Thought Id start this one going because its rather dead on this board at the moment and I suppose all my usual muckers are either at the Stella tennis event watching Dim Tim (lose again) or at Henly Regatta eating cucumber sandwiches (they wish,...NOT).

Anyway please feel free to just talk to yourself blast away and let it go on any company or subject you wish. Just wish Id thought of this one before.

cheers GF.

Don't the tory party funders have a responsibility for the mess in 2006-2010?

Vince Cable, a couple of days ago prior to the budget:

"The UK economy was 'a basket case' when the current government coalition took it over."

As to whose exact fault it was, is debatable. Nevertheless, at the time it was allowed to become such a basket case, the goverment of the day was Labour.

696---Exactly
2517

THE BUDGET
i have now got my copy of FT so there's plenty of sensible and balanced stuff to digest

apart from a slab of "spite and envy tax" that labour would have imposed, the real question between the parties is not so much as should there be further spending cuts, but rather, how and where shall we implement them and over how long a period

Has there ever been a labour gov that didn't break the bank?

there's certainly been a few conservative gov'ts that have thrown cash around like confetti too

Max and Exec.

I save up and buy both of you a pair of glasses to replace the worn out ones you use now.

I'm sure there has c.


Fred.

Can you expand on the glasses bit?

What you are not reading in the mainstream media:


* Last night, Greece rebuffed an EC order not to pass the Relief Bill in Athens, and the law was enacted by a huge majority including those with a murky past of Troika collaboration.

* Banco Madrid filed for bankruptcy yesterday, and won’t be bailed out by the Rajoy Government.

* At the last US stress test, both Santander and Deutsche banks were bluntly told by the Fed that that business models “left enormous doubts” about their ability to withstand an “event”.

* The Italian toxic loans figure went up €185bn in January 2015.

* Yesterday, the ECB opened its multi-billion euro f**k-off sign in Frankfurt. The event was celebrated by violent demonstrations from start to finish.

* Several Troikanauts have come out publicly over the last week to say that the Austro-German banking contagion is a far bigger issue than Greece.

* Three days ago, France’s persistent deficit went unpunished: no austerity, no IMF, no Troika, no Schäuble screaming in meetings, no Draghi cutting off their QE liquidity. One law for the rich, and another for the poor.




More:https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2015/03/19/for-once-i-have-to-admit-that-nigel-farage-is-right-but-for-all-the-wrong-reasons/

maxK ,remember 1979 ? how Labour left us then ..

Some of you have never recovered!

8-)

That's what we were left with in 1979 ....

bit like 2010 then though the pic would then be metaphorical

It is amazing what "George can do"!

If he doesn't watch out he will be known as U-bend George!

Consis


UK think tank sees 'remarkable' change of tack by Osborne


BY WILLIAM SCHOMBERG AND ANDY BRUCE
LONDON Thu Mar 19, 2015 2:45pm GMT

Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne (L) leads his Treasury team as they prepare to leave number 11 Downing Street to pose for photographers before going to the House of Commons to present the Budget, in central London March 18, 2015.

CREDIT: REUTERS/STEFAN ROUSSEAU/POOL

(Reuters) - British Chancellor George Osborne has shown a "remarkable" change of approach on public finances, a leading think tank said on Thursday, a day after Osborne scaled back his austerity plans for the end of the decade.
Paul Johnson, head of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, said the eye-catching fiscal number in a pre-election budget announced by Osborne on Wednesday was a big cut to the size of a budget surplus in the 2019/20 financial year.

"Of course surplus or deficit numbers this far in the future are of little interest in themselves – average forecast errors this far out run into the tens of billions of pounds," Johnson said at an IFS presentation.

"But the apparent change in economic philosophy in the three months since the Autumn Statement is pretty remarkable."

Osborne has made deficit reduction the central plank of his economic policy since he became Chancellor in 2010 and he is urging voters in May's national elections to stick with his plan to restore Britain to financial health.

In December, he said he was aiming for a budget surplus equivalent to 1 percent of gross domestic product in 2019/20.
To achieve that, public spending as a share of GDP would have to fall to its lowest level since the 1930s, Britain's independent budget forecaster said at the time, giving the opposition Labour Party ammunition to attack Osborne for the scale of his spending squeeze if he keeps his job after May.
Osborne announced on Wednesday that the planned 2019/20 surplus had been scaled back to 0.3 percent of GDP, a lower target which did not draw such awkward historical comparisons.
The IFS comments may add to the discomfort for Osborne after his latest tax and spending plans were described as having a "rollercoaster profile" on Wednesday by Britain's budget watchdog.
The Office for Budget Responsibility said the squeeze on real spending between 2016 and 2018 would be tougher than anything seen over the past five years. But that would be followed in 2019/20 by the biggest increase in real spending for a decade.
Osborne challenged the OBR's description of his plan.
"That is not actually the approach that we, as Conservatives, will take," he told BBC radio. "We want to take a more balanced approach and we would not put all the cuts in the government departments as the OBR forecast shows."
Osborne said spending cuts would be in line with those of recent years and he would make further savings in welfare spending and raise more tax receipts with a crackdown on tax evasion and avoidance.
Those plans were not factored into the OBR's calculations because they are not yet official policy.
The IFS' Johnson pressed Osborne to come up with details of his planned 12 billion-pound cuts from welfare spending which were first announced two years ago. "It is time we knew more about what they might actually involve," he said.
(Editing by Mike Peacock)

Jimmy b, a few posters here adopt the selective memory approach, Fred is a classic example.
2517

Manuel,

Which bin were you in?

8--)

Be careful what you wish for ........

Is the chicken going to debate with either?

What a moral coward Dodgy Dave is.

THE BUDGET
the following is an eminently sensible and balanced view from today's FT .....

For all the rhetoric over the easing of austerity, what is clear is that there remains a hole in the public finances and the next government will still have to impose bitter medicine on the public, whether it is deep spending cuts, higher taxes or the risks of more borrowing .........
........
For the public, the election offers a serious choice between Labour's willingness to borrow more to fund public services and the Tories' belief that departments can easily withstand more cuts. The gap is large, amounting to at least £32bn a year by the end of the decade. That is an important choice

============

however, if you aren't going to the polling booth, you don't have to make any choice, but merely have to put up with what is ladled out