Political Thread

[westlondoncarparts]

Cutting through the somewhat diplomatic language of his speech today, the Governor of the Bank of England has effectively said that austerity policies have gone too far within the EU and that new vision and policies need to be put in place to get growth going again.

Austerity measures were put in place originally in the EU to ensure that national and local public finances had sufficient cash flow liquidity to deal with the consequences of having to borrow so much money to bail out the banks and to deal with the loss of tax revenue in the recession caused by the credit crunch. This exacerbated the economic downturn and was counter intuitive to the need to find cash to invest in generating economic growth which would drive higher tax inflows.

In the UK, austerity might initially have helped the UK Government’s cash flow management when it had to borrow so much money to bail out the banks but under David Cameron’s premiership the UK National Debt has gone up significantly (see first graph) and his austerity programme has failed to regenerate the economy and restore order to the public finances. Despite his rhetoric about all the new jobs created, the tax take from those new jobs is low and is a reflection that a lot are low paying low skill jobs that can never hope to be the backbone of a new dynamic thriving economy.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/e...-mountain.html

In the case of Greece, the new Prime Minister has said that there will be no default on repayments of Greek debt but that he will roll back austerity and the harm that it has caused Greece and will get the Greek economy growing again. One of his proposals will be to reschedule debt and interest repayments so that they are linked to growth in the Greek economy. This is intended to give some wriggle room so that the Greek Government can invest in the economy first and repay loans second rather than the other way around.

Going off topic, it is not likely to be long before there is a severe clash between Alexis Tsipras and David Cameron over the EU’s role in destablising Ukraine and over David Cameron’s role in particular in starting the new Cold War against Russia.

[PetBazaar]

Scottish Labour are truly beyond satire now...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotlan...itics-31090242

Barely a month after telling us that "The Vow" had been delivered, up pops Gordon Brown to guarantee us The Vow Plus.

Tune in next week for The Vow Max, The Vow Super Max by March, and The Vow Ultimate just before the election.

For those not up to speed on Scottish politics, what we effectively have here is: A man who's retiring, intervening for one who won't confirm he's standing, on behalf of an accounting unit which isn't, legally, allowed to have a different manifesto from the party that it's part of.

[astral276]

Barely a month after telling us that "The Vow" had been delivered, up pops Gordon Brown to guarantee us The Vow Plus.

Brown always was an idiot and would never have been PM if put to the electorate. Why anybody listened to him during the referendum, or believes he has a value now, is a total mystery.

The whole mess of them, of all parties, are a very sorry lot. I don't think it is a case of voting for who best represents your views (they only represent their own) but who will do you the least harm.

If they put up a candidate here then I'll vote UKIP - just to muddy the waters.

[westlondoncarparts]

With regard to the last post, the Scottish people are not stupid and will see through all the smoke and mirrors. At the moment the most important issue is the economy and jobs and wages. The Scottish people have a simple choice – vote SNP for an end to austerity or vote Labour for a continuation of austerity.

Labour UK have made the mistake of falling for the media bait over levels of public expenditure. Rather than work out how to get the economy moving again which should rightly include appropriate increased levels of public expenditure and borrowing where there is an adequate return on the investment, they are trying to manage the media projections that a Labour Government will be financially irresponsible and will make the economic situation worse. In doing so they have missed the real point of what the forthcoming election will be about.

The electorate will not miss the real point of what the election will be about so the results should be interesting, not just for Scotland but for the whole of the UK.

Alex Salmond must be a very happy man these days. He might not have won the Referendum but Scotland did change forever.

[PetBazaar]

Brown always was an idiot and would never have been PM if put to the electorate. Why anybody listened to him during the referendum, or believes he has a value now, is a total mystery.

I've no idea at all why he's so highly regarded but for some reason, in Scotland anyway, he is. Or rather, he was.

I suspect that a lot of it is to do with the main tabloid news paper up here being one step away from a Labour Party Press release. Labour can do no wrong in the eyes of the media. You only have to look at the coverage currently being given to the Blessed Saint Jim.

With regard to the last post, the Scottish people are not stupid and will see through all the smoke and mirrors. At the moment the most important issue is the economy and jobs and wages. The Scottish people have a simple choice – vote SNP for an end to austerity or vote Labour for a continuation of austerity.

I'm not sure that I share your confidence. While I think that a lot of people have seen through Labour, the problem is that in most Scottish seats, particularly in the central belt, it will require a huge swing to unseat them. They're frequently sitting on majorities of 10 - 20,000.

It's apparent from their campaigning, that they've given up on winning any arguments and instead are targeting those who aren't interested in politics, those who don't really give much thought to what's actually being said. The folk who've always voted labour because that's what their parents did. Labour's entire electoral strategy appears to be "SNP = BAD", with the occasional "Only voting Labour can keep out the Tories" thrown in. Mix that with the "SNP are Tartan Tories" argument (based on a motion of no confidence that helped bring down Labour in 1979) and you can see what they're trying to achieve.

If they can convince some of those folk to keep voting labour then it will be incredibly difficult to unseat them.

[tonyreddevil]

Think at the General Election.
Labour And SNP will have a Joint Enterprise.
Just Like Conseratives and Liberal Diplomats Did.

[MPS16]

....Just Like Conseratives and Liberal Diplomats Did.

I think you mean Liberal Diplodocus.

[tonyreddevil]

No I Didn't

[astral276]

No I Didn't

Yes you did!

( Oh I'm sorry, is this a five minute argument, or the full half hour? )

[astral276]

I think you mean Liberal Diplodocus.

Is that of the genus Cleggus Extinctus?