it was coming throughout 2006, 2007. He was retired by then and didn't trade on money markets so he was in no position to short anything, but he certainly told me to get my savings under FSA protection limits and not to keep it all in Natwest. The idea that Natwest might go bust, back in 2006/7 was considered ridiculous, but dad saw it coming a mile off.)

 

[inbetween]

That’s true but no one could have predicted the sheer scale and devastation that 2008 was going to cause, well almost no one (I have watched the Big Short).

I am not against running a deficit and increasing spending if it is necessary to investment in the country’s infrastructure at the time and I believe we needed it when New Labour came to power.

The question is do you plan for the worse or hope for the best? They weren't responsible for the crash but the excess spending definitely left us in a position where government finances were vulnerable to a large scale crash.

The spending might be judged as necessary but how did it pay off? The debt interest repayments today are 4% of GDP, for comparison purposes we spend less on defence (2%) and not much more on the NHS (7%)!

Get Corbyn in and it will get worse and the major government expenditure will be debt interest repayments. We will all pay our tax and an increasing chunk of it will basically get thrown in the bin.

With his spending plans he will tax the rich and basically give it back to them with interest because the rich will be the ones buying up the government bonds to issue the debt!

 

[Ban-jani]

The question is do you plan for the worse or hope for the best? They weren't responsible for the crash but the excess spending definitely left us in a position where government finances were vulnerable to a large scale crash.

The spending might be judged as necessary but how did it pay off? The debt interest repayments today are 4% of GDP, for comparison purposes we spend less on defence (2%) and not much more on the NHS (7%)!

Get Corbyn in and it will get worse and the major government expenditure will be debt interest repayments. We will all pay our tax and an increasing chunk of it will basically get thrown in the bin.

With his spending plans he will tax the rich and basically give it back to them with interest because the rich will be the ones buying up the government bonds to issue the debt!

What’s the alternative, never invest any money to make people’s lives better?

If you’re always preparing for the worst you’ll have a government constantly withholding money in the case of a global financial crash.

What if that doesn’t come, to the scale of 2008?

 

[Ban-jani]

I'm not against it either for short term stimulus, but that's not what it was being used for. It was structural, persistent, overspending.

You talk about it being needed? What were the 100+ tax increases for? On the back of global growth and rising GDP, the tax take rose dramatically: that is what we should have used to fund infrastucture and other investment. But no, that wasn't enough, we had to persistently keep borrowing as well and that I think was a mistake. They overspent. Remember the fateful note? "I'm afraid there is no money left". Because Blair and Brown had spent it all, and more.

(Edit, and funnily enough re no-one could have predicted the scale of the crash, my dad did. He was a quite brilliant man and kept telling me it was coming throughout 2006, 2007. He was retired by then and didn't trade on money markets so he was in no position to short anything, but he certainly told me to get my savings under FSA protection limits and not to keep it all in Natwest. The idea that Natwest might go bust, back in 2006/7 was considered ridiculous, but dad saw it coming a mile off.)

It wasn’t enough, the country was going through a dramatic improvement in many areas, the NHS oversaw tens of thousands of more nurses for example, to keep up with the demand.

The amount of borrowing that was going on would have been fine to reverse but then 2008 happened.

I said “almost no one”, I’m aware that some talented people did predict it.

Very impressive by your old man.

 

[Chippy_boy]

It wasn’t enough, the country was going through a dramatic improvement in many areas, the NHS oversaw tens of thousands of more nurses for example, to keep up with the demand.

I don't agree it (tax increases) wasn't enough. Or more specifically, whether or not it was enough, is not the point. We spent money we did not have, and whilst that's OK for a year or so, it's not imo OK for nearly a decade. If there was really no alternative to spending the amounts Labour spent (and personally I dispute that) then they should have been upfront about it and explain the need for the necessary tax rises. Not continued with sneaky stealth taxes hoping no-one would notice and layering borrowing upon borrowing until the cupboard was beyond bare.

Of course they'd have probably been kicked out earlier had that been the approach, which is presumably why they went down the borrowing ever more route.

 

[Ban-jani]

I don't agree it (tax increases) wasn't enough. Or more specifically, whether or not it was enough, is not the point. We spent money we did not have, and whilst that's OK for a year or so, it's not imo OK for nearly a decade. If there was really no alternative to spending the amounts Labour spent (and personally I dispute that) then they should have been upfront about it and explain the need for the necessary tax rises. Not continued with sneaky stealth taxes hoping no-one would notice and layering borrowing upon borrowing until the cupboard was beyond bare.

Of course they'd have probably been kicked out earlier had that been the approach, which is presumably why they went down the borrowing ever more route.

