Matthew Parris says Do the honourable thing, Mr Brown

[just john]

I like Matthew Parris, but I say let him keep on digging for the maximum humilation
has there ever been a more deluded PM in history[:(]

Do the honourable thing, Mr Brown

[Bugsy]

Get the failing MOD to issue him with a service Webley, [;-)]  honourable...................fat chance.

.

[Gluestick]

Nice idea, Gary.

Provided they can actually find some bullets of the correct calibre which actually work...................

[Www]

[just john]

I've always been against capital punishment, on the basis that a living hell is worse than early release;
Would it be more fun to watch history and all the pundits cataloguing the decline and fall of Nu-lbr[:D]

[Kitty]

Can someone remind me - were people so deeply angry with the Conservatives during John Major's last year (1996/97) as people are currently angry about Labour under Gordon Brown?  I just can't remember.  Everywhere, everyone, seems completely whazzed off with Gordon Brown - even Labour supporters.  Was it like this in 1996?

 

 

[DerekJ]

I think that perhaps it's the realisation that he isn't only totally useless as a PM but that he's been totally useless throughout  his reign as chancellor prior to that.

[JohnM]

[quote user="Cathy"]

Can someone remind me - were people so deeply angry with the Conservatives during John Major's last year (1996/97) as people are currently angry about Labour under Gordon Brown?  I just can't remember.  Everywhere, everyone, seems completely whazzed off with Gordon Brown - even Labour supporters.  Was it like this in 1996?

[/quote]

Is it perhaps that the perception of the Tory's is that they believe in the everyman for himself, wheras the perception of Labour is that they fight for the weaker folk. So, when the Tory's screw up we say "Humph.... just what I expected" and vote differently, but when Labour do the same, we say "I expected better from Labour" and get really upset. I.e Labour don't manage our expectations as well as the Torys?

[just john]

Perhaps it has more to do with the ineptitude of Labour to manage the economy and their spending with any ''prudence'', they have spent the family silver (sorry gold) and raided everything else to continue including your pension, employing every device to borrow more including PFI; then they have the Gaul[:)] to blame everything else and expect our children to pay the world to fix it. I wonder how many who voted for Education, Education, Education, were prepared for this syllabus? In my memory never has the country suffered so much from such self inflicted wounds. My old granny knew not to spend money you didn't have.  timesonline.co.uk/Germans snub Browns spending plans 
Now  news.bbc.Dunfermline criticise the treasury's handling.
The judgement that the UK owes so much and will be the last to recover says everything about labours chancellorship.[:(]

[Gluestick]

If one stands back and considers the matter holistically, then Brown's much vaunted "Miracle Economy" is now seen for what it really: based on Smoke and Mirrors and predicated on two prongs: insane and non-sustainable house price rises: and excessive imports, warehousing, distribution and multiple retailing of imported Gimcrack mainly from Asia and mostly bought on unsecured consumer credit, Mortgage Equity Withdrawal and etc.

When I carried out an in-depth analysis of the UK economy for an article in early 2004 (At which point I was seriously concerned!) and using the ONS figures for UK Total Wealth, residential housing represented some 2/3rds! Absolute insanity! (Bearing in mind the total included ALL infrastructure, docks, airports, factories, public buildings, roads, railways, offices etc).

Month-on-Month Balance of Trade (Current Account) was seriously in deficit: and grew rapidly: and this, of course must be funded.

With a burgeoning tax take (From VAT, increased corporate profits, PAYE et al) Brown simply carried on expanding PSBR (Public Borrowing) and NuLab spent billions on whatever latest ideological fantasy took their fancy.

After Clem Atlee's labout government swept into power in 1945, Britain was on its knees from the cost of WWII: in three short years, by 1948 we were bankrupt! Thanks to Labour's focus on once again, implementing ideological fantasies.

Then however, Britain had two economic weapons: its commonwealth and manufacturing industry.

By 1957, (the Tories led by Churchill were back in 1951) incredible efforts by manufacturing industry and commerce allowed Macmillan then PM to boast, "You've never had it so good!"

What do we have this time around?

Call centres? The City? (Don't make me laugh!).

In my cynical eyes, Brown at present is simply desperately attempting to deflect focus from his own abject failures and convince the rest of the World that they are in the same mess too. With, of course, the singular exception of America, clearly they are not: mainly since with a few regional exceptions (Spain for example) no other economies have engaged in insane house price rises and blind speculation on the one side: and again, all apart from the USA and UK, no other developed economies have allowed unfettered and lightly regulated banks and financial manipulators to destroy the foundations of their financial and fiscal systems.

Yet Brown and his sycophantic idiot henchman, Darling, constantly whine the mantra "Global financial crisis", as if in reality, it is all someone else's fault!

 

[tuppence]

I couldn't have put it better myself Gluestick. Perhaps GB should change his initials too!! Does he think the English have short memories, after all he was chancellor leading up to all this, and lets not forget he is an unelected PM too. I'd like to know why there has not been a vote of no confidence in the present government, or are the Tories afraid of the inherited problems they will be getting. Now we see more sleaze this morning with the news that the Home Secretary's husband has been getting porno movies on tax payers expense. It beggars belief the amount of greedy b***tards there are on the front bench of NuLbr, to say nothing of those behind!!

tuppence

[Frederick]

     http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november

Please dont forget the nice Mr Wilson...after all he was Labour and tried to save us all as well !  