Well I think the argument would turn to how much our infrastructure needed improving and I would say New Labour did a brilliant job of making these improvements. 1997-2007 was a golden era in British life.

It’s also worth noting that the Tories, before New Labour, also borrowed too.

I’d just say that we’ll never know what would have happened without the financial crash and how the following 20 years of New Labour’s plan would have turned out.

To be honest we’re not going to agree on this. I do appreciate your point of view and think you have a point in significant borrowing, I’m also not convinced mass borrowing is the way to go at this moment in time, consider the mess we’re in.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Well I think the argument would turn to how much our infrastructure needed improving and I would say New Labour did a brilliant job of making these improvements. 1997-2007 was a golden era in British life.

Of course, everyone loves it when cash is being splashed around. They aren't loving it so much now though are they, and after 8 years of pulling our reigns in. It's like hating your Mum for taking you to the dentist for a load of fillings after your Dad let you binge on sweets and not bother brushing your teeth. But the sweets were great.

It’s also worth noting that the Tories, before New Labour, also borrowed too.

Of course. I didn't say all borrowing was bad, but persistent, year on year increases in borrowing, not to fund infrastructure but to plug a fundamental and structural revenue-cost gap is definitely bad.

I’d just say that we’ll never know what would have happened without the financial crash and how the following 20 years of New Labour’s plan would have turned out.

To be honest we’re not going to agree on this. I do appreciate your point of view and think you have a point in significant borrowing, I’m also not convinced mass borrowing is the way to go at this moment in time, consider the mess we’re in.

To be honest, this has been one of the most reasonable debates on the thread, and actually one I have enjoyed. You seem like a reasonable and balanced person and I agree with much you have to say. I think where we differ is more about emphasis and amounts rather than principles per se. I definitely think the Tory mantra of endless cuts almost irrespective of social consequences is wrong. But equally Labour are unelectable at the moment with (effectively) Marxists running the show who would doubtless care not one jot about trashing the economy for short term gain.

 

[Ban-jani]

Of course, everyone loves it when cash is being splashed around. They aren't loving it so much now though are they, and after 8 years of pulling our reigns in. It's like hating your Mum for taking you to the dentist for a load of fillings after your Dad let you binge on sweets and not bother brushing your teeth. But the sweets were great.

Of course. I didn't say all borrowing was bad, but persistent, year on year increases in borrowing, not to fund infrastructure but to plug a fundamental and structural revenue-cost gap is definitely bad.



To be honest, this has been one of the most reasonable debates on the thread, and actually one I have enjoyed. You seem like a reasonable and balanced person and I agree with much you have to say. I think where we differ is more about emphasis and amounts rather than principles per se. I definitely think the Tory mantra of endless cuts almost irrespective of social consequences is wrong. But equally Labour are unelectable at the moment with (effectively) Marxists running the show who would doubtless care not one jot about trashing the economy for short term gain.

Haha the first point is a good analogy but then again I would say the 2008 crash is what’s caused 8/9 years of austerity. I’m not someone who’s quick to bash the Tories on the point of reducing the deficit, I think many just look at the cuts and scream monsters at them, when they’re doing it to balance the books and ensure the country’s economy moves in the right direction.

I’m not sure austerity would have been ever needed should that crash in 2008 happened.

Yeah it’s been a good chat, I think we do agree in the main it’s just a point of agreeing at what point do you draw the line and how much 2000-2010’s borrowing contributed to the situation we are in. Being someone close to the centre of politics, I can see pro’s and con’s from both the Tories and Labour and I’m not in the camp of saying all Tories are evil, I’m aware many have the views they do because they think it will help the country. I just think they deserve a good fucking kicking for the Brexit mess and I’d like to see both major parties fail.

 

[Chippy_boy]

I can see pro’s and con’s from both the Tories and Labour and I’m not in the camp of saying all Tories are evil, I’m aware many have the views they do because they think it will help the country. I just think they deserve a good fucking kicking for the Brexit mess and I’d like to see both major parties fail.

On that we most definitely agree!

 

[Len Rum]

Dear me. You critcise austerity AND the increase in debt. Make your mind up.

No problem there mate.
The reductions in corporation tax and taxes for the wealthy might have had something to do with the increase in national debt.
As indeed did the austerity programme of 2010-2012 which sent the economy into recession thereby reducing growth and tax revenues.
Alistair Darling ( remember him) had a more sensible economic programme in 2010 of modest cuts in public spending whilst spending to invest in capital projects,infrastructure etc.

 

[The perfect fumble]

Health secretary Matt Hancock:

Voting Conservative “used to be something people started to think about doing when they got their first pay cheque – now it’s when they get their first winter fuel allowance.”

Going, going, gone.