[Gluestick]

There are two things in the main which I remember with total distaste about the Wilson era: his speech about "The White Heat of Technology" which his and later governments did absolutely nothing about!

And the way that under Wedgie Benn, they sold oil drilling licenses for the North Sea off for peanuts.

As always: politicians: the architects of our future disasters.........................

[:@]

[Gastines]

Just how difficult is it to get rid of this lot? Can't the Queen dissolve the Government,possibly in Acid?It seems that the same applies to local Councils, the amount some of them seem to be throwing at any crazy scheme you would think the coffers were loaded.

Well put together Gluestick but where is the safest place  as I note you enjoy a foot in both camps.If you had to choose which one for the next 5 years would it be UK or France?

Regards.

[Kitty]

For the next 5 years, live in France and try to earn some euros and then visit the UK to spend them ...

[just john]

Would we be allowed back when UKIP are running the country?[:D]

 .independent. /tory-backer-decamps-to-give-ukip- 100,000-

[Gluestick]

[quote user="Gastines"]

Just how difficult is it to get rid of this lot? Can't the Queen dissolve the Government,possibly in Acid?It seems that the same applies to local Councils, the amount some of them seem to be throwing at any crazy scheme you would think the coffers were loaded.

Well put together Gluestick but where is the safest place  as I note you enjoy a foot in both camps.If you had to choose which one for the next 5 years would it be UK or France?

Regards.

[/quote]

When Mrs Gluey and I were looking at where finally to rest our feet, we went to and evaluated most of the normal places, including Cyprus (Nice place: long way away; worrying politics and shortly to join the EU): Spain ( crazy property system; too full of the sort of Brits we wanted to escape from[:)]; then emergent economy with serious forward doubts); Greek Islands (Lovely people; remote; crazy basket-case economy); Italy: (Silvio Berlesconi! Nuff said!); and decided on France, a country we knew reasonably and loved for lots of different reasons: one being the hugely different geography and climate between the North and the South, offered lots of wonderful contrasts.

Then I started researching in terms of forward economic realities....................................

France enjoys some serious and significant manufacturing industries: Aerospatiale; Dassault; Airbus Industrie; Renault; Citroen-Peugot; etc.

Unlike the UK which allowed its computer industry to wither on the vine when Peter Blomfield sold off what was left of ICT to Hitachi-Fujitsu, France still has Bull: furthermore there is SGS-Thompson, a joint venture between France and Italy which is in the top ten for certain silicon products.

France had invested hugely in its whole transport infrastructure including SNCF. Additionally, with no oil and gas resources (Elf-Acquitaine and Total tend to rely on unstable places including the Algerian state supplier Sonotrach) France invested massively in nuclear electricity.

Compare that to UK: what cars? What IT? What silicon design, laydown and manufacture? (ARM contract designs: and Glenrothes - Silicon Glen - is limited as are Allied Signal even more so).

Like all EU states at present, yes, France has a number of problems: that said, the industrial infrastructure is such that it can manufacture its way out.

I believe additionally, that the structure of the EU and Eurozone (And Euro) will undergo significant systemic change in the not too distant future: for the better. And that in all probability a new smaller grouping of states (France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Holland, Italy perhaps, Spain, perhaps, Belgium, Luxembourg) will emerge sharing not too dissimilar economies.

Germany still has to digest its reunification: and fiscally, this has cost blood, as what was West Germany had to absorb the Oestmark and all financial commitments of Honicker's bankrupt state which was always going to take 25 years or so. The process puts Germany about on level par for a wee bit longer rather than the preminent EU economic powerhouse. Additionally, changing from the stable coalition system which was one of the keys to West Germany's post war success, has caused significant fiscal strains.

Thus we decided on France: and remain convinced. Yes, France has some way to go to sort out both its social contract and economy: but, it does have the necessary weapons and industrial backdrop.

Great Britain, I fear, with all its attendant problems, is going to become (as I did forecast back in the mid 1980s) a sort of banana republic third world state in Europe, with rapidly collapsing infrastructure, health service and education system as well as increasing and dangerous levels of effective anarchy, as various polarised groups struggle against each other.

The dire problem now, is that simply, whatever government inherits this mess, would be faced by precisely identical dynamics: vanishing government tax revenues and escalating interest bills on massively excessive borrowing. Ergo, rapidly reducing spend capacity on public works and services.

And the Project Cycle Time to re-establish any form of globally competitive industrial base exceeds 25 years: since one must start at primary school level: and train suitably qualified engineers, technicians and engineers from that point on.

Sadly, ersatz "Degrees" in Beauty Therapy, Sociology, Media and Arts and Tourism and Leisure won't do: particularly when India, Pakistan and China (amongst others) are churning out Scientists and Engineers from universities right now by the hundreds of thousands.

Stay in la belle France!

[Gastines]

You've convinced me. Add to your list of ersatz Degrees the new one to be offered at Bournemouth University,"Surfing", I kid you not. It goes along with the Surf Reef being built,or partially built, by Boscombe Pier,Bournemouth. At present running about double original quote plus plenty of excuses.

Regards.